And here's the second installment of wise words from last year's winning filmmakers. David Gilbert is an animation student at University of the West of England, and it might be good to know that the seeds of his audience-picked film grew out of an all-night doodling session with friends...
Notes from DepicT! '07 Audience Award winner David Gilbert:
I had a magnificent time at Encounters 2007. It was my first ever film festival (due to my relative young age and hermit-like existence) but it was an experience I will never forget. It was a pleasure to be up against competition of such quality, and to come away with the audience award has made the last year cooped up in a dark room all the more worthwhile.
I like to approach filmmaking with just a few basic sketches and a loose idea in my brain. Improvisation is a wonderful thing and I like to use this technique as much as possible when making a film. It is easy to get bored and complacent when sticking to a rigid storyboard and as such I enjoy not really knowing what may leap out at me at any given corner. Usually these corners contain a few small animals and some rather unpleasant birds. I try not to get too excited about my work; excitement and happiness lead to complacency. Being constantly unsatisfied will push you to do radical things you never thought were possible.
My next film contains a couple of birds and a somewhat overweight man with deep-seated psychological issues, it is called Battery and should be completed in the next two months, or else I will fail university.
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