Our next creative to visit the college was a familiar face. Lee Hardcastle, well-known creator of all things gory and silly, did a hilarious talk with us on how he managed to get to where he is now and what processes and steps he had to take in order to make stop-motion his living. We first met Lee last year at Bradford Animation Festival, although this time he was a little bit more "himself" as he didn't have the pressure of having to be too formal for an event.
You could tell that he thoroughly enjoyed what he did and I guess that's one of the most important things to doing a tedious, hard-working job. If you don't enjoy it, it's not really worth doing for the rest of your life. His love for stop-motion definitely shone through in his personality!
Lee had started out as a youngster in his bedroom messing around with a few G.I Joe-type figures when he discovered his love for stop-motion animation. He reminded me a little bit of myself when I was younger, playing with various Pokemon toys and a camera, making short animations from them.
He gave us all an encouraging pep talk on how it's "okay to sign on to the dole" in times of need. Despite many disapproving opinions on this, it was nice that he was so humble. He didn't pretend to be somebody he wasn't. All animators come from somewhere and he definitely stuck to his roots.
My favourite animation of Lee's would have to be T is For Toilet (yes, I'm sure it's a favourite to many others too) due to it's sick sense of humour, plenty of gore, horror, and sheer daftness! He really thinks about impact in this and how he will captivate his audience (either through shock factor or humour - how can anyone not laugh at his work though?). He took a very common issue that most parents will have to deal with, and made light of it.
By popping his videos up on YouTube, he was able to rake in a fair amount of money by allowing advertisements to be shown on his uploads. I think he said that every 20,000 views he hit on YouTube, he would earn £20 - don't quote me on that, it may have drastically changed due to the apparent change in algorithms as Lee mentioned.
Lee also started out in film studies which just goes to show that ten years down the line you may end up somewhere you'd never imagine and you can't be too picky and choosy about who you work for. So long as you enjoy it, then all is well.
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