You've been in there for ages, what are you doing?

Picture Palace Wood Street

2012-02-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

We spent a full day in Wood Street Indoor Market for the launch of the new shops filling the empty market units. Emily and I have number 6 for our Picture Palace. We had set up an OHP and a little screen for visitors to make shadowy pictures. We also projected some of our previous projects and some lovely clips of archive footage of Wood Street film studios and the Wood Street walk provided by WACC. We wanted to find out all we could about the cinemas and film studios that used to be in Wood Street. We were quite overwhelmed by the warmth and curiosity of visitors to the market. With Ashley's help, we gave out 150 of our special leaflets, that's alot of folding!

2 Dimensional Life of Her

2012-02-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

Kim, Shelly and I went to see Fleur Elise Noble's 2 Dimensional Life of Her, at the Barbican. It was exciting to enter the theatrical space which was created with paper and projection, overlooked by a filmed full-size portrait of the artist herself. She is preoccupied with drawing and projection, but also puppets and animated figures, and it's all mixed up in this projected papery space. Each new scene or character is introduced by the artist, in projection or real life, tearing paper, or brushing the image on or off with a large broom. It's extremely tactile, and the most engaging moment was a projected fire, burning everything to a crisp. I couldn't stop sniffing for smoke, and the urge to run for the fire exit was overwhelming.

There is a promo video on You Tube which shows the amazing mixture of techniques that she used in her performance. I think the piece could perhaps have been worked just as well in a gallery, because it was just 40 minutes long, and the largest part it was projected, not a live projection but recorded. I did have reservations about the tone of the work, because on the one hand and in the first half, it was a thoughtful and serious piece about drawing and the artist's materials and environment, yet part of the way through, the characters began to engage with each other in a jokey way, and she ended the piece remonstrating with them about the fire, which was funny but a bit confusing and made it feel like a sketch, or a work in progress. Nonetheless, it was a great experience and I'd really like to see what she does next.

A Naughty Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

2012-02-04T12:31:00.001-08:00

I made a sting for the BAA sting competition and it's online here with lots of other entries. You can comment if you like. You might want to say 'Ugh'.

The Horniman Museum

2012-01-31T03:18:00.001-08:00

Wood Street Inside Out

2012-01-26T02:51:00.000-08:00

Emily and I are really pleased to have been successful in applying for the Wood Street Inside Out project with our Picture Palace proposal. We will be setting up in No. 6 in the Wood Street Indoor Market next week and inviting people to come and visit, chat, snip and play around with light, paper and animation.
We will create a paper Pop-Up model of Wood Street, which will become the set of an animated film. The final film will be screened at the Wood St/Vallentin Road Junction from March 31st 2012. There is a special blog, and we'll keep you posted.

Here is an image from Emily's project at CLR James Library. 'Adventures in Paper' The telling of Hansel and Gretel, made with Colvestone primary School for new Dalston Library. 2012.

On Being the Right Size

2012-01-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to Miniatures, one of the Wellcome Collection's brilliant themed evenings. Steven Connor's talk was very good, peppered with humour and interesting thoughts . He explored the different aspects of our relationship with tiny things. We have all been tiny, and have a tiny memory of our tiny self, so it's quite complicated. Amongst other things there's awe (See Willard Wigan's micro sculptures, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs below), affection, the desire to nuture (The Simpsons The Genesis Tub), carelessness (The Twilight Zone Little People, part 3) and curiosity (The Numbskulls from Beano).

He talked about the physical properties of tiny things, including their relationship to gravity, here he mentioned J.B.S Haldane's 1928 essay On Being the Right Size. I was glad to find the text online, it's great.

Upstairs in Medicine Man there were some lovely Bonsai trees from Kew on display.

In Medicine Now there was a flea and talented small insect room curated by Pestival. Percy Smith's The Acrobatic Fly from 1910 was accompanied by a gentleman on the piano keyboard. There were 3 performances by a flea circus, which was very funny, I don't think that there were any fleas, but lots of flames and imaginative suggestion instead.

A little table top displayed some Mexican dressed fleas or Pulgas Vestidas, from the Natural History Museum. I've seen the little couple in Tring (below). What a thought-provoking evening.

Happy New Year

2012-01-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

We've been on a lovely family tour of the beauty spots of the South of England, but now it's time to use my new watercolours and my new scissors in the studio..

Home again and riding around the bumps (upside down).

Digitalis

2011-12-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

Animate Projects Digitalis strand was celebrated at BFI Southbank with a screening and discussion. I made some discreet analogue impressions on my knee whilst the discussion was taking place.

Here is Gary Thomas asking some penetrating questions of Max Hattler (directly below) and James Lowne (at the bottom). Max Hattler dosn't look like this.

The fourth panellist was Emma Geliot, who I couldn't quite see. (I bet she's glad!)

The screening was of films conceived for an online exhibition or platform, and to be obtuse straight away, it was a relief to see the films in the cinema. My commitment to animated short film is considerable and attention span OK, but I hadn't been inclined to see them through to the end when I saw them online. I think Max Hattler is on top of all this. His films 1923 aka Heaven (1'49") and 1925 aka Hell (1'36") can be joined half way through and seen on a loop, this is perhaps because his reference points are not filmic, but musical, and the 'digital' is responsible for bringing him to make short films. His films were mesmerising, though aka Hell was a little bit like being swallowed by one of the x-men.

James Lowne is a filmmaker who uses 3D technology to enjoy the act of fabricating personas and menacing situations for them to inhabit. They are roughly hewn, and have tics and imperfections. His inspiration springs from fashion photography and advertising, he also had lots of sensible thoughts to add to the discussion.

The discussion around the 'digital' focused on two issues, which Emma Geliot articulated well. That of digital platforms; the ability for artists to show their work to the millions worldwide on the internet, whether it be for promotion, or like Max Hattler, putting the whole lot online and it not having done any harm to his profile, and then the ability to create work in a cheap and easy way from the bedroom.

All the works screened were created by digital means to a greater or lesser degree for a digital platform, and they were all good films, but I wasn't convinced that the digital tools are being used with proper thought, or to their full potential yet. Maybe it's a quiet revolution, or perhaps the definition of work as 'digital' is creating false expectations.

The Animals and Children took to the Streets

2011-12-13T03:25:00.000-08:00

1927 are performing their new show The Animals and Children Took to the Streets at the Cottesloe Theatre. Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt combine the excitement of live performance with the magic of animation so beautifully that the audience were chuckling with delight throughout, (especially the one's who got Granny's Gumdrops in green and white stripey bags). The show was 70 minutes long, and comprised of so many witty moments and clever references, both contemporary and all the way back to 1927. There were cockroaches scuttling up drainpipes and little puffs of animated dust in response to live action brooms, and the animated elevator took us to all the floors of the Bayou Mansions. The performers were really engaging and so musical. In short, it was really good. I did have a small reservation with the structure which I can't quite articulate. I tried to imagine what's at the centre of it, without all the magic mentioned above, and I can't see a strong idea there, which is maybe what was missing. Nonetheless, I urge you all to go (if you can get a ticket) and keep a close eye on 1927.

Baaa!

2011-12-02T02:14:00.001-08:00

I was inspired to make a fifteen second animation for the BAA sting competition. It just took two evenings and it's revolting, as you can see.

Punch & Judy

2011-11-28T11:38:00.001-08:00

Today at Anglia Ruskin we looked at Swankmajer's Punch & Judy, 1966, 9'55", as well as Cordell Barker's Runaway,2009, 9'10".
I was thinking about editing and Swankmajer has the magic. Of course it's also hard to resist a film in which a guinea pig is pampered in turn by two violent puppets. Cordell Barker's Runaway is a virtuosic piece of animation, it really rattles along, no baggy bits. We also saw Wisdom Teeth, 2010, 5'55" by Don Hertzfeldt, one long, slightly shrill, crazy joke.

Hampstead Heath

2011-11-25T01:45:00.001-08:00

or Hamster Teeth as it's known in our house.

Fairy tales

2011-11-23T05:27:00.001-08:00

Here are some stills taken from four experimental sequences that I made in Vienna. I'm going to start putting them together and re-filming some of them. They are a little bit like performances, they get better every time I film them, and they're never the same twice.

Kerry Baldry's One Minute Vol. Programme

2011-11-22T02:14:00.001-08:00

Kerry Baldry has programmed many volumes of one minute films, and she works hard to get them shown all over the place. My Little Skipper (shown below) is happy to be included in Vol. 4, and it's going to showing with 3 & 5 in Sydney at Peloton this week and next. Thank you Kerry.

2011-11-21T13:00:00.001-08:00

This was a little animation I made of Poppy and I a couple of summers ago, in Vienna. It's not rotoscoped, but I did use a video reference, sort of by eye. I've been looking at my old hard drives and I was pleased to see that I'd saved more than I thought I had.

crobinson the pimp

2011-11-18T01:37:00.001-08:00

is back.

More treasures

2011-11-14T13:27:00.001-08:00

I've been teaching a little bit on this module at Anglia Ruskin this semester and I've really enjoyed thinking about films that the students and I can watch together. Today we saw Yuri Norstein's film Tale of Tales, 27", 1979. Voted as the 'best animated film of all time' by a poll at the Zagreb Animated Film Festival in 2002, I would have voted for it too.

I've seen it many times, (not as many times as Clare Kitson!) and it always seems different, both in structure and in the ideas suggested. This time I noticed the rhythms of the movements that weave through the film, from the cradle, to the dancers, and the bull who flicks and turns the skipping rope. It's so simple and so complicated all at once and has such sincerity, goodness, if I'd seen Tale of Tales as a student, maybe I would have felt a little bit daunted?

Last week we saw Ruth Lingford's Death and the Mother, 11", 1997. It's based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale 'Story of a Mother'. I've admired the wonderful animation, the spare design and the gravity of the film before, but I had forgotten how very sad it is.

Plot treasure and Autumn

2011-11-14T13:19:00.001-08:00

We unearthed a lot of treasure from our allotment, not all of it edible. Here it is washed and on display.

and here is Londonfields looking so splendid and golden this autumn.

Your favourite ever British Animated Character

2011-11-08T01:35:00.000-08:00

This is quite a challenge. British Animation Awards are inviting nominations on the above topic.
I made my own shortlist and realised that it included many characters invented by Oliver Postgate including Jones the Steam from Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog. The Sagas of Noggin the Nog, are perhaps less well-known of his creations but totally engrossing, with fantastic baddies, (Noggin's black-hearted Uncle Nogbad the Bad) and properly gripping sticky situations for Noggin, who is wise and trustworthy but innocent too. You can buy the DVD here.

But in the end, I chose Nanny Plum from Ben and Holly. Oliver Postgate would win all five top slots for me if it were favourite series, but for favourite characters, faulty, irreverent, bossy Nanny Plum, voiced by Sarah Ann Kennedy is my role model at the moment, and she needs to be on that list.

Who are you going to chose?

( I forgot to add that you can see everyone's nominations here)

Museum of Childhood - Magic Worlds

2011-11-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

©V&A images

This wonderful poster is called 'Dragon', it's by Wayne Anderson from 1974 and advertises an exhibition at the Museum of Childhood called Magic Worlds, on until 4th February 2012. I've been. Oh yes. But I can't recall anything about the exhibition other than this beautiful fellow, because my young companions took it at such a lick. I did note that the show was full of treasures and magic and I plan to visit a second time asap.

Forking Paths Mirrored Chambers

2011-11-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is the title of a course about animation within Artist's Moving image led by Adam Pugh at Lux for Animate Projects. I couldn't make every Wednesday but I was glad to get a slice of the action last week thanks to Kim's trip to Dublin. I'm an animation anorak (DayGlo, sweaty) so this was pretty exciting. Adam has done a lot of thinking and each week he leads the group through a screening of works on a theme, with many literary references and related thoughts to accompany the films that can be mulled over or read later. The group seemed very sparkly and interesting too. Last week was about space and place. I especially enjoyed seeing Robert Breer's '69', 5", 1968 and Greg Pope's succinct film Moon Walk, 1", 2001.
Breer was brilliant to show in the context of other films relating to spaces and places because he is able to crisply delineates what space is and isn't, whilst also meddling with time in the same way. It's so playful and simple and every time I watch it something else occurs to me.

A still from Robert Breer's '69'

2011-10-31T03:06:00.000-07:00

Holkham

Happy Halloween.

We're ready, are you?

Animation and Laban

2011-10-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I participated in one of Sarah Perry's unique workshops designed to equip animators with some awareness of movement and acting. This workshop was based on Laban's effort's. It was really interesting to try and analyse movement through trying it all out, in the company of other animators.

Pas the Pasol & Musucl Bums

2011-10-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

We've been celebrating a special birthday here. We made some wrapping paper for pass the parcel (or hold onto it if you can) with a brilliant set of rubber stamps I bought on ebay over the summer.

F.Percy Smith

2011-10-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

If you have half an hour to spare, there's a lovely BBC Radio 4 iplayer programme about F. Percy Smith called The Balancing Bluebottle. I've mentioned him before in relation to the Watch Me Move show at the Barbican, where Birth of Flower (1910) was exhibited. The fantastic BFI archive has a few of his films online as well, this spidery one (using a mechanical fly) is really fantastic. Percy Smith aims to "administer the powder of instruction within the jam of entertainment." What a brilliant fellow he was, and a little bit eccentric too.

Wonders from the Zagreb School of Animation

2011-09-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

A still from Tup Tup by Nedeljko Dragić (1972)

I was very pleased to be asked to introduce a programme of short films programmed by Aline Conti from the Zagreb School of Animation showing today at the 31st Cambridge Film Festival. At the microphone, I was obliged to confess straight away that I have no expertise in the area of Zagreb Animation, just a sturdy admiration. I leapt at the chance to have a think about the films, relay my thoughts and the results of my research and sit in the dark and watch them all on the big screen.

The films screened were:

SAMAC (Alone) by Vatroslav Mimica, 13'09", 1958
SUROGAT (Ersatz) by Dušan Vukotić, 9'36", 1961
ZID (The Wall), 3'32", 1965
MUHA (The Fly) by Alexsandar Marks & Vladimir Jutriša, 8'16", 1966
MACKA (The Cat)by Zlatko Bourek, 10'10", 1971
TUP TUP by Nedeljko Dragić, 9'42", 1972
SATIEMANIA by Zdenko Gašparović, 14'15", 1978

A still from Muha (The Fly)
by Alexsandar Marks & Vladimir Jutriša (1966)

A still from Satiemania by Zdenko Gašparović (1978)

A still from Surogat (Ersatz) by Dušan Vukotić (1961)

The films were largely united in the use of a 'limited' style of cel animation, simple non-realistic design and movement, absence of dialogue, brilliant experimental sound design and an anecdotal focus on the small man encountering difficulties in a big world. My only reservation about the work was that occasionally these unsurmountable 'difficulties' were unresponsive women or fields of bosoms. (The films were all made by male animators.)

I really enjoyed MUHA (The Fly) by Alexsandar Marks & Vladimir Jutriša from 1966, it had a lovely circular narrative, extremely spare animation and some wonderful shots that were both uncanny and full of suspense. TUP TUP by Nedeljko Dragić was a fantastic film, the way that his frustration was animated with such a light yet vigorous touch was so pleasurable to watch. SUROGAT (Ersatz) by Dušan Vukotić was the first non US film to win an Oscar in 1962. The design was splendid and the gags very clever, I especially enjoyed the way that he put his swimming trunks on with his head buried in the sand and his bottom in the air. There's this brilliant humming tune, that's too catchy. Watch it on you tube and see if you'll be humming it too.

Animation Pimp

2011-09-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Chris Robinson's Animation Pimp all in one go, like the Arnaldur Indriðason's that whizz in and out of Hackney library on my card. His musings, rants, unvarnished self-revelatory details mostly relating to animation make for a unique experience for the animation community where everyone is generally kind about each other's films. You spend a year in penury in the dark, it's hard for people to tell you directly that you've wasted your time. I expect the outspoken nature of his writing gives him a bit of trouble, but whenever I've heard him spoken of, there's a touch of awe there too. Sometimes I'd love to write gonzo fashion, as he does, but I'm not nearly macho enough to deal with the consequences. You can read the Pimp at AWN with comments and all and the Pimp is returning in the Autumn.

"Don't worry, it's just animation, it has no real effect on people"

2011-09-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

It's always a treat to finish the summer with a serious blast of animation at LIAF, which gets better and better every year. It's lovely to catch up with old friends from near and afar and see so much great work.
The best films of the festival are shown on the last night, voted by the judges and audience votes, so it can lack the balance of a curated screening. This year the screening included some extraordinary works, but they were, without exception, expositions of bleak subjects (where were you Jonathan Jones?), they were, with one exception male, and they were all pretty long. Get Real by Evert de Beijer immersed the viewer in a demented biro scribbled computer game, the characters and design were pretty unique. David O Reilly 's External World (quoted in post title) was perhaps my favourite because it's so nuts, all the characters are completely revolting to each other, greedy, acquisitive or in the grip of a little drama, but it is also clever and thoughtful in it's way, embracing both the past and future of animation without concession. The spectacular new work by Blu, Big Bang, Big Boom is impressive, the film visits the same subject as in Ishu Patel's Bead Game (1977), but the canvas is Berlin, not beads. The technique has developed since the first film Muto, in that there are some interactions with objects and the environment, and in some cases people too. The excellent stop motion animation Bobby Yeah! was there too! Congratulations to Robert Morgan for winning Best British Animation. I did feel truly sick and wretched by the end, all that corned beef and toenails, and poor old deranged and innocent Bobby, who is egged on to acts of extreme violence by the lure of a red button that he can't seem to resist. YEAH!

Bravo! Very Nice, Very Nice

2011-09-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

In many ways Theodore Ushev and Arthur Lipsett are a perfect pair, but funnily enough Ushev's new film Lipsett Diaries isn't the most revealing part of their union. Last week at LIAF, Ushev showed nearly all of his films, which were The Man who Waited (2006), Tower Bawher (2005), Drux Flux (2008), Tzaritza (2006), Yannick-Nezet- Seguin: No Intermission (2010) & Lipsett Diaries (2011). What a daring and dynamic body of work and whilst he appropriates different styles and mediums, there's a strong graphic sensibility that is evident throughout. As if watching most of Ushev's films wasn't exciting enough, he then presented the films of Arthur Lipsett. Very Nice, Very Nice was made in 1961 when Lipsett was in his early 20's. It's so beautifully and confidently assembled. He used film scooped from the floor of the NFB and he cut together a collage of still images, the sound is key in creating the humour, although the films are very much political works, and evidently made by a melancholic. Lipsett's films 21-87 (1964) Free Fall (1964) and A Trip Down Memory Lane (1965) followed. They are all worth watching on the NFB's digital archive, which is where I first came upon the films of Arthur Lipsett last year.

Theodore Ushev was brought to Lipsett by a series of coincidences, and Chris Robinson (Director of the Ottawa Animation Festival) joined him by writing a script that sprang from Lipsett's films. There are no diaries. Ushev has created the film using thousands of beautiful paintings, the impression is of great restlessness, which clearly chimes with the subject. The film is very masterful and engaging, but I would tentatively suggest that seeing the work of Ushev and Lipsett together was thrilling enough, and I'm not sure what more Lipsett's Diaries was able to add. Ushev hopes that a curiosity can be created about the overlooked Lipsett, and I'm sure that he will succeed. This film is sure to arouse that curiosity and also sure to enjoy as much success as his other works.

Marina Warner

2011-09-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

photo by Kim Noce

Marina Warner gave a wonderful talk in the Barbican Art Gallery last week, in relation to the Watch me Move Show, specifically she was talking about the history of shadow play in relation to Lotte Reiniger, Kara Walker and William Kentridge. Just as she does in her brilliant books, Marina Warner managed to both ground the subject of shadow in history and set it free to enjoy quite new associations, it was all in all, a very envigorating experience for the brain.

The Corinthian Maid or The Origin of Painting by Joseph Wright of Derby 1782
(NGA, Washington)

I'm still trying to put the pieces together myself, and this is a very limited account to help my memory and further thoughts. She started with Joseph Wright of Derby's painting of Dibutades recording the sleeping silhouette of her lover, just before he departs on a perilous journey, with only a spear and a dog to protect him.
Philip James de Loutherberg was the creator of the Eidophusikon presented in Leicester square in 1781. This was a 6ft by 8ft miniature mechanical theatre in which lamps, pulleys and stained glass slides were used to recreate dramatic scenes from nature. It must have been very exciting but certainly eclipsed by the "fantasmagorie" of Etienne Gaspard "Robertson" Robert which took place in the Capuchin Convent near the Place Vendome. The residents and visitors to post-revolutionary Paris were delighted to be frightened out of their wits with his show which depicted ghosts and skeletons emerging from a lightening-filled sky. He created these effects by using multiple projectors, a magic lantern on wheels, a waxed screen and eerie sound effects.
The shadow moved from mass entertainment to the home in the Victorian era, when there was a need to be seen to contain the fear and control the phantoms but also entertain all those children tumbling around the parlour. It looked as if Dad got his scissors out and made shadows on the wall with the help of a candle. This was also the time of Arthur Rackham, who used his scissors to make silhouettes as well as the wonderful drawings, this one below is from Cinderella.

Marina Warner showed a lovely image of Lotte Reiniger's magical trick table, which she thought of as a magic horse or flying machine in which was able to take flight as an artist and filmmaker. She told us that through listening to other writers on film (one of whom I remember was Ian Christie) she had been interested in the idea that the characters depicted in Reiniger's work are not shadows that materialise on the screen, but entities in their own right.

As well as outlining the historical background she also touched upon the concept of shadow and the material of shadow and it's metaphorical association with shade and darkness. In this context she showed the works of William Kentridge and Kara Walker, both of whom embrace the political aspects of the material that they work with. They both deserve more than a few sentences at the end here so I shall endeavour to write about them again. In brief, Kara Walker revisits sites of 'darkness' in the American consciousness by satirising the literature of abolition, slavery and the civil war using enormous silhouettes, which are beautiful and very difficult to look at. William Kentridge uses a direct animation method (as I often do). He draws on an enormous piece of paper with charcoal and erases each frame before recording a new one, he refers to his method as 'stone age' animation, and Marina Warner suggested that he does this to 'thicken time and add memory'. I think I can see what he means.

The Power of Mr Christie's Love

2011-08-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

How fast the year has gone, it's LIAF again already.

Last night was the opening night. I especially enjoyed seeing Don Hertzfeldt's Wisdom Teeth (2010) followed by the world premiere of Phil Mulloy's 2nd feature in the Christies Trilogy Dead but Not Buried (2011). Two fearless, industrious and single-minded animators who know how to take an idea to it's conclusion and then many, many frames beyond. In the case of Wisdom Teeth, the action of pulling a friends stitch out of his swollen mouth stretched to five glorious minutes, whilst Phil Mulloy has used a bare 108 drawings to create his 80 minute feature film Dead but not Buried. I didn't miss the other 119,892, the characters were each properly described with just 9 drawings made on a tablet, all close ups, some from the front and some from the side. It was only Tina that we saw in long shot, and that was necessary to illustrate the results of her encounter with sharks in the Pacific ocean. In keeping with the spare imagery, the dialogue is read by the computer, the limitations of which provide a great deal of humour. The film has quite a traditional narrative structure, a quest and a denouement in a (very) dark cave in which the bad guys fight each other to the death about who is going to bring peace and love into the world. The journey is dark but transformative for all and even angry little Terry has an epiphany. It's really great, see it as soon as you can, infact see anything of Phil Mulloy's and in the meantime LIAF is on all week at the Barbican.

Fun, fun, innocent fun?

2011-08-23T06:32:00.000-07:00

Of course it's good that the Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones has reviewed the Barbican's Watch me Move show but I wish he'd spent a big longer in there and engaged with the work as he might have with any other art form.
(I'm going to resist posting a comment on the Guardian blog)(I am)

What's going on here?

2011-08-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

The ins and outs of my vampire story are still lost on the small people who pop in and out of my studio, so I'm doing some work to clarify the narrative today. It involves swapping frames around here and there but also I'm adding guide music and sounds today. I've found some lively Balkan folk music to give me a flavour, here at the comprehensive Dunav resource. (The Frombald story is Serbian.) I've also been experimenting with printing in two colours and making fades with the rubber stamps by not visiting the ink pad between impressions. The technique creates an eye-wateringly frenzied pace, so I have to think of ways that I can slow it down, or make little breaks without loss of vitality.

Yikes

2011-08-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

A traumatic incident occurs in my film:

2011-08-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some villagers and Frombald in the hotel dining room from yesterday. I'm printing them onto 35mm film and then scanning them one by one. I've had some help digitising them from a very talented young animator Isabel Garrett.

Robert Breer and Everything Goes

2011-08-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

I was very sorry to hear that Robert Breer died yesterday. What a wonderful artist he was. (Here is a link to a good article in the NY Times.)

Coq au Vin on the menu

2011-08-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here we all are in Cinema 2 at the Barbican last night. From right to left Chris Shepherd, Tim Webb, Stuart Hilton, me and Adam Pugh, skillfully guiding the discussion. Gary Thomas had asked us to chose an influential film to accompany the screening of our Animate films, it was a peachy opportunity. I chose Al Sens's The See Hear Talk Think Dream and Act Film (1965), which I've never had the chance to see, but reading about the special 'spit' technique that he employed certainly made me think that animation could be for me too back in 1996. In answer to my request Gary said "What!?" (which meant the film was too long). In the end I chose Jeff Keen's thrilling trilogy of films Cineblatz, White Lite and Marvo Movie from 1967/8.

Here is the full list of films shown:
Dad's Dead by Chris Shepherd, 2002
15th February by Tim Webb, 1995
The Emperor by Elizabeth Hobbs, 2001
Save me by Stuart Hilton, 1994
Home Road Movies by Robert Bradbrook, 2002 (Chris's choice)
A Man and His Dog Out for Air by Robert Breer, 1958 (Stuart's choice)
Particles in Space by Len Lye, 1979 (Stuart's choice)
Cineblatz, White Lite, Marvo Movie by Jeff Keen, 1967/8 (Mine)

We were missing Swankmajer's The Last Trick, which was chosen by Tim, but not available on the night.

Adam asked us to reflect on our Animate commissions and to assess it's impact on our careers. For me it was fascinating to hear how the others felt about and tackled their films. The reflections became melancholy in the light of the present lack of funding for animated shorts, especially funding like Animate! which allowed so much freedom. However we were forgetting that Jeff Keen, Len Lye and Robert Breer are all independent artists with 40 years of productivity each. That's one of the reasons that Jeff Keen is an inspiration to me, as well as the fact that he makes work with what he has to hand, and that his works are gleefully anarchic and quite mysterious. One of my favourite moments was when Chris Shepherd was talking about the appreciation of independent animated short films. Imagine you have Burger and chips every day, then one day you find Coq au Vin on the menu. Try it, you might even like it!

Animate Projects

2011-08-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night I'm going to be going to the Barbican for a night with Animate Projects. Gary Thomas is going to be doing a gallery talk at 6.30pm focusing on experimental animation and the Animate scheme, then there is a panel talk at 7.30pm in Cinema 2 led by Adam Pugh with Stuart Hilton, Tim Webb, Chris Shepherd and me. Gary asked us to choose an influential film to show alongside one of our Animate pieces. I'll let you know how I get on or maybe see you there.

Bobby Breer and Bobby Boo

2011-08-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

We also went to a beautiful quaker chapel, with Bobby Boo.

Robert Breer and Everything Goes

2011-08-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

Robert Breer's work seemed very well placed at Baltic. It's a friendly gallery and the work is being enjoyed not just by the visitors. The gallery attendants also seemed to take great pleasure in the work on the 4th floor, often having to don white gloves and attend to the motorised float sculptures as they occasionally got into difficulties bumbling independently and imperceptibly to and fro.

On the 3rd floor there was a 16mm projection of REcreation on a loop in a black box in the centre of the gallery. I always wondered whether what Noel Burch is saying makes sense, and I think the answer is both not quite, and perfectly, within the context of the film. It seems that Breer made the work, showed it to Burch, who went away and wrote a nonsense poem, with puns that refer to the images, that Breer recorded and edited to the image. It's only a minute long and it has a perfect tension, I often hold my breath for most of the film. Outside the black box the individual frames are set behind some plexiglass, I had to count the frames to make sure they were all there but then I really appreciated the linear illustration of the work. I'm not sure why they had been blown up to 35mm though. There are 2 mutoscopes from the 1960's, I wonder what they would have looked like in revolution, one of them was 3D with two eyesights and two sets of paper in circulation. The flip books were equally tantalising, you can get a little look inside some of them on the link to gb agency if you click on drawings and paintings.

Another highlight for me was seeing the A5 index cards that he works upon, showing small sequences from Fuji, 66, and 69. The colours were still extremely vivid in the frames from Fuji, where the colour is mostly spray painted. The cards elegantly illustrate his simple technique and the spareness of his imagery, but it's within the camera that he creates the extraordinary and magical associations.

The animations were shown in pairs in boxes around the edge of the 4th floor and on monitors on the 3rd. I've seen the films quite a few times and sometimes with the man himself and his brilliant stories, but a full retrospective would be good now, a Breer immersion in the dark of the cinema really swills out the brain like a tonic.

2011-07-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the new sequences from Frombald that I was scanning today.

2011-07-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

My administrator and his revolting villagers

2011-07-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks I've had time to get along with my vampire film Frombald which I've been making (very slowly) for a couple of years. Before I came to animation I spent from 1992-2002 making prints using stone lithography, screenprinting and woodcut, so I'm pleased to return to the tools and methods of relief printing to make this film. I've mentioned this before but I'm printing directly onto 35mm using rubber stamps. I've carved about a hundred stamps so far which I've printed onto the filmstock in different configurations and loops, I can review the sequences on my Acmade Compeditor and then I'll scan them digitally so that I can add sound, all of this in the bathroom bog of course.

I'll try and take some studio snapshots tomorrow.

Folly for a Flyover

2011-07-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

While I'm at it, I thought I would post a picture of the Folly for a Flyover too. It's a good summer to be staying at home in East London, I expect next summer might have some attractions too but not having been lucky with golden tickets we'll see how it shapes up. We might well rent our house to Usain Bolt and head for Bologne or Naples.

Treasures on our plot

2011-07-20T14:36:00.001-07:00

All Aboard!

2011-07-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here's Nina Pope on her very popular Floating Cinema at the Laburnum Boat Club for the premiere of the animation that I made with the young people at the club. Nina is looking expectant because the kids jumped on and off the boat from all sides. It was very exhilarating for me to be upon the water for the evening with friends and film fans. We moored at the Waterhouse Restaurant for the latter part of the evening and showed the film many times to groups of 12 people at a time.

Laburnum Boat Club

2011-07-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

I've been busy making a little film with the Laburnum Boat Club. It's a fantastic youth club on the canal, and if I was 9 years old again I would spend every Saturday there messing about in boats on the canal.
I was commissioned by Floating Cinema to go there for a day's workshop in June and make a film to go with the Nature of Bow, a film that I made in 2003 with older members of the community in Bow.
The new film is called The Nature of Laburnum Boat Club and it will premiere next week on the Floating Cinema as part of the Shoreditch Festival.

East London is quite the place to be.

I'm Not Moving

2011-07-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

We've been back to Watch me Move, this time with a small appreciative crowd, here they are watching Tron. It's certainly an exciting exhibition in my opinion, and they have included a lot of work by filmmakers working with animation in the broadest sense; the Themersons, Harry Smith, Fischinger, Stan Brakhage,and Martin Arnold, to name but a few. It would have been a perfect introduction to the world of animation for students, but sadly it finishes just before the next semester begins.

The artefacts relating to animation are beautiful and eye-catching, especially a zoopraxiscope of Muybridge's called Galloping Horses, Multiple Phases and a pair of magic lantern slides depicting Alice in Wonderland made by W.R Hill in 1876. In the same space are some models and armatures, including an extremely expressive Were Rabbit. However the objects don't quite offer a comprehensive overview of pre-cinematic devices or a context for the puppets and models. Especially muddling is the cabinet of action figures, merchandising from cartoons (x-men, superman etc) placed too high up for smaller viewers and though attractive en masse, not so pertinent to the show.

It's not really a gripe from me though, there are plenty of other places to access the historical or technical context, not least the National Media Museum and The Museum of Childhood, plus there are so many erudite speakers and interesting panels over the period of the exhibition that the Barbican will be my second home over the summer. See you there!

Caroline Leaf

2011-07-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

Caroline Leaf gave a very inspiring talk and demonstration in the hot little green room at the Watch Me Move show last night. She has previously referred to her technique as being like a 'particular sort of performance', and so it was last night at the Barbican as she carefully recreated an encounter between her ill fated Owl and Goose for us. She made changes to her frame under a live camera and then said "click, click" to represent the recording of two frames. It was very mesmerising and exciting to see her working, and how generous she is in sharing all her tips and techniques. You can see a step by step guide to sand animation and her other techniques on her website.

After the demonstration, Caroline talked about the spontaneity of working in a direct technique, where mistakes are often incorporated, (though strictly if they serve the narrative of the story). What was most interesting to hear was that she taught herself to draw the camera moves or changes of shot I think for economical reasons, because she didn't want to shoot more than she needed and hadn't an editor for her earlier films. Critically she feels the straight-ahead technique encourages great rigour but also offers freedom, which is of course obvious in her films, but this is why she now uses sand to teach some of these disciplines at the NFTS. Those lucky old students.

Excitingly the wonderful filmmaker Kayla Parker is writing a PHD thesis about gender and creative practice in direct animation and here on her website she has shared a few of her thoughts, a few of which chime with those of Ruth Lingford's which I wrote about on an earlier posting. I shall definately watch out for Kayla's written work or presented thoughts.

Felix Massie

2011-07-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

What a brilliant website I'm So very Jealous.

LIAF - The Best of the Fest... Ever

2011-07-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

My Old, Old Man and I had a thrilling outing at the Barbican last night, he did his thing - partied and died, and I got to chat about it afterwards in fine company (see above). Joseph Pierce made Stand Up, which is old news compared to his equally excellent Family Portrait. The films are very well crafted in every aspect, the script, the live action and the drawing. Robert Morgan, who made The Cat with Hands in 2001 and many other films in between was showing his new sex comedy Bobby Yeah! for the first time. It was created chronologically, over 3 years and had a real flavour of Mr Bickford's wonderful work, not just the solo guitar and brilliant stop motion animation but the enjoyable though despotic 'just where the hell are we going here?' There was a good question: 'Are you all crazy?' and a pertinent comment from Ruth Lingford, who pointed out that out of the 9 films chosen to represent best of LIAF, only one was made by a woman. She felt that women were less visible in the world of animation than they were 10 years ago. I think Channel 4 had a lot to do in addressing the gender imbalance within the industry, and now that everything is economically squeezed again, maybe women in particular feel less able to take risks and put their necks out.

Šwankmajer's Alice

2011-06-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

Although it was exciting to see Jan Šwankmajer in person, it was almost better to see his feature film Alice from 1988 again and in one go. I remember seeing it serialised on the television and noting that it was extraordinary but it was nothing to a 86 minute immersion. What I especially liked is the fact that there is no spare animation to the frame, the editing is beautiful, the story uncompromisingly Alice (although without a Cheshire Cat - who liked him anyway?) Alice is played by a mesmerisingly beautiful child who is appropriately bold and grubby and inclined to petty acts of malevolence. The poor old stuffed rabbit (who was created by Eva, Šwankmajer's wife) kept leaking sawdust from a rip in his tummy and the sight was more shocking than blood would have been in it's place. There are socks, false teeth and eyeballs collected to create a caterpillar, fish skeleton's and animated meat and then the brilliant queen, cut from playing cards who properly snips off heads here and there.

Šwankmajer talked a little about the background to making the film, his own background (puppets), surrealism and the politics of filmmaking in the Czech Republic. It was interesting to hear him talking unhindered with his friend (who's name I can't find), who was also a surrealist artist. Peter Hames obviously knows his stuff but was a bit fidgety and unfocused, and the audience were very keen to chip in but the questions were mostly quite long which made them hard to translate and the so flow was generally lost after a while.

2011-06-16T05:41:00.001-07:00

Watch me Move - The Animation Show

2011-06-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

Wendy and I have been to the opening of Watch me Move, it's such a wopping exhibition that sensibly having put refreshments first, we weren't able to even get upstairs by the time we were ushered from the gallery. So I don't certainly feel in a position to make a detailed report at this juncture. The early part looked really great though, very thorough, all the films that I would have in my top 20 plus many that I didn't know about or havn't seen including Percy Smith's Birth of a Flower from 1910. A very early, very poetic film capturing flowers opening using timelapse. Smith adapted his film set-up with candle wicks, pieces of meccano, door handles and gramophone needles to record the flowers even while he slept, a large bell being set to ring and wake him up if anything went wrong!

In the exhibition space the early films were projected onto hanging cloth, the fabric creating little spaces here and there, while the films with soundtracks were three or four to a room, faced by sitting booths (modelled by Wendy below) with speakers in the roof of the booth. It was still hard to sequester the appropriate sound for the film you were watching, but I don't know how else you could show so many films in one space. Headphones are tangly and impractical for projected work. Anyway, it promises to be an exciting time with all the concomitant visitors and screenings. I'll try and keep abreast of it all for any far away visitors to this blog.

2011-06-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

Here is our last picture of Stromness, our friend Bec helpfully waving a white towel. Bye!

2011-06-09T12:48:00.001-07:00

Our incredible journey

2011-06-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

We've been to Orkney and back this week, over land and sea. We weren't prepared for such beautiful weather*. What a splendid place, all the more so for having dear friends to visit.

*which is why I wont post a picture of us swimming Hazel

Maurizio Pollini's standing ovation

2011-05-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

He really deserved it, those notes are still rattling around my head. The rest of London appeared to be next door at the Queen Elizabeth Hall listening to John Berger and Tilda Swinton. What a city this is. Must get out more.

Wonderland

2011-05-20T03:25:00.000-07:00

The Trouble with Love and Sex is an interesting animated documentary on BBC iplayer, you can watch it until June 22nd. Directed by Zac Beattie and with the brilliant Jonathan Hodgson directing the animation, the film is a real peep into 5 people's experience of receiving regular counselling at Relate. It's a very moving film, and extremely sensitively made, the animation providing anonymity for the participants, sometimes though the picture adhered over cautiously to a version of the live action, when I wanted it to provide a counterpoint or to add something extra more often. Maybe it would have been too risky, the film has been really popular with the general public, which is encouraging because it's the first feature length animated documentary commissioned by the BBC (can this really be true?). I hope there will be more.

2011-05-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

We have to go through the Olympic site every few days to get to our potatoes, and we are often drawn to the Container cafe next to the view tube for great coffee. Here is ArcelorMittal Orbit going up through the window, Anish Kapoor must feel cock a hoop.

Breer

2011-05-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Goodness! I shall be heading North as soon as this Robert Breer exhibition opens at Baltic next month. There's also an interesting seminar called Kinetic Colour presented by Star & Shadow Cinema on the 18th June, featuring splendid Gary Thomas and Pip Chodorov.

Monster Soup

2011-05-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Emily and I are developing our interest in all things germ related having finished our lovely First Light film - The Germinator. Just as well that there's a good exhibition about Dirt at the Wellcome Trust. It features this brilliant image from 1828, dedicated to the London Water Companies, when the Thames was particularly monster soupy. One of the highlights was finding three animations commissioned and owned by the Deutsches Hygiene Museum in Dresden in the 1960's. I've found one on here. You must wash your apple before you eat it, like Snow White, and another one here.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas is quoted in the exhibition: "Dirt is just matter out of place", which reminds me, I have to move some of my matter into a different place.

Swankmajer

2011-05-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Animation friends - don't miss the wonderful Swankmajer's visit to the Barbican on June 16th at 7.30pm. You can still get tickets. See you there!

Bed & Sofa

2011-05-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

I saw this lovely silent film from our sofa, but I notice that you could also catch it at the BFI this month. It was made in 1927, written by Viktor Shklovsky and directed by Abram Room. It's a complicated story told so cleverly, every shot just right. I must try and be a bit more spare.

The Compeditor

2011-04-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's difficult to describe how exciting and useful this is, being able to see my tests straight away. Thank you to Graham and to Bazza's Bazaar.

Hello strangers

2011-04-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

I'm currently preparing for some activity of the animated variety, so I shall close my door on the beams of sunlight and the sound of bongos that accompanies it around here. My studio is a health and safety concern though and is presently only accessible by diving head first in from the doorway so first I must make a space. A large space for a new acquisition, for I hope to be the proud owner of an Acmade Compeditor this week or next, and then I start some more tests on my vampire film Frombald.

Show us your shorts

2011-03-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

I showed some of my shorts last night at a WFTV & LIAF event at Deluxe Soho. I was on a panel in the company of Magdalena Osinska and Suzanne Deakin, it was really nice to catch up with LIAF news and think about animation a bit. It was easy to see why Suzanne has been so successful as a commercial animator. Talent plays a large role of course but also she has a very positive attitude to the processes and challenges of working commercially. My favourite animation of hers is the Olay 'The End of Lines', you can see it here on the Slinky website. Magdalena can animate anything! I saw Zbigniev's Cupboard in the summer, but I hadn't realised that she also made 'Joyets', she's so versatile, it's no wonder she's currently busy at Aardman.

Spring!

2011-03-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

This is a little timelapse sequence that I took this time last year. The exciting event will probably happen again quite soon.

Small recreational excitements

2011-03-03T04:53:00.000-08:00

Our potatoes and our coffee in the shed and an absorbing trip to the Wallace collection.

My excuses

2011-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

I have been having a busy patch and I admit guiltily that I have been contributing to another blog, temporarily neglecting my own news from the bog. Emily Tracy and I have been helping Gayhurst Community School to make their First Light film about sneezing and germs and you can read all about it on their blog. We've been helping the children to make an experimental animation with archive footage; we spend alot of time frowning and scribbling notes between workshops because we are trying out ideas and techniques that are strange and new to us both. Of course the children take it all in their stride and with glee and gusto.

I have also returned to Anglia Ruskin University to teach a little bit on the animation module, which I always really enjoy and next week Wendy Scott and I start a Creative Partnerships project near Tilbury Town.

To Paris and Back

2010-12-10T04:24:00.000-08:00

With grateful thanks to my parents-in-law for keeping our home life together, we were able to skip merrily off to the Festival of Different and Experimental Films in Paris, there was time to go to the Pompidou centre to see the wopping Mondrian de Stijl exhibition, the Cluny Museum and many cafes of course.

Snowy leaves, birdy footsteps and squirrel looking in.

2010-12-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Other things

2010-11-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

I'm really enjoying the more thought-provoking posts on A P Engine at the moment, read Adam Pugh if you can, I wonder if he's grown a full beard and writes in a shed. It's Great stuff. Samantha Moore has also written a very elegant piece on Animated Documentaries, she makes a very welcome addition to the discourse around animation. It's really good to read some longer articles, a nice antidote to the all the tweet tweeting.

First Light Green Light

2010-11-19T05:57:00.000-08:00

Emily Tracy & I are really pleased to announce that we have been awarded a First Light Young Film Fund Pilot Grant to work with pupils at Gayhurst Community School. We are going to be making an experimental animated film based on a film from the BFI archive. You can see Coughs and Sneezes here. It's a little sadistic but very funny.

Dead Peter and the mob

2010-11-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

I've managed to make a re start on Frombald again. I've remembered what I was doing and why I like the story so much. I'm sure I'll be able to enlarge upon that later. For the meantime here is what I've been up to today. I've been printing onto 35mm with rubber stamps that I'm carving by hand, and colouring with watercolour. The shots will be comprised of little loops, this method will make the work necessarily spare in both line and motion, it's an exciting restriction.

Monster, Yuck on Head & Pirate Hobbs

2010-11-08T04:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at the LCFF we made flipbooks using live action and drawing. Here are my three examples before I bound them, totally trumped by the very brilliant books from the workshop participants. I used Istopmotion to capture and print the live action images and I found some very handy self adhesive book cloth from Shepherd's to cover the stapled edge.

Tigers, Fangs and Shamans

2010-11-05T08:49:00.001-07:00

Today I've put my KT Tunstall animations on my Youtube channel and I've also managed to put them on my website without breaking it, so you can watch them easily and issue rude comments if you like.

London Animation Club

2010-11-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

Last night Kim and I went to the marvellous monthly London Animation Club, beautifully run by Martin Pickles. People come along and show work in progress, finished and polished work and archive animations too and the mixture works very well. It's spurred me on a bit.

Papercuts

2010-11-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

I've been busy making invitations for a family party.

2 Autumns

2010-11-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

It feels as if we're having a second autumn doesn't it?

Happy Halloween

2010-11-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Actually this is exactly what my studio looks like at the moment.

Salisbury

2010-11-04T05:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Salisbury Cathedral and enjoyed the little model of the cathedral being constructed. I'd always wondered how and now I know.

Puffin, Tadpole & Platypus

2010-11-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

I made 3 little monoprints for my brother and Harry.

2010-11-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

I havn't added many postings recently, I'm sorry if you looked and there was nothing new here. I blame Damages, plus a little bit of plot maintenance, and a few workshops at the Barbican and NPG.

Here we are eating all the tomatoes before they get home.

Little two page animations

2010-09-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

This week pupils at Gayhurst Community School made some lovely two page animations on an abstract theme with Emily Tracy and me.

Big news flash!

2010-09-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

If you have a low spell at your desk you can see the aforementioned 'The Making of a Tiger Suit' on the Scottish Sun website today. Two of the animations are in the documentary and two are at the end.

K T Tunstall

2010-09-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to announce that four little animations that I was commissioned to make are included in 'The Making of a Tiger Suit', a documentary made to accompany the delux version of K T Tunstall's new album Tiger Suit out in the UK on Monday. I think people are already whistling along to (Still a) Wierdo. It was just about my first foray into the grubby world of commercial work and it was great, thanks to the extremely nice KT. Bring it on I say. Give me a call P Diddy I'll flush the loo once more. Spellbound is ready.

LIAF cont...

2010-09-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to miss out on noting down some other favourites from the festival this year.. One was Silas Money's RCA film Self Service in which flashing frames of supermarket food stuffs create a narrative that doesn't quite travel a linear path, it was vital and intuitively made, no fuss. The whole of the British Showcase was strong this year, Tramdeutung, Matter Fisher, Txt Island, The Eagleman's Stag and Zbigniev's Cupboard were all especially impressive. It's exciting to think that there are so many new British filmmaker's setting sail.

The Direct to Film showcase was a little bit disappointing, the works often lacked structure and some really missed a trick by not screening a film print. Apart from the crazy Dialogues by Ulo Pikkov, I liked Judith Poirier's Dialogue, sound and image made with letraset, but it couldn't live up to the extraordinary Dresden Dynamo made by Lis Rhodes in 1971. Admittedly all the competition films were butted up against Steven Woloshen's mini retrospective and the historical classics, and this undoubtedly gave them a disadvantageous context.

Steven's films are both masterful and playful, and really joyful to watch. He really works with his sound tracks, which are mostly grand or jazzy and suit projection in the cinema extremely well. Steven is also a generous filmmaker and spread's the word about cameraless film wherever he travels. His book Recipes for Reconstruction can be bought directly from him, and I would advise it if you're interested in doing some experiments with celluloid. Like me. It was brilliant to see the historical classics in the cinema, all 5 of them, but especially Caroline Leaf's Two Sisters from 1991. I think you could learn everything there is to know about animation from Caroline Leaf's wonderful body of work.
More later I hope.

Best of the Fest LIAF

2010-09-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

I've made it through my first film festival juror experience, I enjoyed it alot because of the very lovely other jury members (see previous post), Nag and Malcom, the quality of the films and the nice red wine at the Renoir. I'm sure it's on the LIAF www but we gave our Best of the Fest prize to Angry Man by Anita Killi and Best British Film to Joseph Pierce's film Family Portrait.
Below are some blurry photographs in which you can see us conveying our results to Nag and splendid Malcom Turner, Nag and Malcom on the sofa, and Linda McCarthy on the microphone introducing her film The Grand Easter Egg Hunt amongst the other filmmakers in the British Animation programme. Have a look at Linda's animations, she makes puppets with ceramic parts, animating them using the replacement technique.
We all liked the two films mentioned above very much of course, but there were many other excellent films in the competition programme too, films from Estonia, the NFB and the RCA largely dominating. So we gave some honourable mentions too. Runaway by Cordell Barker has completely exquisite comic timing, to the frame. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen for a second and I could watch it 10 more times with ease. I'm a huge fan of Tad's Nest by Petra Freeman, I enjoy it every time I see it, it's so eerie and I love the way the scale changes, and the scuttling noises (amongst other things). Ines Sedan's The Man who Slept was another thought provoking wopper from the NFB, a really good, engaging narrative with a lovely ending. Bellies by Phillippe Grammaticopolous, was a wonderful follow up to his earlier film The Regulator (2005), the same spare white environment representing a moment of judgement or epiphany and this is a film that judges and punishes big fat capitalists with tiny hands. I've run out of time today, but I have a few more personal favourites to mention.

LIAF

2010-09-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

This week, as previously mentioned, I'm attending all the competitive programmes at LIAF with my fellow jurors, seen below in the midst of a dry and serious debate. You can see the great animator Laurie Hill, Film London's Anna Faithfull and the festival's special guest from Canada, Steven Woloshen. This year's programme seems very strong so far, and I'm really enjoying seeing so many films in one go, and having the chance to discuss them in fine company. Discretion prevents me from mentioning topics of our debate at this juncture, perhaps you could get a ticket for Best of the Fest (quickly) and you'll be able to find out what we thought.

Pleasure Gardens

2010-09-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

Upstaged

2010-08-27T13:52:00.001-07:00

I enjoy painting portraits of pets for friends and family (only) and I was very pleased with my portrait of Toby for my mother in law, until George showed me his one, rustled up in a matter of minutes, so full of beans.

LIAF

2010-08-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

The London International Animation Festival starts today - hooray! I shall wash and find my raincoat and set off there forthwith. I am lucky this year because I am on duty as a juror and I think that means watching almost all the programmes and a free cobra beer. I'm sure I'll have a bit to say about it all afterwards.

2010-08-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

We're home again, a bit dusty and tired. What a trip we had!

2010-08-21T11:59:00.001-07:00

The Alpujarra's

2010-08-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make a tidy connection between my holiday and an earlier post because some of the scenes from Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad were filmed at the Alhambra but I havn't been nearly cool enough to think straight. The Sinbad production was permitted to use the palace grounds in the daylight hours and the volume of tourists meant all interior shots had to be filmed at night.

Anyway for the family members following our progress in Spain (and for others please forgive this interlude) we took to the open road and spent the day in the mountains.

Alhambra Museum

2010-08-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

A water trough at the Alhambra Museum showing the common royal motif of ferocious lions attacking their prey.

I think we are going every day Hazel!

Tunnels and rills

2010-08-18T11:45:00.001-07:00

at Generalife today

Come on! I want an ice cream (me)

The Alhambra

2010-08-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Today, at last, we got to the Alhambra, it was really wonderful, despite being a long and dusty and sometimes sticky and cross day for everyone. We have to go back next week because we ran out of time and still havn't been to Generalife.

Sevilla

2010-08-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

We have made it to beautiful Seville and back.