Day 1- We all went down to Gloriés together on the first day, and saw the opening titles/show reel by Lorum Ipsum, who are a group of 10 multi nationality artists and designers.
First off, they showed us the teaser trailer they had made of the OFFF festival- https://vimeo.com/84451337. This is a great little video, and reminds me of the brief we had for our own video project, being that all the clips are very short, most less than a second long. It was styled on retro american tv commercials from the 50's and 60's, and is coloured in pastel shades, which in contrast, is quite a modern style.
They then went on show the actual show reel they had made.
The video is supposed to portray love and relationships in a round about way, and i think works very well. Its very arty and contemporarily styled. There are some good ideas on angles to shoot from, and content for the shots themselves, e.g. filming a person in the mirror instead of the person themselves. Most of the shots are metaphors for what a person id feeling or thinking during various stages of a relationship.
https://vimeo.com/95364777
They certainly were an interesting bunch, and had obviously planned and choreographed, and rehearsed their presentation to the nth degree. After the video, they went through the process of making the films over the year, which was very interesting, they obviously had a lot of fun, and all get on very well. It made me think how i would like to work in a team like that on a project one day.
At 14:45 we watched a small bunch of Germans called Polynoid. They were film makers based in Berlin. They certainly are very 'out there' when it comes to their video making, e.g. its outstanding! No idea how they do the effects they do, but then i've never dabbled with such technology. This was one of the first clips they showed us, a ad for Lonovo- https://vimeo.com/50522392. Once the clip is finished, i was wondering what the point of the carbon fibre was, as when it starts showing the laptop, it doesn't appear to be made from carbon, but its almost irrelevant, as its a very cool effect.
The last film they showed us, was another that really made me sit up. They said it was for Greenpeace, then let us watch it........https://vimeo.com/93239025. Obviously at first, you think it may be real, but then i realised it is a bit far fetched, and doesn't really fit with Greenpeace's ethos. But then it finishes with the phrase, 'should we create a new world, or save our own', which is a poignant thought. Again, insanely clever, the robotic bees look completely real, which for a small team, seems pretty impressive, especially when you look at a film like Transformers (Michael Bay), which obviously had a massive team, and massive computing power. Again obviously, Transformers is hugely complicated and long, but i'm still very impressed with what the Polynoid boys do.
At 16:45 we saw Seb Lester, who was the first person i really wanted to see, as he is a typographer. And he did not disappoint. His presentation was flawless, and everyone was riveted from start to finish. he started out with a little bio on himself, then went on to what fonts he has designed over the years, which is comprehensive, and includes Waitrose. He spent most of the talk, telling about how he has got into calligraphy, which is super impressive.
I'm not going to waffle on about it, but i'm super inspired, as i got into calligraphy when i was a kid, but never stuck to it, and now i'm gagging to get back into it, and have already ordered a basic tutorial book.
Day 2- Friday was a bit of a mess. The first thing i saw, i couldn't even figure out what they were talking about, so wasn't really listening, and hence i can't remember anything about it! A few of us had decided to see a guy called Alex Mathers, who is an english Graphic designer, who uses Illustrator alot, so we were all interested to see what he had to say. At first i was quite impressed, some of the paintings and airbrushing he done when he was at college, was outstanding. Then he showed a few of his more recent work-
It's very cool, modern, simple and clean and good, and he obviously is a desirable graphic designer, but after that, he just went into this mono tone presentation. His slides were terrible, just text on a page, and he just waffled. Then people started walking out. Then i realised there was a constant flow of people walking out, and i felt a bit bad for him, but a few minutes later, i'd had enough myself.
After this, i wasn't in the mood, so went back to the hotel.
Day 3- I wanted to go exploring up the Barcelona hills Saturday morning, so didn't go to OFFF till 2pm. 2:45 was Erik Spiekerman, one of the most well known typographers in the world, and certainly my most anticipated speaker.
If i'm completely honest though, his presentation wasn't amazing, but his sheer presence was enough, he was very funny, swearing alot! And he done an animation on all the fonts he had designed and been commissioned for, which was very extensive. He then went on to tell us about his company, the people who work there etc. He also went through all the stupid questions he gets regularly asked, which was very amusing!
Overall, it was a good festival. Outside of the rooms, there was stalls selling all sorts of cool graphics based stuff, which i spent a fair bit of time perusing.
If i go again next year, i'm going to spend more time at the festival now i have done a bit of sightseeing in the city.
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