#when he went on this grand adventure Haunted Dolls were definitely out of the question

[the-golden-ghost]

Unbind me

QUICK SUM-UP

There’s wizards. The Cave Wizard went missing long ago under mysterious circumstances but is now rumored to still be alive.

Our unlikely heroes, Daisy, Cooper, and Bullrush are on a Quest to find him.

On the way they stumble into the territory of Sylvetta The Forest Wizard who doesn’t like having her territory stumbled into. Oh No.

Here is what they find there.

~

“It’s a hole?” Cooper shone the flashlight down the steps. They were wood; rotting, probably not safe to traverse. The interior was dark and impossible to make out, except for the dust and cobwebs that spoke of age and abandonment.

“Looks like a cellar,” Daisy said, peering over his shoulder. “Maybe an old wine cellar. This might be a good time to stock up on provisions.”

“There’s no house around,” Cooper pointed out. His brows furrowed in thought. “No house means it can’t be a wine cellar. What if it belongs to her?”

Daisy considered that. Stealing from one of the most powerful wizards in the whole area was probably what her old grandmother (rest her soul) would have called “going fly-fishing with a tackle bx of doggy treats” in other words, a neat concept but in practice a Very Stupid Idea.

“If it’s hers we’ll get out quick, okay?” she squeezed Cooper’s shoulder. He looked up at her and blinked nervously before nodding.

“You want I should go first?”

“Well, you’re the one with the flashlight. Lead on!”

“What about Bullrush?”

Daisy looked over at the horse. He was tied around the trunk of an old maple and wouldn’t be running away, and there probably weren’t going to be horse thieves out in the Dire Woods, but she still didn’t like to leave him. “He’ll be fine. We won’t be long. Just long enough to see what’s down there.”

They made their way down the steps. They were indeed rotten, groaning and soft. Daisy was worried they wouldn’t take her weight, but they held. Cooper, being lighter, had it easier. At the bottom he audibly gasped.

Daisy squinted in the dim light and her mouth fell open too, when she saw what was down there.

It was a single room, larger than Daisy would have expected for being underground, and in every corner, stacked on ancient tables, hanging from the ceiling, or just carelessly stuffed in boxes and thrown aside, were dolls.

“It’s her place,” Cooper whispered. “We have to get out.”

“Wait a second,” Daisy said. As uneasy as the place made her feel - something about it seemed alive, almost - she had to admit she was curious. As a craftswoman herself she couldn’t help but be impressed by Sylvetta’s handiwork. Most of the dolls were of carved wood, and they were intricate, personal.

They ranged in size from tiny things that could fit inside teacups to immense effigies larger than a human, all with unique features and forms. There were lovely fairy-like creatures with silk bodies and shiny black eyes, wooden puppets with broken limbs, hideous stone-carved goblins, an odd childlike figure holding a glass bowl that had no hair and, eerily, no mouth, and the body of a porcelain doll that had shattered, leaving only her intact body and fragments of her head and shoulder swept up on the table where she lay. These were only a few of the hundreds within, and Daisy studied them with interest.

“Let’s go,” Cooper said, and Daisy turned around.

“Yeah, you’re right. This is a little weird,” Daisy said. But as she was starting to head towards Cooper, they both heard a muffled squeak from the gloom.

“...A mouse.” Daisy said after a heartbeat of stillness. “That’s all.” But when the sound came again, it was very clearly not a mouse.

“Help me.”

A voice. High pitched and slightly cracked, but definitely a voice.

“It’s - it’s probably a trap,” Cooper said. “Let’s get out. It must be some guard or something the Forest Wizard put up to lure us in. When we go to find it, she’ll catch us!”

Daisy had to admit it was possible. But if this was some lost soul trapped in the doll pit, could they really just leave them there? “I’ll go and have a quick check. And if I see anything weird - weirder than usual - I’ll come right back, okay?”

Cooper shook his head no, but Daisy just smiled. “It’ll be fine. I’m bigger and tougher than a lot of old toys,” she sounded braver than she felt. Turning back to the doll room and heading through, she felt like she was being watched. And though she swore it was her imagination... the childlike doll with the glass bowl seemed to have turned its head, for it was now looking right at her.

But no. Surely it had always been turned that way. And surely the puppet that jerked its arm when she walked by - she must have bumped it by accident. “Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there?”

“Help.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m back. In here. In the back.”

Great. Right where Daisy didn’t want to go. “Okay,” she said. “I’m coming. Are you a villager, or one of the forest dwellers?”

The voice said something in reply, a word Daisy couldn’t make out as she picked her way through the shadowy clusters of dolls that were definitely - definitely - moving. Just a little.

“Under him.”

Daisy stopped. “Who?”

“Him.”

She was at the back wall. To her left was a sight of sheer horror - a hulking figure ten feet tall. It was draped robes of some kind of dirty white cloth, and had a misshapen body and a balding head resting on a shelf. The face was turned towards Daisy - horrible, vacant eyes and a leering grin full of broken wooden teeth. “Him?”

“I’m under his robe. His name is Lurch. He can’t hurt you.”

Indeed, Lurch was ominously still. But there was something about his face that seemed... aware, and present.

“Just push his robe aside. I am in the cabinet.”

Daisy reached out, daunted, and touched the wooden figure. He didn’t move, but she saw that his eyes had followed her. Shuddering, she pushed back the fabric he was wearing and found behind him an open cupboard. Inside was what Daisy had been starting to suspect - another doll, not unlike the others in the room. Daisy’s mouth went dry. “You’re alive, aren’t you. You can talk.”

The little figure blinked, and struggled to focus on Daisy. One eye was brown, the other green, and it looked for the most part like a little wooden doll, like the kind Daisy had when she was a child. It was wearing a dusty green dress and had curly hair and a round, cherubic face. Unlike most of the others in the room, it had no serious damage, just a crack under one eye. “I can talk.”

“But you can’t move.”

“I can. My arms - “

Daisy saw that it was tied like a marionette, immobile in the cabinet. “Do you work for Sylvetta? You’re one of her creatures, aren’t you?”

“I’m hers. But I do not work for her now. She put me in here to wind down.”

“Why should I take you out of the cabinet if you belong to someone who’s so dangerous to us?”

“I am not dangerous. Look at me. I have been in here for so long and no one ever comes down. You would be my last hope to see the outside before I am wound down for good. I do not have long. You won’t be stuck with me.”

“You just... want to go outside?”

“I want to go outside.”

Daisy looked around, but there was no one to ask for help. This little creature was so small, barely more than a foot high. Daisy couldn’t imagine it would be of any real harm. So, with some misgivings, she took her knife and cut the strings holding it in the cupboard.

It collapsed at once like a wooden doll would, but when it actually got up and stood on two feet, Daisy was admittedly weirded out. “You - do you have a name?”

“Ivy,” it murmured, holding out a hand. Carved on the wrist were two letters; IV.

“Well, we almost match, then. I’m Daisy. Uh, good to meet you, I guess.”

Ivy didn’t reply. Instead she turned her eyes upward. “I would like to say goodbye to Lurch. In this place, he was my only friend and companion. And he is far gone. He does not have much longer.”

“What do I do?”

“Lift me up.”

Daisy knew she wouldn’t be able to reach all the way to the shelf where Lurch’s head was. But she figured she could do her best. Gingerly, she grasped Ivy by the waist and held her over her head, not really sure what else she should be doing. This whole situation was far too weird.

“Lurch? My friend?” Ivy said. “I am going away at last. I will miss you!” Daisy looked towards the face of the behemoth. He still had his same fixed grin, but his eyes still had life in them, and sorrow. “Thank you for your companionship.” There was a paused. Daisy waited to see if Lurch would speak, but he did not. “Okay,” Ivy said. “You can set me down.”

Daisy couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. Several of the dolls had moved during the event, and now she was starting to hear whispers and groans coming from them. Cooper had completely abandoned ship and was now outside. Daisy made a rush, with Ivy tottering along near her heels, apparently unused to walking.

When they got outside, Cooper came to greet Daisy in a hurry, but before he could get to her he froze and stared down at Ivy climbing out from the dark space.

“What is that?”

[dontbreakstride]

An Adventure at Annecy

Tumblr extended edition

A few years ago, I had discovered the existence of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2015 when some of my online friends had attended it. When they shared their experience on Facebook, I knew I had to go some day.

In finishing the second year of my animation course, I felt this would be the best time for me to visit, so I planned my journey, got advice on what to see and how to get around and made my way.

Annecy is a really nice city. The main building that the Festival was hosted at Théâtre Bonlieu is just across the road from the huge open air screening, the lake and a view across to the mountain range. I was stunned by how the mountains loomed in the distance everywhere I went and everyone just went about their business. Since Norwich doesn’t have a mountain range, I was just in awe of them everywhere I went. There are also a lot of colourful buildings with grand architecture, large comfy cinema theatres and startlingly blue water.

Having never been before, and being unaware of Annecy Festival traditions, I was surprised by the amount of paper planes being thrown while the cinemas filled up. It was a completely different experience to going to the cinema any other day, and was a hard time adjusting to when I returned to England and no one was throwing paper planes and the like.

The experience at Annecy was very informative, and helped develop my ideas on my practice, which is extremely useful as I enter into third year.

WHAT I LEARNT

NEW CREATIVE CONTEXTS: A shared talk with Jean-Baptiste Spieser of Teamto and Tom Box of Blue-Zoo about current and upcoming things in the industry. The Teamto talk was about the production pipeline and how it can change radically depending on productions. The Blue Zoo talk was also quite interesting as it explained how they built and overhauled their render farm, as well as how they collaborate creatively within their studio.

The Art of Visual Storytelling with WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS: The two speakers were Nathan Engelhardt, an animation supervisor, and story artist Lissa Treiman (who had, coincidentally, illustrated the first few issues that got me hooked to the comic GIANT DAYS). This was a massively helpful talk, very much worth the wait. The two speakers talked about how to make good shots great, through the positioning of cameras to the two cores of 'greatness' in animation – truth and entertainment.

Triggerfish's MAKING REVOLTING RHYMES: Mike Buckland and Sarah Scrimgeour of Triggerfish discussed the creative process of collaborating on the production of the short film Revolting Rhymes, including compositing and rendering.

The Art and Science of RENDERMAN: Dylan Sisson of Pixar held a talk showing the developments and potential for their Renderman renderer. It opened my eyes to the scope of things that Renderman takes into consideration, such as a recent shot in a Pixar film that had over ten thousand individually rendered lights.

VIRTUAL REALITY is the future: Google Spotlight Stories had a VR station set up with new videos daily. I managed to catch the session on Thursday which presented a preview of SON OF JAGUAR (dir. Jorge Gutierrez) and ARDEN'S WAKE: PROLOGUE (dir. Eugene Chung, Jimmy Maidens). I had never understood the true potential of VR in animation until after watching these, so much so that after I'd watched them I wandered around Annecy in a daze. Arden's Wake was especially mind blowing, as you could actually walk into the setting and see it from all angles. This has made me want to experiment with VR in my own practice.

WHAT I WATCHED

THE PEANUTS MOVIE outdoor screening: Having seen this movie before in English, I was surprised at how easy to understand it was in French. The broad animation style of the movie definitely helped.

A SILENT VOICE: A rather touching story about communication, repentance and forgiveness. Quite interestingly featured sign language in animation, which to me feels like a perfect match of two things, visual language and visual storytelling.

DESPICABLE ME 3: This is the first world premiere I have ever been to, and the atmosphere was wonderful. This was without a doubt one of the most active audiences I have ever been in. Whenever a joke hit, there would be a wave of laughter and applause, when one of the characters did something cute, there was a collective 'awww', even the applause at the end of the film ended up slipping into the same beat as the music of the credits. It was wonderful.

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS: I never read that many Captain Underpants books when I was younger, so I was pleasantly surprised with how funny this was. Much like The Peanuts Movie, it managed to capture the style of its source really well, whilst still giving it their own flair.

ZOMBILLENIUM: An adaptation of a French graphic novel. Before the film began, the crew were on stage and threw production caps into the audience. The film was very stylish, with bold colours and shapes for the characters and making the CG look 2D.

SHORTS: I caught several showings of graduation shorts and shorts in competition. I was amazed by the diversity of shorts on display, showing the talents from animators of all walk-cycles of life. Shorts that stood out to me were the following:

Wednesday with Goddard (dir. Nicolas Menard, Canadian/UK) – a humorous and existential journey as a man tries to find answers to whether or not God exists.

When Time Moves Faster (dir. Anna Vasof, Austria) – stop motion using objects like plates and curtains to animate sequences, showing each frame being set up in real time, then speeding up the footage to bring the sequence to life.

Double King (dir. Felix Colgrave, Australia) – there is something in seeing this on a big screen that makes it all that more fun.

Nachthexen (dir. Julie Herdichek Baltzer, Denmark) – documentary short about the Nachthexen of WW2, animated in the style of Soviet posters

The Burden (dir. Niki Lindroth Von Bahr, Sweden) – a musical stop motion based around anthropomorphic animals who are stuck in an anxious and existential space in their lives. Won this year's Cristal for a Short Film award

Aenigma (dir. Antonios Doussias and Aris Fatouros, Greek) – a surreal trip through a painter's landscape mind-bendingly presented in 3D

Tuhi rumm (dir. Ulo Pikkov, Estonia) – stop motion of a doll in a doll house-like setting, has a mix of a nostalgic and haunting feeling

Casino (dir. Steven Woloshen, Canada) – a musical, energetic drawn-on-film animation capturing the frenetic energy of a casino

After All – Michael Cusack (Australia) – a very poignant stop motion film about a man going through his recently-deceased mother's belongings and reliving memories he had, very heart-rendering but with the occasional splash of humour

TIPS FROM MY EXPERIENCE

Take care of yourself: In the height of summer in the south-east of France, Annecy is hot. But when you are standing, walking, waiting and surrounded by other people who are also hot, the heat becomes unbearable (so much so that my watch had condensation on it at several points). Drink lots of water, try to keep in the shade when waiting outside, remember to eat.

Learn key phrases in France: This is something I'm going to try and pick up should I go again. I used to know quite a bit of French, but having forgot most of it, struggled at points of my visit. A lot of the hosts are bilingual should you have any questions, but knowing the sound of general phrases and what they mean is helpful in a pinch.

Beat the crowd: The Festival's 'first come first seated' events will fill up fast, and the queues for the screening events might result in you not getting in if you don't book a place during ticketing. The 'first come first serve' events that I missed were with popular big names, such as a talk with Guillermo del Toro and another with the creators of The Amazing World of Gumball and Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, which I am still kicking myself over, so be sure to arrive early for those.

Patience is a virtue: The queueing process at Annecy is quite arduous, but the wait is always worth it. I got into the talk with Walt Disney Animation Studios by waiting two hours earlier. It pays off very much.

Be tactical: Annecy is a big festival in a big city. Events conflict and travel times might be longer than you expect if you are travelling by foot or if you need to retrace your steps. When it comes down to seeing a mainstream film or a studio focus talk, choose which one would be a more informative experience. This links in well with taking care of yourself too. If you haven't eaten or drank anything for a while and you are thinking of joining a queue for something that needs you to wait for an hour and a half in the sun, it's better to take care of yourself first and foremost.

If you can, go in a group: Not only will this be a 'strength in numbers' type deal, where you can book into the same events and wait together in the queue and tap out should you need to get food, but this experience is one to share if you are enthusiastic about animation and the like.

Don't be afraid to try: I hate plane travel. I knew very limited French. I have the worst sense of direction in the world at times. But I went to Annecy regardless of these things and actually had a brilliant time.