It was a pleasant surprise to hear that Lee Hardcastle would be our guest speaker for this week, and compared to the interview panel held in last year's BAF, he just seemed so much more comfortable this time round...
One of the few things that did stick out to me during this talk was the importance of having someone to help you with the sound design for your animation. While Lee Hardcastle does tend to work on his own for all of his animations, he still happens to have someone to help him out with sound and music. He was fortunate enough to meet with Tim Atkins many years back (Who apparently worked on "Fantastic Mr Fox"), who has since then done most of the sound design for his works. While I have managed to survive with royalty free sound effects so far, I know that in due time that I will need someone who specialises more in that area (Hence why I decided to give it a shot and contact one of the music students about his own projects... though I doubt he's going to be interested in what I have to offer).
Again, Lee Hardcastle remains a pretty inspirational role model for me, despite being "socially awkward as hell" since his college days, he continued doing what he loved despite the financial struggles he faced during the early stages, and just kept going at it (By entering various competitions and figuring out what the people truly like through posting on Youtube) until he gained the recognition he so deserved for his unique animations. And isn't that what truly matters the most in the end for us aspiring artists? We just need to keep doing what we love and always follow our hearts.
And look at him now, he has been commissioned to create some impressive works for 20th Century Fox, Square Enix, and Adult Swim:
Before the talk ended, Hardcastle did give us a hilarious but all the same helpful tip on working with others...
Which is definitely something I will have to do during our Applied Animation 2 module, where I finally team up with some of my classmates.
