NHS worker scoops three awards at local festival for stop motion film

Video animator and graphic designer Matt Hubble took part in the Wolverhampton Film Festival and came out on top in the Best Student Filmmaker, Best Animated Film and Best Film Overall categories.

Matt has been working in his current role within Clinical Illustration at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust since December.

His job entails helping the design team to produce various posters, documents and animations for the Trust.

Matt submitted his stop motion film ‘Mid-Light Crisis’ which is about a lightbulb that gets tired of its daily routine and loses its spark.

Stop-motion is a style of animation that involves taking a picture of an object, moving it slightly, taking a picture again and repeating this process several times.

The 23-year-old said: "It was the first Wolverhampton Film Festival that’s ever been run, and I wanted to enter this film as I made the majority of it at home in Wednesfield during the first lockdown.

"I started in January 2020 and finished it in May 2020.

"I created this for my final project as part of my undergraduate degree, so I had to balance it with some other university projects which meant that it took a little longer to create than it usually would, and lockdown definitely delayed production a little bit as well.

Wolverhampton Film Festival aims to champion other storytellers through the form of film and took place over three days within the Light House Media Centre.

Matt added: "There were three days of film screenings and then the awards ceremony took place on the evening of the final day.

"It was the first time I’ve ever seen a full audience react to my film, so it was amazing to hear live audience reactions for the first time.

"When I was a child, my family took me to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester and they happened to be holding a workshop on stop-motion animation on that day we visited.

"Ever since that day, I’ve been completely fascinated by stop-motion and it wasn’t long after that workshop until I started making stop-motion films at home with Lego just for fun.

"Winning three awards including Best Film Overall was an absolutely amazing moment. I’ve always been someone who doubts myself and my abilities, so winning these awards has given me a little bit of a confidence boost that I think I needed."

To watch Matt’s film people can visit youtube.com/watch?v=Gsh7LJQtXKw