FLIP, is an animation festival primarily hosted by the Light House Media Centre in Wolverhampton, UK. It is one of two festivals hosted by Light House, the other of which is Deaffest. Official literature for the festival says that FLIP occurs annually at the beginning of November and attracts submissions from more than 30 countries world wide. As well as screening the selected open submissions, FLIP also consists of special screenings, talks from professionals within the animation world, workshops, industry panels, portfolio reviews and competitions.
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Based in Wolverhampton, the festival began in 2004 [1] and features a range of events from educational workshops for young people to experimental animation for grown ups; from industry led panels to feature film screenings and from international showcases and retrospectives of short films to spotlights on animation studios. FLIP is organised and hosted by Light House Media Centre in partnership with the University of Wolverhampton‘s School of Art and Design and School of Computing & IT, Wolverhampton Art Gallery. It is part funded by UK Film Council (National Lottery) through Screen West Midlands; Wolverhampton City Council; University of Wolverhampton; Business Link West Midlands and Animation Forum West Midlands.[2]
The exhibitions curated for FLIP tend to communicate the animation message through different media/outlets. They have a continuing partnership with Wolverhampton Art Gallery who programme specific works on site as part of the Festival. FLIP 2007 saw an exhibition of original puppets used in films such as The Corpse Bride, Mars Attacks! and Andy Pandy, and the puppet designer Nick Roberson answered questions from the audience. During FLIP 2008, the Light House building was home to large, moving, kinetic sculptures, by London based artist Steve Hutton. As well as this, there was a screening of animated Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s followed by a talk on Doctor Who animation led by industry experts. 2009 saw a studio spotlight on the Glasgow-based Axis Animation who showcased some of their work and then answered questions from the audience. The other studio spotlight that year was from ArthurCox studios who also presented some of their work and then held a discussion with the audience. 2010's festival hosted a presentation from the creators of the LittleBigPlanet games, Media Molecule, as well as a display from Light House Media Centre's own animator is residence, Drew Roper, including his set for his award winning film 'A History of Denim'.
FLIP offers visitors a chance to engage in ‘Big Screen Gaming’ in the smaller of the two cinemas. In 2009 Flip held a competition for participants to experience the Xbox 360 and one of its core games, Halo 3. This has then led to it becoming a regular feature at Light House with games such as the Fifa World Cup 2010 game and a Street Fighter game. ‘Big Screen Gaming’ returned for FLIP 2010 with one of the year's most hotly anticipated releases, Halo: Reach.
Another feature of FLIP Festival is the curated programme hosted by a guest curator from within the animation world. Previous years have been curated by Professor Paul Wells (Director of Animation, Loughborough University) and The Brothers McLeod [3] whereas 2010 was curated by Clare Kitson, who is a former programmer at the National Film Theatre and between 1989 and 1999, commissioned Channel 4’s animation.[4]
The festival is a competition between animated films created using various techniques (stop motion, animated drawings, cut out paper, modelling clay, etc) classified in to various award categories. These have included the following:
FLIP also runs competitions for student films, created by current university/college students and, starting in 2010, for animators under the age of 18 years old as well.[5]
FLIP Festival 2010 took place on the 4-6 November, 2010.
The award winners of 2010's festival were:
2009’s FLIP Festival took place on the 5-7 November.[7]
The award winners for 2009’s Festival were:
2008’s FLIP Festival took place on the 6-8 November.
The award winners for 2008’s Festival were:
2007’s FLIP Festival took place on the 1-3 November.
The award winners for 2007’s Festival were:
FLIP Festival also does several small screenings throughout the year of either just the award winners or all the selected submissions. The ‘Best of FLIP’ is usually shown at various venues throughout the West Midlands. For the 2010 season, FLIP had 'best of' screenings at both the Stoke Film Theatre and the Wem Town Hall and there was also a special screening at Artsfest ’10 in Birmingham, UK.