Danbury Ring

A few weeks ago we visited the iron age hill fort Danbury Ring in Middle Wallop, a much loved family Sunday walk from many years ago.  The sunny autumn days need to be saved up and treasured.

The Ushev

If I hadn't been lucky enough to have met the man last year, I would think Theodore Ushev was a company of ten people working around the clock.  He is so extremely prolific.

He has a blog here, and you can see the catalogue of films, prizes, reviews, new productions...  I didn't manage to get to Ottawa where he won Best Canadian Film for Nightingales in December, but you can see a masterful music video for Kottarashky and the The Raindogs, a tribute to pre-cinema, drawn on vinyl and beautifully cut together.

Joe

I'm assembling a lovely, informative film made with young people in foster care over a 4 day period in the summer with an amazing team in Cambridge. I hope it will be on the internet at a later date. I'm working towards the cinema premiere at the beginning of October.  It's hot in the studio, and quite messy! It's lucky I don't have any assistants, I would have lost them by now.

The Ware Case - animated version

Emily and I made a three minute version of Broadwest Films Ltd 1917 film 'The Ware Case' using just publicity stills and a synopsis.  There's a lot of scrumpling.  It was a part of the film we made for The Pop Up Picture Palace earlier in the year.  It is showing as a part of the wonderful Walthamstow International Film Festival at Vestry House on Saturday 15th September 1 - 5pm.

Come on!

I'm really pleased to finally have a spell to work on the music video I'm making or mending for KT Tunstall.  I'm mixing live action, printed out and cut with stuff drawn on clear cels with ink.  

Silhouette workshop

Today Satoko and I ran a  silhouette workshop for families at the National Portrait Gallery.  In the gaps between families I made one of her:

I love those Victorian crafts, now where is my flower press?

Prom 47

We made it to Prom 47, celebrating the centenary of John Cage.  It was fantastic, we were part of an attentive audience and it was beautifully planned for the shape of the Royal Albert Hall, musicians and their amplified materials at lit tables set in the boxes and the floor. I'm glad we stayed for the amplified cactus although it was nearly midnight.

Tolosa

 Guggenheim, Bilbao

 Toes in the breeze

 near Horrandibia

 Topic puppet museum in Tolosa

 Topic puppet museum in Tolosa

Bibat museum, Vitoria Gasteiz

 Bibat museum, Vitoria Gasteiz

Arrikrutz, Onati

Near Lekeitio

Tricky Women - Women in Animation

We are off on our holidays soon, and I'm taking Tricky Women - the book (Women in Animation).  It's really good. Waltraud Grausgruber & Birgitt Wagner have commissioned some properly serious essays (eight in English, four in German).  In the first place the book offers a fresh historical perspective of the history of women in animation from Jayne Pilling. Because we know she knows her stuff, she can write informally. She reminds us of the some of the chronological landmarks or milestones, but also offers thoughts on subject matter, viewing contexts, Eastern European animation and the necessity for contextual knowledge, or not.  For German speakers there is an essay about Mary Ellen Bute about whom there is not enough written or screened.   Ruth Lingford has written a wonderful essay about Vera Neubauer, it's short but incisive and together with the interview with Vera, gives an insight into Vera's powerful, joyful and brave work.  Eliška Decká has written about the The Czech and Slovak New Female Wave of Animation, which of course includes Michaela Pavlatova.  Julie Roy from the National Film Board of Canada has written about metamorphosis in Michèle Cournoyer's work.  

A still from Michele Cournoyer's film The Hat, 1999

Suzanne Buchan's essay is about Animation installation, focusing on Rose Bond, Marina Zurkow and Tabaimo.  The installed, projected works are described really beautifully, which is important for works that exist in a space far away and at a time that has passed.   At the end of the book, and if all that wasn't enough for 24 euros, there's an explosion of fantastic thoughts and connections from Esther Leslie.  Her essay Shadowy, Shape-shifting, Shaky Animation as Subversion sends you scurrying all over the place making mind altering connections, which I marvel at and embrace as a practitioner.  Leslie revisits some of the works from an exhibition Shudder at The Drawing Room in 2010, for which she wrote Shudder, Shutter, Shatter, but her written work here is all entirely new.

Did I say that it comes with a DVD too.  I can't think of another festival that has commissioned such an important collection of essays, can you?

Retiring

Not me, but my hard working Dad. We saw this rainbow with gold at the end of it after his party! It must be a good sign?

Reflecting Fashion

There's a large and comprehensive exhibition at Mumok in Vienna called Reflecting Fashion.  I didn't mean to go, I was in the building for the Pop Art show, but I was very glad that I did.  The central theme of the exhibition was the intersections between art and fashion, and they had gathered all the key artefacts from modernism onwards and presented them beautifully.  There's a lot of eye catching edgy stuff, including Valie Export's 'genital panic' action pants, outfits from Stephen Willat's Multiple Clothing Event (1993) and the elegant Elsa Schiaparelli & Dali Lobster Dress, worn by Wallis Simpson shortly before her marriage to Edward VIII.  I was most excited by the first floor, dedicated to Modernism. There was some beautiful textile designs by Sonia Delaunay and Austrian ceramicist Vally Wieselthier.  Giacomo Balla's 'modifiers', designed in 1914 were pretty splendid.  These were variable decorative elements that you can attach to your clothing as you wish, they were colourful graphic shapes created from felt and embroidery.  I've had a similar idea myself because young mothers often acquire splotches of this or that on their shoulder just before leaving the house, and if you could pop a colourful modifier on top, it would be very useful.

Sonia Delaunay's textile designs from 1920's

Cindy Sherman was well represented too, and she had made a paper cut animation on super eight in 1975 called 'Doll's Clothes'.  If you find yourself in Vienna, Mumok is definately worth a visit.

Animation Summer St. Pölten 2012

Thank you to Tricky Women. They do everything so carefully and well.  It was so nice to be in Austria again.  I can tell a bit of the story of the week in photos.

 "tiny frame - big projection!"
photograph by fh St. Pölten 

Ivoneta's lovely metamorphosis work
photograph by fh St. Pölten 

Many buffets

Concentrating

Really lovely work

Comfy bed

Refreshing lake for dipping into

Projection

The other workshop leaders were very cool and the participants were studious and all so interesting. I hope I can go back again soon.

Musical summer evenings

A sticky night in Cafe Oto to see Simon Payne's Iris Out from 2008, projected thrice and squiffy, so the iris's in question were all lined up.  It was very exuberant and a delighted woop was issued from the crowd when the projection finished.

We made an annual visit to the church of St Anne & Agnes for the first of three Music we'd like to hear evenings.

Talking of sticky weather, tomorrow I set off for Vienna, and I shall be happy to be back with my Tricky Women friends, new and old.

 I'm busy assembling a portable 16mm cameraless film workshop kit.  I hope if works and I make it to my European destination.  I think my hand luggage is going to be bulgy and fragile and my suitcase full of chemicals and sharp objects. However, it's a really nice task and I'm gathering knowledge and experience at a great rate.

There's also little trips to the plot and further afield to lovely Whitstable and I put these here to remind myself that it's not always been rainy this summer.

Tippoo's Tiger

I'm fascinated by this Figurine of Mr Hugh Munro being mauled by a Bengal Tiger (1792).  It can be found in the British Army Museum.  I don't think I've seen such a violent incident depicted in earthenware before.  Tippoo's Tiger in the V&A shows the same gory scene in life-size, and I plan to make a special visit soon.

Jeff Keen

Rayday Film, 1968 - 70 +1976, 16mm, 13 mins

I was very sorry to hear that Jeff Keen has died.  William Fowler has written a good obituary in The Guardian here.  Nearly this time last year I was involved in a panel discussion in which we chose  works that had influenced or inspired us, and I showed Cineblatz, White Lite and Marvo Movie (1967/8).  Both for the films themselves, which are political, humorous and exciting and also for his attitude and methods.  GAZWRX is a very good box set of his films, and his painting and graphic works have been showing here and there around the world.  I hope they will come here soon to spread the word about this wonderful artist.

Something Very Far Away

This lovely fellow is Johannes Kepler, who travels in his rocket ship So Far Away into the Universe that he finds it still Under Construction.  He is trying to look back at life on Earth, to a time before his sweet Tomasina perished in an accident with a performing horse at the circus.

Something Very Far Away was a 35 minute show for children, performed at the Unicorn Theatre. It featured the puppets of Matthew Robins, the creator of Fly Boy, and was written by Mark Arends.  It was similar to the work of Paper Cinema in that the mechanics of the work is privileged, and that's where the magic lay. Nearest the audience were four live cameras, lots of cables, the puppeteers, their puppets in a row, a mirror ball, a guitar, sparklers waiting to be lit and a holey bucketful of water.  It's performed on a small scale, but the theatre was also tiny so we could see clearly what's coming and how they were doing it.  The projection of the story, mixed from the cameras was almost secondary to the absorbing spectacle of the clever performers and their carefully timed tricks and changes.

Here I am!

My present preoccupation is this Muray 16mm film viewer and all things 16mm.  I'm really pleased to be off to Austria again, thanks to the Tricky Women Animation Summer in St Polten at the beginning of July.  I am leading a workshop in cameraless film, which is something I do a little bit at Anglia Ruskin. But there we have four Steinbecks, so I am working on a portable viewing solution (see above).  I'm really enjoying thinking about what films to look at over the three day workshop, and for inspiration, we will be studying the late Helen Hill's amazing compilation of 16mm 'recipes' gathered from practitioners around the world.

mmm

Morphathon

The Jump Cut filmmakers totally rose to the challenge of a two day metamorphosis crash course and made some beautiful, lively animation.  They will be editing the animation onto the live action that they shot earlier, then premiering the film in Cambridge in July.