Peter Millard - London Animation Club (June 2016)

I've been trying to get myself down to London Animation Club ever since I moved here, but unfortunately things kept getting in the way. However, one rainy day in June I finally managed to find the little Green Man pub with the cutest half pint glasses I ever did drink from. There were almost fifty people packed in to this little room, making it one of the busiest nights they've ever hosted. Peter Millard is a part time animator and part time employee at the National History Museum who draws and paints experimental animated short films of which are completely self funded. His surreal and bold primary coloured films have gone on to be screened all over the world at various film festivals and galleries which have included several retrospectives and workshops. He talked us through his previous works, starting from the very beginning at Newport University followed by a journey of film development, finally ending with a teaser of his latest project. This style of animation really took me back to my routes of art and design when I studied at school and college, it's such a free form of film making and it was really inspiring to hear about someone who was managing to do it for a living simply by renting a studio space and making stuff that he felt like. Despite being surrounded by constantly advancing technology and ways of making 2D animation on computers, Peter does all of his work completely traditionally and actually brought along a few frames of his film Fruit Fruit on pieces of paper to show us.

I'll definitely be attending another of these events in the near future as it was such an intimate way of learning about other people's work, and a really casual way of meeting professionals and other animation enthusiasts. There is also another club running in London designed more specifically to give feedback to animators working on projects, this is called Bring Your Own Animation and I will hopefully also get the chance to attend this very soon!