Phil Mulloy at the Roxy Bar and Screen.
It was great to see Phil Mulloy's film's shown at the Roxy in Borough last Wednesday. He showed quite a few shorts and then all 80 mins of The Christies, which is fantastic, and bold. I think I'm right in saying that the whole film is comprised of 40 frames, and simple ones at that. The film is about the Christies, their social workers, the house painter. There's quite alot of chat about Tesco's. They speak in computer voices.



The Christies



Phil Mulloy's films are gutsy and graphic, they can more than hold their own in a bar setting, but on the whole I'm not quite sure what I think about the Roxy Bar and Screen as a venue. They are showing a season of animate! filmmakers, around once a month, attended by the filmmakers and with a question and answer afterwards. It's a great idea, its just somehow it's not easy to ask a question and you'd be hard pushed to concentrate if it was busy. I'd like to go to some more sessions, Chris Shepherd is coming up in July and on the 18th July, Shelly is going to host a screening there to raise money for Resonance FM which will be a great night. There will be more details on that later.

Hotel de Pinhey

This is Hotel de Pinhey being projected at Space last week. The six minute film was made up of chalk drawings and photographs animated on a blackboard under the rostrum camera, it became an imperious piece of work when the portraits became life size. The animation was to have a loose theme of user experiences of the mental health system, but for many reasons it was hard for people to articulate their thoughts from within the system itself. So the work is a series of self portraits. The animation was made on the Pinhey ward in St Clement's Hospital over ten afternoons, and then Jocasta Lucas, who was the second artist commissioned, worked with the same group to make the sound. It was chance and luck that Jo liked the animation enough to work with it, and the work is much better for being able to hear the voices and thoughts and layers of music and sounds to make sense of the portraits. Douglas Nicholson was the third artist, by the time he started work in January, the Pinhey Ward on St Clement's had closed and so he had to follow the group to their new location. It was a good project to work on thanks to Space and all the artists.

Today I'm going to Birmingham to take part in an inspiration session. Although I've been picked to inspire, I have a feeling its going to be an exciting day.
http://www.channel4.com/4talent/ten4/inspiration-animation.htm

Not least because of it's five am start. Can I really hear a cuckoo or am I just tired?

St Clements













Tonight it's the opening of two collaborative animations that I have been working on since October. Hotel de Pinhey was made in collaboration with Jocasta Lucas and an artist's group at St Clement's Psychiatric Hospital, and BowHaven, was made with a mental health user group in Bow. There's going to be free Russian beer which makes some people itchy, and three performances.

Our Premiere night

I've got a photograph to put here (sweet relief) to give an impression of the premiere last night at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green. a bigger venue than last year and a bigger crowd too.
Our old man was fourth in line of seven films. Simon Dye noticed that there was coincidentally a broad theme of home. It was really good to see the other projects, the production values were high and they were all compelling. The film Home stood out to me as being a little bit different, moving in a quirky way. Broken was very accomplished, I expect the director is going to make many more films. Tree was beautiful and Hinterland was a dark film, with a very particular atmosphere. In the context of those films it seemed as if The Old, Old, Very Old Man played the role of an animated breather. I couldn't really tell how it went down, I was holding my own breathe abit. I think it was fine. Here we are just beforehand:



Wendy, Shelly, Simon Dye (who worked on the sound effects) and Kathrein my lovely producer




and another one with me in it. (plus my bag and coat)

LET me out please.

I can almost tidy up the bathroom and leave but when I said that we had finished, it was another lie, we have forgotton the ERDF title card.

It's done!

It's hard to believe but the old man is in the bag and on a beta tape at the film fund office.
Last wednesday I went to Marek's studio which is in Beak Street. He had made some changes to the whites to bring them all into line, we spent an hour putting the sound on, a clock, some new titles and laying it off to miniDv. Kathrein made a Beta tape and took it to the Brady Arts Centre on Friday. Its a beautiful moment, though now I've got a cold, isn't it always the way?

Momentary momentum












The area of animated film is a bit trendy, not momentarily I hope. The Parasol Unit on Wharf Road is showing Momentary Momentum, a celebration of lines, and drawing and motion. The show has a great many inviting and thoughtful works, both installations and as part of two programmes. It was a bit like breakfast in a Hotel in Europe, I'd like to revisit to make sure I didnt miss anything. One work that stood out was 8 Possible Beginnings or The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picutre by Kara E. Walker. I remember seeing Kara Walker's gallery shadow projections a long time ago, and it was certainly striking, but seeing her work in moving pictures, where she is in evidence operating the puppets and speaking the parts, her explorations of lust, fear and dominance become very potent.

The finished sound

I am really grateful to Fonic for their considerable help at short notice. They've made it look easy too. It being a low budget film, I think I had imagined that it would be enough to make or locate sound effects to match what was on screen, (although the sound on my previous films have been considerably more than this) but when it was assembled and played through proper speakers it just didnt match the picture. Partly because the sounds, including the voices, weren't sitting in their proper location, also the introduction of atmos, is if anything more important on this film because there are no backgrounds in most of the shots, just funny lines here and there. Thanks again to Fonic.

There was a celebration of Dick Arnall at the Curzon last weekend. What a lovely man he was, but what a life to celebrate too. So many great films and many many friends. The celebration was a little bit sad but inspiring too.

Scrap the last post

We're not quite going to make the deadline after all.
At Fonic, I was able to listen to the film in a proper environment with Barnaby and his practiced ears and brain, the holes in our sound were immediately evident and its clear we need to do a quite a bit more work on the sound effects before we mix.

All is not lost, we'll get it done with a bit of time and help and by the way the picture looks good after a grade and some extra work from Simon P. on FCP and we have a premiere date which is the 23rd April.

updatings

The deadline is the 30th March and we are on target to finish on time, but with everyone working around their other jobs, it's going to be tight. Kathrein is keeping everyone on track and I am just looking and listening to things whenever I'm not at a playgroup. Marek has done a grade, which I'm sure will make a big difference. Even once I had the hang of the white balance, the variation in tile white was significant. Tim's has finished and the music fits really well.
I am hoping that Fonic will be able to help us with our sound mix. They are very good, and their work is subtle and funny. I would like to be subtle and funny too.

The last shot

mumble mumble

I thought I would be twiddling my thumbs while Tim and Simon got on with the sound but actually the lip sync will keep me busy. The lip sync in Sawney Beane was random and misleading in parts, partly because I'm not a patient person but also because I was in the final stages of pregnancy and I was struggling to sit still and concentrate. Anyway, this time I'm going to give it a pop, there's a good page on it in Paul Well's Fundamentals of Animation, and I've got a couple of days, so how hard can it be?

The other awardees

The deadline is 5pm on 30th March. I wonder if we will be the only Hackney and Tower Hamlets Film Fund production team skidding in to the Brady Arts Centre at 4.55pm? I think there are 6 or 7 films in production and I'm really looking forward to seeing them all in April. I've enjoyed a regular cup of tea with one of the other awardees: Suzi Ewing, who has finished her film 'Hinterland', judging by her previous films, I'm sure it will be really splendid. At the early stages of my production I was also really pleased to have a drink with Phil Dale and his producer Liz Chan. Phil is best known as an animator but he and Liz have been making 'Tree' (or maybe the name has changed) in live action. I have really enjoyed reading Phil's blog about the ups and downs of his production process. (http://www.tree.gb.com/)

Scrap the last post

I'm going back in.
Mark has finished a second assembly and identified a few areas where improvements could be made to the sense of the story by swapping the order of events. I think there are three shots in all, that's two more mondays then I'll stop.

Back away from the rostrum

I think I had my last day animating this week. There are a few shots that I would like to do again if I could but it's time to stop now. My tile is quite scratched and my brushes are now looking as if they have done 15 minutes worth of wrestling with that shellac ink.
We have also moved onto the sound, so I really have to stop so that there is something concrete for Tim and Simon to work on. I'm really pleased that Simon Dye is going to help out with the sound design, Simon is also DeXter Bentley and I am a fan of his show on Resonance FM which is called Hello Goodbye (12pm on Saturdays). Tim Olden has been working on the music already, he is also very busy with Nina and Karen's new film Living with the Tudors. You can read about Tim on their website: http://www.somewhere.org.uk/Tim. He is quite brilliant in many ways.
The last few shots and Edward's Voice Record went to Orkney in the post and it arrived within 24 hours! Mark is going to do another assembly as soon as he can.

The Fantastic Mr Fox

The voice record went well. It's always hard to tell until it's chopped up in the timeline against the picture. It was the fastest one yet with only around half an hour to record all four characters. I was really fortunate to have been able to ask Edward Fox to do it, and he needed hardly any pointers, which was lucky because a) I was too nervous and b) my microphone wasn't active.
I didn't get a photo because his chair was a bit low in the booth.

First Assembly

Mark has sent the edit down by Royal Mail on a miniDv tape. I have got an ftp site but not all parties are able to use it without complications, so it lies empty at the moment. Mark is really good. I liked the first assembly very much and so did Shelly, she chuckled alot, (I gave her a portugese cake before she saw it). It's a different film to the one I thought I was making at the beginning and it's come out very funny in parts, largely due to the addition of a swarm of buzzing flies attendant at the Old Man's autopsy. The film is around 6"30' without the titles, Mark has taken off a whole minute. I note that I thought it would be 3"0' at the beginning of the production. What a pro!

Next is the voice record, then just a little bit more animation..there are a few shots that could be better before everything goes back in the post to Burray for another pass.

Yikes

Is it true that however long you have to make a film, it would always be a scrabble at the end? Things are speeding up here to my great alarm. Mark Jenkins (see previous post) has broken away from his reflections on the beaches of Burray. What a pal he is. He has set up his avid and the first swipe at the edit is on it's way down via the Royal Mail. I'm going to review it tommorrow with the help of my animator friend Shelly Wain and finalise the voice script for the voice record on 9th Feb.
I have a wonderful actor to record on friday, I just hope I don't goof up my part in the proceedings. Kathrein is swanning off to Berlin for the film festival but is skillfully paving the way for the voice record before she goes. I'm still animating on Mondays. Shortly someone is going to have to do the kind thing and snap my squirrel hair brushes in half and lock the bathroom door.