Stoke Your Fires!...Or don't. To be honest I wouldn't bother...

Do they realise this poster makes no sense?

Stoke Your Fires was the name of a pretty poorly put together festival that took place in Stoke on Trent. From the very beginning the festival felt unprofessional and thrown together. To begin with, we were ushered into a tiny café where we were told to buy some food if we wanted to, and since it was early and people hadn't eaten, we did. However, just as our orders had been taken we were told that the speakers were ready now... The kitchen staff had to rush everyone's orders and people had to swallow their burgers and sandwiches whole as you couldn't eat during the presentations. Shambles.

However, there were some interesting highlights to this festival, even if the rest of it was a disaster. One good part about Stoke Your Fires were the animations that were shown as they were winning animations from people around the world. Two in particular stuck out to me, an animation called Birdboy about a male drug addict in an incredibly grim world, dealing with the after effects of a nuclear meltdown. I liked how grim the animation was, it was dark and depressing and matched the colour of my soul. No, I'm only kidding, but i did like how gritty the animation was, the way these characters were living after such a disaster was believable and interesting.

The other was an animation about life and death called On the Water, and followed a character and his family. It started with a child being born from the water and being given a boat which he had to sail. His father taught him how to sail in harsh seas and overtime the boy became stronger than his father who grew grey and started to slow down, eventually falling out of shot. The boy, now a man, finds a female sailor and they sail together for a while until they too have a child. The animation almost starts again as now it shows them raising their child and teaching him how to sail and then you realise what's going to happen, they are going to start slowing down. Sure enough the coupled start to turn grey, the son sails out of shot though and instead we see what happens to the parents. After failing to sail against the tide they eventually reach a waterfall and fall into the waves below. This was a great animation as it touched so many people. There were a few people behind me who had started to cry and everyone else was silent. The animation had a happy ending though as the couple who had fallen into the waves appeared again but this time as a newborn baby, thus repeating the animation, showing the circle of life.


Later on in the day (after various technical problems, an hour or so of waiting around doing nothing), we were given a talk by the special effects company Double Negative who have worked on films such as Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and the newly released film, Paul (which i saw twice :D). The speaker was passionate and enthusiastic unlike previous speakers who seemed like they couldn't care less about their companies or occupations. He explained how the special effects in Paul, particularly on Paul himself were done. Paul is an alien by the way, in case you were wondering. Anyway, he told us how much work went into the eyes if the character, being as big as they were, they were very shiny and had to catch every bit of light that he walked past or turned to. This apparently took months and went over budget several times but the guy explained that it was money well spent because the little things make the movie.  He went on to say that the audience might not notice these things, but he does, and if he didn't put his all into the product then he wouldn't feel like it was a job well done.


That was about all i found interesting on the Stoke Your Fires trip, i wouldn't recommend going unless you like festivals that are almost completely empty and feel like they have been thrown together at the last minute. Even though the occasional talk was interesting and there were a couple of good animations it doesn't even come close to competing with BAF which was much better. Apparently though the festival only started a couple of years ago and is still trying to get noticed which gives them a mild excuse to why the speakers weren't very impressive, but if they are trying to gain funding or support then they need to improve their product.A lot.