The British Animation Awards

I'm really pleased to be a finalist in the British Animation Awards short film category. A bit astounded too to be up there with Yours Truly by Osbert Parker and The Pearce Sisters by Luis Cook, two huge films. The award ceremony is on March 13th, it will be exciting to go to an animation party, or any party for that matter!

A hat trick or a nutmeg

The Old Man won best Independant film at BAF. Thank you very much BAF. I went for the first day of the festival and had an interesting day, I saw Paul Bush's talk and the professional and short films in competition.
Now I'm the guardian of this little fella. He has a stern look, which wont be bad for me because 2008 is going to be a year in which my studio is tidied more often.

Aurora in Norwich

In my spellbound blog I made a little report from Aurora but I dont think I said that The Old Man won best short film, it was a wonderful surprise, although I had a cheap train ticket, so I almost had to take the precious award and sprint for the train.

Dick Arnall

Following Robert Breer's morning screening was a wonderful tribute in memory of Dick Arnall, who sadly died in February this year. It centred around a screening of films, each one meaty and provocative in it's own way. The films were nominated and introduced by people who knew Dick, including his wife, the wonderful Finnish animator Marjut Rimminen. Other contributions came from Gillian Lacey, Robert Bradbrook, Gareth Evans, festival director Adam Pugh and Jane Pilling. They each had a story to tell and all together painted a picture of Dick that made those who knew him smile and feel a little bit sad and those that didn't know him wish they had.
The films themselves were almost all extraordinary and in the context of the screening, there was a conduicive air of concentration in the cinema. They included Jerzy Kucia's Przez Pole (Across the Field) from 1992, Patrick Bokanowski's La Plage from 1991 and Santiago Alvarez's film LBJ (1967)

Tommorrow I head off for a day trip to Bradford for the first day of BAF.

Robert Breer at Aurora

Here is a picture of David Curtis talking to Robert Breer on Saturday afternoon.

I only had one day at Aurora, but it was full to the brim with good things. Robert Breer had been there for the whole festival. He's very hard of hearing, but it just meant that no-one could interrupt one of his great stories and if a long winded question came his way, he just chose a word and ran with it. It was encouraging to listen to a person so contented with work and life who has made a film every year for 40 years. We saw a programme of his later films in the morning, this included LMNO, Bang, Swiss Army Knife with Rats and Pigeons and What goes up.
The films have no narrative continuity, but a definate shape and structure and I enjoyed trying to think of them more as paintings with a few basic elements that arrive from front to back and in layers, which you can piece together, not necessarily there and then but later as well. David Curtis asked him how he went about starting a film, to which he answered that he enjoyed feelings of a heightened sensibility, looking forward to something that's unpredictable and not knowing the outcome. The only thing that he knew was that he would avoid suggestions of narrative and continuity, not only to emphasise the plastic nature of the work but also because our daily experiences are fragmented in that way.

Pojd'te Pane

November is unofficially my month of animation, and thanks to a tip off from Shelly, Simon and their three small friends from Hackney, we had an outing to see some Pojar films at the Riverside together.
We watch Pojd'te Pane once a week here at home, we take it like a tonic, but seeing the bears in a cinema with a audience of Czech under fives was truly joyous and revealing. We could see the selotape and the fluff here and there and owing to the peals of laughter, I could tell there's a funny joke about the way that Mister and Mister speak to each other. There were also two other films, both with a message about pets: don't overfeed your dog, it will turn into an elephant and don't leave your cats on their own with your paints out. At the end there was a disco in the bar but by then we'd peaked for sure.

Jan Lenica

There's a rare chance to see a film by the wonderful animator Jan Lenica.
UBU ET LA GRANDE GIDOUILLE, directed by Jan Lenica in 1979, is going to show at Cine Lumiere, 17 Queensberry Place,
London SW7 2DT on 7th November at 9pm.

The Old Man has won a book

He's won best animation at the Flip festival in Wolverhampton and the prize is Paul Wells's new book on scriptwriting. I'm very pleased. I couldn't go up again yesterday because I was doing a workshop in Bracknell but I would have loved another trip to Wolverhampton. Thank you Flip.

Thanks to The Old Man (film) I'm getting out a bit. Last week I went to participate in Drawing in the Digital, a symposium organised by Ross Winning from the School of Art & Design at Wolverhampton University. I left my pen at home so most of my thoughts will be from memory. The symposium intended to assess the impact of digital technology on animation today via the musings of Paul Wells, Erica Russell, Dew Harrison, Tim Webb and me. Sadly Alys Hawkins couldnt' make it at the last minute, I would liked to have met her and seen her films in the cinema. Paul was first, and really whooped everyone up, I remember that he was great but I was straight after him and the pen was at home, so I remember nothing of his presentation, except 'Roof sex', one of the Twisted films of the PES collective. I presented my work and talked about wet watercolour, paper and brushes. Dew Harrison brought up the subject of artists and digital media in the context of PVA Labculture. Tim Webb made Mr Price with a computer and is senior tutor in animation at the RCA. He suggested that digital technology had some disadvantages in the production process: putting off decisions, and movement for the sake of it. At the Royal College of Art, they make the same number of stop frame animation films as they did 12 years ago. (I imagine that's unusual). He talked about the Hungarian animator Peter Foldes 1974 film Hunger, and showed The (also wonderful) Wolfman by Tim Hope. After lunch, the very dynamic Erica Russell gave us some insight into her background and practice. She made the Oscar nominated Feet of Song in 1988. Liam Scanlan has the longest CV I've ever seen and told us that with a little determination, you could be in charge of about a hundred render farms on a Star Wars set.

Clive Walley, Paul Wells, Erica Russell and Liam Scanlan on the Flip stage.

There was alot of chat over the day about the physical aspects of animation, and can it be replicated, will the tools improve, will it be missed etc. The anxiety seemed inevitable because the panel were older, mostly working with traditional tools, and were conscious of talking to an audience of students who seemed comfortable with moving between traditional and digital techniques.

The day was rounded off by a screening of Clive Walley's films. Sadly I had to jump on a train and only saw Prelude, which was smashing. I had a lovely day, it was brilliant to meet so many great animators all at once and the Flip festival is very much worth a visit.

and Dok Leipzig too

November - festival month

I'm having a busy time trying to fit the November festivals into my busy schedule:
There's
BAF
Flip
Aurora
FIKE
&
The Children's Film Festival at the Barbican.
I'm going to be participating in a symposium at Flip called 'Drawing in the Digital', and doing flip book and claymation workshops at the Children's Film Festival. I can squeeze in a day trip to BAF but for FIKE and Aurora I'm going to need a time machine or a helicopter.
It would be worth it because Robert Breer is showing work at Aurora and he's magnificent, both the films and the man.

The circus

Thanks to my mum, we had a family outing to Billy Smart's circus.


My partner sat on the end of the row, and here is a picture of him doing a graceful cartwheel in the ring.

The wonders of ichthysaurus and plesiosaurus

I found a panorama button on the camera that Nina lent me a few years ago, so I put it to use at the Natural History Museum this afternoon.


I did quite a few drawings too and they might come on my next blog entry.

The Old Man's festival journey

Thanks to the generosity of Samantha Moore, my festival spreadsheet problems were solved in an instant. She kindly sent the template for her film The Beloved Ones and I have just been adapting that. I remember from our EI course that if you press shift, apple and 3 you get a screenshot. I think that's about all the electronic imaging I can remember.


The Old Man is doing very well and so far he has been to Edinburgh, London International Animation Festival and Canary Wharf. This week he was in Ottawa and in the next couple of months there are trips to Leipzig DokFest, Aurora in Norwich, BAF and Flip in Wolverhampton. The British Council have accepted my application to help with the submissions too, which is good, because at the moment I don't have any studio time, even if I could open that door.

I havn't been in there for ages

I don't think it's going to be very easy to go in the bog studio the next time I want to. There is a pile up of tax related paperness, origami paperness, bills, material for bunting, plastic bags and secondhand files from Nina which I hope to use one day.
I would take a photo, but I don't think I could squeeze through the door.

Last night of LIAF



Here I was in the Curzon last night with Nag Vladermersky, Mait Laas and Priit Tender from Eesti Joonis Films in Estonia. Crouched on the floor is the splendid globe-trotting LIAF co director Malcom Turner.

At the Best of the Fest they showed Jeu by George Schwizgebel, The Lecture by Clint Cure, Birdcalls by Malcom Sutherland, The adventures of John and John by Will Bishop Stevens, my Old, Old, Very Old Man, the aforementioned Carnivore Reflux and The Tale of How, Urban Tale by Florence Miahilhe, the winner of the grand prize: Everything will be OK by Don Hertzfeld, Moloch by Marcin Pazera and winner of British Best film: Time is Running Out by Mark Reisbig.

Time is Running Out is a strange and inventive film, the action takes place within a continous circular pan, coupled with a frame that slowly decreases in size and sound that becomes gradually more layered. It's like being hypnotised, assaulted and slowly crushed all at once. Don Hertzfeld did something similar with his sound, which was also used to reflect the chaotic inner world of protagonist Bill. Sometimes it wasn't possible to hear his voiceover at all for the sounds of headbutting, crisp munching, vacuum cleaning and key dropping that went on. It was good to see Urban Tale again. It was shown in Zagreb and perhaps I didn't quite appreciate how gutsy it is. It's also hard to see how the tale ties together on first viewing, because the oil on glass technique can get a bit murky and it's hard to see who's who. I did like it though and I think other people did too.
The Tale of John and John was pretty glorious. I've been reading about it at www.wrongboy.com. It was mostly glorious because of the joy-of-it-all that some films have.

On the subject of joy-of-it-all, I was very lucky yesterday not only because The Old Man was awarded best of programme 4 by the audience and the jury, but also because I bought a little green supereight viewer on a key ring from Mark Pawson at the Vyner Street Festival.

Long shorts

LIAF is here. I missed the beginning because of our splendid trip to Orkney but managed to get to the Curzon for International Prog 5 and 6 (the long shorts). The long shorts programme is a good idea, you get just 6 films, easier on the brain than the 14 in Prog 5.

From the long shorts I enjoyed Pekka Korhonen's Siberian Express, because it was funny, and dark and a little bit sexy.
There were quite alot depictions of women as large breasted animals over the course of the evening, one of whom was the lovely hairy Ramona pictured here, not enough to form a worrying trend but I will be monitoring this! It was good to watch Everything will be OK by Don Hertzfeldt, it is the American cousin of Who I am and What I want by David Shrigley and Chris Shepherd. The film was very masterful but a little too knowing, in my mind not quite match for the genius that was 'Rejected'. In Prog 5 Sarah's Tale by Svetlana Filipova was wonderful. The tale is told with a very light touch, the gentle, scruffy drawings and even the subtitles visited every corner of the screen and she kept our eyes busy with very elegant, musical changes of proportion and perspective.





Certainly not subtle or elegant but complete and unusual was Soldier by David Peros-Bonnot from Croatia in which a statue of a soldier runs amok. The filmmaker intended it to be "A symbolic story about a product of society that gets out of control". What struck me as being more interesting was the use of model animation in a story about statues that come alive.
The White Wolf by Pierre-Luc Granjon was the last film in the session and it was magical but really blunt and I enjoyed it very much. Especially the way the wolfs' severed head rolled down the hill. Carnivore Reflux by The People's Republic of Animation and The Tale of How by The Blackheart Gang were stunning to watch but in my mind they both suffered a conflict between the words and the image. The other Moment of Note was a CG horror film in which a blood smeared naked lady with no nipples ran petrified through a forest.

Two animation-related podcasts that I've enjoyed

http://www.baf.org.uk/2007/podcasts.asp
http://www.directorsnotes.com/2007/02/02/dn-ep-021-forest-murmurs-jonathan-hodgson/

and Don Hertzfeld's journal
http://bitterfilms.com/forum.html

http://www.resonancefm.com/
Shelly's resonance night was the animation highlight of the summer so far. I havn't been out too much it's true but it WAS really good. She chose some beautiful films, alot of them I hadn't seen before. The dotty Panique Au Village (http://www.paniqueauvillage.com/Public/index_after.html) by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar was very popular, as was John Paul Harney's film Brand Spanking, which is a piece of writing genius. Come on John-Paul, write something else.
Vladimir Leschiov's new film Lost in Snow is wonderful, I think I prefer it to Insomnia. The white of the snow and the movement of the ice provide an opportunity for some lovely playful scenes, although it has a grave feeling to it, just like Insomnia. The Magic Gloves by Ben and John Harmer is a great story and cleverly made, I didn't anticipate such a sick ending. I can imagine it as a series, though that little mouse with his goofy teeth would have to come back to life.







A nice man named Michael Garrad introduced the films and told some revolting jokes, it created a proper focus. Previously I had reservations about the Roxy as a screening venue, I think there was a hen party in on the Phil Mulloy night, but it was tremendous. I hope Shelly can do it again.

Canadian Premiere

I was overjoyed to hear that my Old Man is nestled in amongst some amazing films at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in the narrative short competition. I would have really liked to have gone, to see how he looked in the middle of that lot but we're going to be quite busy in September. I went to OIAF in 2004 as I was making Sawney Beane in Montreal, I think it was my first international film festival, I thought there would be 40 people there and we could all go to the pub between screenings, but no, everyone likes animation, there were THOUSANDS of people there, enough to form a MOB.
For the filmmakers it's downright terrifying sitting in Cinema 1 feeling the mood of that Mob over six minutes thirty eight seconds.
I read that last year an audience member stood up and shouted 'This Film is Shit' and walked out.