EURANIM: video mapping workshop in Kortrijk, Belgium

By Sonja Yrjölä and Inari Halme

We were really excited to go to Belgium for a week’s worth of video-mapping. Video-mapping is an exciting technique where one or more projectors are set to project on an object or building, preferably incorporating the projected surface in the animation in some way. I personally couldn’t wait to learn more about it. Kortrijk turned out to be a nice small Belgian city. The workshop was held at Howest University’s campus building The Level. Pairs of students from six different animation schools across Europe paricipated.

We had a lot of fun at the workshop although it wasn’t perfectly organized and there were some communication problems and technical difficulties at the beginning. Still, everyone managed to pull through and produce lovely work in time for the final showing at the end. One funny thing was that we found ourselves working on individual pieces rather than in groups, but we were still working in the same room and having fun together, so I guess it didn’t really matter in the end.

The best part of the workshop was easily the wonderful people we got to meet – we had a lot of fun spending time together with all the international participants. One of the daily highlights was winding down after dinner with intense table football team-tournaments, which felt well deserved after hours of animation. Sometimes we even played with national teams, and Finland actually managed to win a couple games!

On the last day we even had a bit of free time to explore the city itself and were excited to find narrow medieval passages and the first signs of spring here and there. All in all the trip was a success and we really enjoyed our stay in Belgium!