Book Launch and Screening


The aforementioned Animate book Rethinking Animation, was officially launched last week at the Curzon in tandem with a screening of the shortlisted films for the Animate Award. This was useful for those of us who couldn't get to Brief Encounters this year. The award was for innovative work and it was certainly an exciting selection, thrillingly not limited to CG either. It was quite a boysy bunch of films, all except for Jonas Odell's Never like the first time, in which five people recollect their first sexual experience, the last two stories were extraordinary. It was the second time that I had seen Film Noir by Osbert Parker, the first time was last week when it was broadcast on Channel 4, did it look different? It seemed so. It's a stunning film, every shot is beautiful and the animation flawless, the narrative and pacing didn't quite work for me, I couldn't quite tell what the intention was, though I might watch it again and revise my opinion. I was quite glad to see Empire by Edouard Salier, I loathed his film Flesh, but in seeing Empire I could see how he came to make Flesh and look forward to seeing what's next. Other films shown were Park Football by Grant Orchard, which has been very popular on the internet and no wonder, it's simple and sick. Leviathan by Simon Bogojevic Narath was also shown, it's like watching the actors in a complex video game mutiny, naked, some finished off properly and others, roughly hewn, it's great actually. Have I made it sound terrible?

How it's going

I have managed to animate for three days in a row this week. It will be the last little stretch I'll get at it the film because we are hoping to finish it by the end of January. Presently there is six minutes of very untidy animation, and I cant quite tell how it will be when it's done or what I need to reshoot. Mark Jenkins is the editor who I lean heavily on for guidance, this will be a remote activity because he is moving to Burray in Orkney for a year. Wow. Last time when we edited The True Story of Sawney Beane, I was mostly in Canada and distracted by the imminent birth of my son, so not for us the luxury of sitting side by side and thrashing it out surrounded by Boaster crumbs. Not this time.

shot SC003sh005a - ruined

Using a straight ahead technique, there are some no no's, but yesterday I forgot myself. I found a mohair cardigan in the salvation army shop for one pound, I threw it straight on for the afternoon's animating and now it looks like shot SC003sh005a has been made on the floor of a pet shop.

The animate! book Rethinking animation book is good. It't hot off the press and I was overjoyed to get a free copy. It comes with a DVD and is a readable mix of essay and interview, mostly giving the artist's their say. It wasn't long ago that I was standing by the animation section in Foyles yawning and now my cup runneth over with the excitment of Paul Wells' The Fundamentals of Animation and Clare Kitson's insightful Tale of Tales publication too.

NO, NO, NO!

On the Old Man animation front, I shall be lavishing my attentions on the film from December. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I won't receive any lucrative job offers. So I beg of you, no pop video offers*. No huge-fee-taxi there and back, large -lunch-included workshop requests*, as I shall only say NO, NO, NO.*

(*exceptions may apply)

Off site

There hasn't been any news from the bog studio, because I'm doing an artist's commission for SPACE Media Arts in collaboration with the Pinhey Ward at St Clement's Psychiatric Hospital. I've taken my big rostrum to the ward and once a week I set it up in the corner of the dining room, amongst the peas that escaped from lunch. We have been animating using pen on glass, chalk on blackboard and photographs.
It's been really exciting to see the change in the drawing and animation over two months, and I've learnt a great deal from the group who have been brave enough to give it a go. I only wish we had a bit longer together.

The famous Thomas Parr

I was surprised and delighted to notice a comment!
It came from Anders Jonason who has a great blog all about Thomas Parr, it's called thomasparr.blogspot.com. Thank you Anders, there are quite a few things that I didn't know. I hope it's true that you are related to Thomas Parr, the genes are obviously good.

The dogs bollocks

I dont know if its clear but here is an image of my tile with a picture of Thomas Parr's dog trying to cool down in the summer.

Production photos

Rabbit
In the afternoon, Run Wrake and Dick Arnall sat side by side to talk about Rabbit in the context of Run's other work. It served as a bit of a retrospective and an insight into the run up to making Rabbit, an animate! film that has been doing really well at festivals around the world. It was great to see where it came from and hear Run talk about what it was, it certainly brought it together for me. For some reason I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else at the beginning, I think I thought it was a bit smooth compared to his other work, but actually it's beautifully crafted in every way and it's been getting better every time I watch it. Run Wrake was modest and frank: when Dick asked him about retaining the use of the words under the stickers he said "there was no great idea behind it, I just thought it looked nice".
The film definately deserves all those prizes.

Priit Parn
On arrival I sprinted straight to the cinema to see the second programme of Priit Parn's work. Hotel E is extraordinary every time, I'm surprised that it was made as late as 1992 though I dont mean that as a slight, I hope I shall still be watching it regularly until 2092, it's completely compulsive to watch, all those languid pastel people in the room next door to the scratchy people, linked by flies and the odd escapee. I also enjoyed his film Triangle from 1982. I will admit to being a little dismayed by a macho discussion that took place afterwards, in which P.P. and Igor Kovalyov talked about the animators in their studios, it seemed a bit despotic. Being of the one-man-band school of animation, part of my enjoyment of a film is imagining the animator scribbling cheerfully away in the dark, the bubble was popped when I heard Priit Parn say that not one frame of his films are drawn by him.

Onion Rings
Tommorrow I'm off to Norwich to visit the fantastic International Animation Festival run by Adam Pugh. My newest film called Little Skipper was shown during the week. I'm hoping to relive my Zagreb experience by having Calimari twice in one day. Though I suspect it will be more like onion rings on the train there and the train home.

NIAF's publicity is designed by Marius Watz, lovely.

The shape of the old man

The film is beginning to feel like a film not just ten scenes and a hundred shots. I've done enough animation for Mark Jenkins, the brilliant editor in Fife, to have a first swipe at it. At first it lifted my spirits by making some parts look tremendous even with my voice as a guide track but it also highlights some pretty hefty dead patches, and the tale piddles along and lacks dramatic tension at the moment. What I would like now is a week in my bathroom studio to get my head around it, but all I have is a bit of Mondays. I think Kathrein would like us to finish by Christmas, wouldn't that be great?

Ms Mary Anning

In the evenings I have enjoyed mono-printing portraits of Mrs Anning, she'll be a part of the Whitstable open house trail in the middle of October, thanks to my friend Vicky. Mrs Anning was an amateur fossil hunter from Lyme Regis, she found the first fossilized plesiosaur and Ichthyosaurus, so a serious amateur.

My Russian centaur.




Have you ever seen a sexier animation prize?

The King in a torpor

Going at top speed now

I'm going very fast now since I have some teaching and workshop commitments coming up, I dont have time to put the flight socks on anymore. My top speed is 45 seconds per day.

scrap that

I've decided to begin again with the animation, having shot too many minutes to admit to. It may seem like a wasteful way to work but I've always found it hard to imagine everything on the storyboard or animatic and the purpose or centre of the story is better revealed through the animation. It's fairly liberating and I feel that I can scrap alot of the superflous detail and doing all the animation quickly will make it look fairly fresh. The technique in itself is fairly speedy, so I hope I can get it done in two months, though I am only working two days per week on it. If I'm wrong about that I can either use the old shots, or eat my storyboard on the steps of Hackney Town Hall.

Best of the Fest - LIAF
I didn't get to all of the festival, so it was great to get a much coveted ticket to the highlights on Sunday. It would be fair to say that funny films prevailed. Who I am and what I Want by Chris Shepherd and David Shrigley seems to get better and more sinister the more I've see it, which isn't necessarily the case with Shrigley's books, I would say it's down to the structure and performance. Bob Log III's electric fence story by Sebastien Wolf & Tinka Stock was probably a controversial choice for programme 2, looking as if it had been made on a bedroom carpet with an anglepoise but the goofy joy of it resonated with me. Back Brace made by Andy and Carolyn London also centred around a silly personal story told with a nice momentum and animated with inappropriate found objects. George Gendi's Pingpongs was a proper treat to see, capturing with great elegance two exchanges between an older couple who care greatly for each after many years, but perhaps havn't talked about certain feelings. I was a little bit surprised that The Corridor by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli didn't get a mention in either the audience or jury votes: it was one of my favourite films at Animafest, it's pretty well perfect. In the bar afterwards there was a lot of discussion about the programme and the winning films, I'm looking forward to next year already.

Three animation outings - this has been a busy week for spellbound.
On tuesday I was lucky enough to have lunch at L'Escargot, courtesy of the Quebec Government Office, it was only lunch, but I gloated until supper. It felt very nice to be nestled in amongst other animators drinking wine and eating beef on a tuesday afternoon.
On the 22nd August I went to a competition screening at LIAF in which Sawney Beane was showing. In this programme there were a few films I had been looking forward to seeing: A bus ride with flowers in her hair by Asaf Agranat and Invasion by Matt Abbiss, both very good and masterful in different ways, infact I enjoyed many films in the programme, in particular Woanders by Ulrike Keil, which had a tremendous soundtrack.
On thursday I sat in on a panel discussion about animated shorts at the Edinburgh Film Fest. The other panellists were Bill Lawrence from NMPFT, Matt Walton frim BBC Film Network and Becky Lloyd from Scottish Screen. Bill Lawrence urged us all to lobby Whitehall and the Regional Screen agencies to bring animation higher up their agendas and suggested that collaboration between games companies and animators be encouraged. Matt Walton suggested that if distribution were properly funded it would be easier to attract money to projects for production. There was also the discussion about distributing films on ipods and mobiles, which is an exciting thought, but only if a film was conceived for that context. I can quite imagine enjoying making films that could be downloaded in short installments.

(I can recommend the 5.50am from Edinburgh to London, nice and quiet)