The Entertainment Issue

Alt.Cardiff

If it’s offbeat and in Cardiff, then it’s in here

saving the world with animation

Board games cafes provide relief in cost-of-living crisis

Board game cafes in Cardiff are providing a space for people to save money on rising game prices. The cost-of-living crisis has meant an increase in the price of many essential goods, such as electricity and food.

About 45% of Welsh households never have enough money for anything other than the basics, according to the Bevan Foundation, an organisation tackling poverty in Wales. These financial struggles mean the entertainment industry has had to take a back seat in the budget for many.

Charlotte Smith, 54, has been playing board games for around 30 years, and has felt the impact of prices rising.

“When I first started playing, I didn’t notice the price of games as much as I do now,” said the retired museum professional. “New games are prohibitively expensive. I tend not to buy them much

anymore only because of the price.” Smith and her family have found alternatives to buying new games, such as buying second-hand on sites like eBay.

“For some games, they offer PDF versions for a low price that you can print and stick onto cardboard,” she said.

She added that she does not buy games unless she has played with friends to ensure she likes them. “We will be going to more board game cafes in the new few years. It means we don’t spend so much money, and the social aspect of gaming is there even more.”

Rhys Chamberlain, director of Chance and Counters Cardiff, said the combination of the pandemic limiting social interaction and rocketing prices has contributed to the popularity of board game cafes. “People are more sensible with their money and when looking for entertainment or hospitality, they are looking for experiences better than going to the pub,” he said.

“Once people realised that board games had moved on from Monopoly, they got hooked.”

Sport-inspired art Kinky competition

New art installations in Cardiff have expressed solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community during the World Cup. Human rights concerns have prompted art such as Lightbox, a rainbow heart artwork, which Penarth mixed media artist Phil Morgan created as an icon of respect for the queer community.

Bob Gelsthorpe, head of communications at Chapter Arts Centre, said Morgan’s art explores the nuance of the Welsh experience. “We have been supporting the success of the men’s football team and have used that as a platform for refugee and LGBTQIA+ voices,” said the 31-year-old. He added: “We want to use the platform in a positive way and to provide a safe space for people to explore Welsh culture and creativity.” Lee Smith, 49, is a fanatic of street art and writes about and photographs street art in Wales on his website. He said the street art from the World Cup this year has evoked a strong sense of identities.

Theword ballroom probably conjures up the image of starched shirts, but the Kinky Kiki Ball at Clwb Ifor Bach on 28 October aims to remove those preconceptions.The event is the Welsh Ballroom Community’s first venture into kink culture, aiming to champion the ballroom scene in Wales.The night will involve the community showing off their best moves in a performance of empowerment.

Leighton Rees, founder of the Welsh Ballroom Community, created the group in 2020. “I got into ballroom and vogueing when I saw the scene in London,” he said. “It really spoke to me as an art form,” said the 35-year-old. The dancer wanted to bring the community to Cardiff, as he could not see it represented here. Rees added: “Ballroom is so needed. Not only as an art form, but as a coping mechanism for so many people in the queer community who have been rejected by their families.”

Image credit: Robyn Quick

A leap of faith

As the staff at board game café Chance & Counters prepare for another busy day before they open, manager Rhys Chamberlain organises the collection of over 650 games with a smile. To a casual observer, it seems this is the job Rhys was born for, but it was a long journey to find his way to the world of board games.

Starting from square one

Board games were the last thing on Rhys’ mind when he began a theatre technology degree at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). “It was a strange environment – the actors were weirder than we were,” he reflected. After finding theatre work in pantos, doing a small tour with a company in Bury St Edmunds and working at University of Cambridge, he decided to leave the industry entirely.

The 29-year-old said: “It was such a ruthless industry. So many amazing people go on to achieve nothing and so many mediocre people go on to achieve greatness or, at least, financial stability.” Originally from York, Rhys moved around in pursuit of work, but he struggled to find anywhere that was fulfilling. One day after a bad shift at a bar in Birmingham, he saw a Facebook ad for the role of manager at the local branch of board game cafe Chance & Counters and leapt at the opportunity.

The door opens...

Here, Rhys discovered a love of board games and the community that they created. He said: “Like everyone, I played them at Christmas when I was a kid and with my grandparents. Then when I was at university, I started to play board games more with my housemates. “I’m a bit of a nerd all round so I thought it would be my thing!” He explained that since working at the Birmingham site, he became hooked on the activity.

While living with his best friend and their fiancé during lockdown, Rhys found enjoyment in longer form board games to distract from the chaos outside. “We bought long games such as Pandemic where you get a month’s play out of each series. They gave us something to communally sit down

and do as a group,” he said. In April 2021, the Cardiff site for Chance & Counters found itself in financial trouble because of lockdown. Rhys bought half of the property and moved to the city.

The future of board games

Since finding a life and community in board games, Rhys has not looked back. He said that re-opening after the pandemic has been a challenge, but he is happy with his decision. “The world of board games has been my first work environment to feel like home,” he said. “We have been doing really well, it’s been getting busier and busier. Now we’re just trying to settle down and run more events for the run up to Christmas,” he smiled. He added that unlike pubs and bars, winter is the peak season for board game cafes.

He said that board games are “very much a winter sport”, unlike bars and restaurants that focus more on the summer months for their events and income. Rhys added that customers are increasingly looking to save money, and Chance & Counters offers the opportunity for people to try games out instead of buying them in the increasingly expensive game market.

“The board gaming market is ever expanding and reaching out to a wider audience than ever before. There really is something for everyone.”

“The world of board games has been my first work environment to feel like home

RhysChamberlainhoppedfromjobtojobbeforelandingthejackpotatCardiff’s

Image credit: Robyn Quick

The next generation

How Wales’ young animators could lead the way for workplaces to confront the climate crisis

of animation:

Laura

Tofarides wanted to work in the animation industry since she was first given a clunky camcorder as a child.

“I figured out that if you take a picture of something and then move it a little bit, it comes to life. I just thought stop-motion animation was magic,” said the freelance stop-motion animator. Now Laura is a full-time working professional in the animation industry, she has more to consider than the technical and creative aspect of the job. She must also think about how each of her productions affects the planet.

In Cardiff, the film and TV industry is becoming increasingly popular, and South Wales is home to the third largest media sector in the UK.

Senedd Cymru aims to reach net zero by 2050, meaning they want to cancel out the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity. As COP27 throughout November this year did not provide clear guidance for the film or animation industries specifically to reduce their carbon footprint, answers for the next generation filmmakers on how to be climate conscious and creative are more sought after than ever.

What needs to change

Cardiff Animation Festival, a biennial celebration of animation, has a dedicated following locally and internationally. Throughout the pandemic, organisers of the festival researched how the animation industry in Wales could reduce the amount of carbon emissions in their workplaces. They published a report which identifies the challenges that the animation industry will face in the future. From this, they predicted that working from home and cloud-storage was much more energy efficient.

Cloth Cat Animation, a 2D animation studio based in Cardiff, is one of the companies included in the report. on Rennie, company director, said: “I was drawn to Welsh animation partly because I grew up here, but also because we have a proud

history of animation.

“We are a creative country with a small but active animation community.” Rennie said the path towards being a carbon neutral workplace became a lot clearer from the report’s findings.

The studio moved to working-from-home during the pandemic and have stuck to this post-lockdown, as it is projected to reduce their carbon emissions by 19%. Rennie first started working in the animation industry during the early 2000s. He began at Dinamo Productions, a Welsh animation studio founded in 2004 that specialised in 2D and 3D animated children’s shows. He said animation has some different issues to tackle compared to live-action production. “With stop-motion animation, for example, the sets may be smaller but you still need to have lights on constantly. “As we work in 2D animation, we are always using computers which wastes a lot of energy.” From working in the industry for so long, he has seen how far Welsh animation has come, and how it needs to change in terms of sustainability. He commented: “Wales has the ability to lead because it has the capacity to produce energy,” referencing tidal and wind energy as possible solutions. “We have all the technical knowledge – all we need to do is get on with it.” But not all of the decisions are in the hands of the workers in the animation industry.

Out of our control

“We are not in control of the infrastructure around the industry,” said Rennie. For example, if an animation company is only renting their offices, they have no say on the energy provider.

“We are reliant on what they decide.” Ffilm Cyrmu launched the Green Cymru Challenge Fund in July 2021 to help companies overcome this barrier. Chris Hill, Ffilm Cyrmu’s green manager, said although the programme is in its early stages, there has been a positive reception from the film community. He said: “People would

Cardiff’sanimationindustryislargerthaneverbefore,but whatisbeingdonetoimprovethesector’ssustainability?

be shocked how carbon intensive the process of making a film is.”

“The audience only sees the end result. The negative environmental impact is bigger than people think.” He cited transport, energy, materials and even catering as parts of film production to consider.

The next generation

The future looks hopeful, said Hill, but everyone needs to acknowledge the changes the film industry must make. “People in the film industry need to know the simple changes they can make and how much of a difference they can make in the workplace,” said the 28-year-old.

Laura Tofarides said she has already seen colleagues incorporating climate conscious actions into their work. The 30-year-old said: “One of my co-workers used real food for a shoot instead of making models.” This saved having to throw away plastic and metal from the models, as the real food was eaten or used in food waste. “I try my best to recycle materials. You can scrape clay off models to re-use but the plastic and metal beneath the surface cannot be recycled,” she said. “It is small changes like this that mean we can make a difference.” She may not have envisaged re-using and saving material from her models when she received her first camcorder, but Laura’s passion for the future of the animation industry and the planet continue to fuel her work. It is creators like Laura who will lead the next generation of animation and ensure that productions are as sustainable as possible.

Wales’ animation history

1959 - Ivor the Engine is released, a children’s programme chronicling the adventures of the magical train Ivor in Northern Wales.

1987 - The well-known kid’s show Fireman Sam is created and broadcast.

Early

1990s - Welsh language channel S4C is instrumental in producing popular children’s TV programmes, with the show Superted pioneering content.

The indies

- Independent Welsh animators make a name for the country outside of children’s content, such as with Joanna Quinn’s 1986 release Girls Night Out.

2018 - Cloth Cat Animation, the biggest animation production studio in Wales, releases their most-viewed show Luo Bao Bei.

2022 - Affairs of the Art, a short film created with talent from the University of South Wales, is shortlisted for the Best Animated Short Film category at the 2022 Academy awards.

Pictured above: Laura specialises in stop-motion animation, and has dedicated her career to film-making.

Image credit: Laura Tofarides.

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