Decalogue is a series of monthly events and screenings celebrating the last decade in filmmaking, and examines the ways in which cinema has developed and matured since its inception. Throughout 2010, a series of monthly events have featured films selected by Watershed to represent a new century of filmmaking, and these screenings have been accompanied by discussions.

Derek Hayes gave the Decalogue 2008 talk, and is a BAFTA-winning director and animator who lectures in Digital Animation at University College Falmouth. After graduating from the first ever course in animation run by The National Film and Television School (where in 1977 he made the ambitious 20-minute long animated short, Max Beeza and the City in the Sky), Derek went on to make the animated short Albion, for the BBC’s Animated Conversations series.

He also worked on the animation for Julien Temple’s notorious Sex Pistols mockumentary, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, before launching ‘Animation City’, a company which made TV graphics, commercials, pop videos and short films. He has worked on a large number of commercials and has directed pop videos for Madonna, Rod Stewart, Barry White, Elton John, Tom Jones, and The Temptations.

He has since directed a number of feature-length animations, including The Miracle Maker (1999) which won an Epiphany Prize, and Best Children’s Film award from the Bradford Animation Festival. His 2002 feature, Otherworld/Y Mabinogi is a mixture of live action and animation, and is the first animated feature in the Welsh language.

This is the penultimate event in the Decalogue strand, and examines growth of animation in the last decade, the rise of Pixar, the increase of independently produced animation, and the way in which animation has changed in terms of feature films.

Posted on Sun 28 Nov 2010.

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