Paolo Uccello's St George and The Dragon

I just wonder if that little dragon's big mum is waiting in the cave.

Tycho Brahe

This is the famous Danish Astronomer and Alchemist Tycho Brahe. You can't tell on this stamp but he wore a copper nose, his first one was cut off in a duel with Manderup Parsbjerg.

Second hand find

Last week I bought three books that came from the library of the late Angela Carter. Looking at the spines gave a sense of her interests, from the history of gastronomy to literary criticism via Pliny and Dada as you can see . It's sad that the collection is being dispersed but I can also imagine that other people feel just as delighted as I do to be able to treasure something of hers. There are lots of Angela Carter's own books in my own collection which I always mean to read again because the first time maybe 20 years ago, I found some of them too surreal, and fantastical, and I can admit that I thought her female protagonists embarassing and bold. I'm sure I'll get on just fine with them now.

Great prospects

I have moved into a new studio.













Finally I have room for visitors.

The dog's whiskers

This is an image taken from a sketchbook that belonged to a distant relative named Katharine Grimston. They were made in around 1840. This one of the dogs is an afterthought in the book, a moment where she forgot herself. The other drawings are quite detailed pen and wash drawings and they relate to an opera that I can't identify without Dad's help and some scenes from 'Up Stairs & Down Stairs'.
This is the herione Lady Honoria.

I have also been reading about Mary Anning, who was also active in the 1840's, but she gets out of the drawing room, and scrambles all over the coast around Lyme Regis, she dosn't concern herself with all those floppy men. I think there will be more about her later. Over the summer I'll get on with writing a new film and somehow I feel I'll take a leap forwards into the 19th century. Maybe when I'm a whiskery octegenarian I'll make a film about 21st century Hackney.

www

It's been raining for three days now, so from the comfort of the sofa I have been reading Will Becher's diary of being animator in residence on the A-I-R scheme: http://www.maninmidair.co.uk/html/about.htm. It's very funny, I especially like the references to school children constantly knocking on the glass, can it really be that bad?!
Last week I also downloaded a podcast of Michael Dudok de Wit and Gili Dolev talking at the National Museum of Scotland last month in conjunction with the Pixar event. It started off slowly, and it's not so interesting to look at, but with Catriona Black's encouragement they both made some pertinant points about storytelling and ideas.

Festivals.

I have begun the task of sending the Old Man to festivals. I havn't done this before and feeling overwhelmed by the task I've done what every sensible person would do, make a comprehensive spreadsheet using excel. In the time it's taken I could have entered EIFF, OLAF, LIAF, KROK, BAF, FAFF and Encounters. Orange is REJECTED, blue is ACCEPTED, there are three shades of blue, pale blue for competition, ultramarine for international panorama and cobalt for video booth only. Is there a market for this template?

I'm also trying to get acquainted with Movie Flipper, a lovely piece of free software to make movies into flip books. I am doing a drop in activity making flip books this weekend at the Barbican for their Animate the world festival.

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