The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling: Industry event

As part of our graduation show at Newport we had an industry event comprising of talks, an exhibition tour, a screening of the best 2011 films and a drinks reception. A fair few local industry folk turned up and it was a really nice way to round off the year.

Drinks reception in the new city campus at Newport

We had an award ceremony as part of the events and The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling won the 'Best Film' award which was really great. The awards given out were framed drawings made by my good friend Luiz Stockler who graduated last year with his brilliant film Vovô. You can see more of his work on his blog here.

The award-winners with their awards

From left to right: Alex Hancocks and Luke George (John and Betty best sound), Stephen Craner (David best technical achievement), Eva Wagner (Sun and Moon best Animation), Tharun Joseph (Blocked best art design), Luiz Stockler (Newport alumnus and creator of the awards), Caroline Parsons (course leader), Helen Dallat and Daisy Gould (Bare best story), Joseph Wallace and Emma-Rose Dade (The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling best Film). Photo: Media Academy Wales

A close-up of our lovely award

Afraid of Falling composer Kit Wilson came over for the event which was nice as it meant various members of the crew who's worked remotely on the same project got to meet and watch the film together. At the same time Newport was also hosting a module of a new multi-platform training course called the Transform@Lab which is supported by MEDIA who also fund Animation Sans Frontières, the European professional training programme I attended part in last year. Transform@Lab is also run with two of the same schools from ASF; Gobelins and MOME, so József Fülöp, head of Animation at MOME, who I know through ASF came to watch the film with other members of international staff.