The lions and the lambs ain't sleeping yet

Look at this sheep, it is literally jumping for joy, just like us, because...

...Spin Spun Span has been shortlisted for Best Commissioned Film at this year's British Animation Awards. Supercool! Fingers crossed we make it to the final three finalists...

Also, don't forget we are additionally nominated in the Public Choice category, and screenings are all over everywhere at the moment. I am going to the one at BFI Southbank with Emily and the aged P's.

There's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up

We did a music video a little while ago for Jumeee, R'nB popstar and dance choreographer extraordinaire, and he's releasing the single today. The song's called Back To The Future, and the video has already been featured on both Radar Music Video and Directors Notes, yes! Jumeee also recently performed the song at Westfield shopping Centre - the new one in Stratford I think - and won a competition for some recording time. Hooray for Jumeee. Would you like to see and listen...?

Now I'm all in a muddle

In frankly awesome news, Muddle Earth, which I animated on last year, has been nominated for a BAFTA! It's up for a Children's Award in Animation. Wow wow wow! Congratulations to Sarah Muller, Phil Chalk, Vinnie James and everyone else who made Muddle Earth so ace to work on. Hope we win!!!

1, 2, 3, 4, tell me that you love me more

Emily and I have made an entry for this year's e4 ident competition, soundtracked by Puppet Orchestra as always. Would you like to see it? If you click this, then you can! And if you like it, you can click the "yay" rating. If you don't like it, you can click the "nay" button, but I wouldn't recommend that.

Everybody loves to love a winner

...Well not quite a winner, but a runner-up, for Spin Spun Span was shortlisted for Shooting People's May Film of the Month prize, thanks to many people's nice votes. The top three were judged by filmmaker Lena Dunham, and whilst she did not choose us as her number one, she said:

“Evocative, feels handmade in just the right way. Very lovely.”

Thank you kindly, Lena Dunham.

We make the dirt go flying with the shovels and hoes

What does this wreath mean? It means we have been officially selected for this year's Rushes Soho Shorts, and that is ace. You can see Spin Spun Span at the festival, in the Animation Competition at some point in late July. I am not sure when because they have not finalised the program. Spin Spun Span has got into a few festivals recently, including Wimbledon Short Film Festival, where it has been shortlisted for the Best Film prize. That is in June, on the 18th, how exciting!

Also in June is the Wellcome Trust's Dirt exhibition, where A Film about Poo will be showing in a special screening curated by Encounters! I just sent off the tape to them yesterday. The screening will be June 19th, the day after the Wimbledon screening, and also Father's Day. I wish I could go, but I can't afford to go back to London at the moment, having been back quite recently. I am very pleased though because I had already seen posters for the exhibition on the tube, and thought it looked good, and now we are in it! Thanks to Encounters for thinking of us for the program.

And that's not all! Spin Spun Span will also be showing in competition at Anima Mundi Animation Festival in Brazil, in July. I would also really love to go to Brazil, but that is not happening either. So many screenings, so little time (and money). Maybe next year!

Resurrected, living in a lighthouse

Remember a while ago I mentioned Behind the Light, a documentary by Ronan Glynn and Liberty Smith that Emily and I animated on...? Well, it won Shooting People's Film of the Month competition for April! The results were just announced today, and Nick Cave, of Bad Seeds fame, decided to make it the winner. Congratulations Ronan and Liberty!

Maybe this is a good time to also mention that you can still 'like' our film, Spin Spun Span, in this month's competition. We're number one on the leaderboard at the moment, but only by a few votes! The competition closes at the end of the month. Thanks to everyone who has voted so far!

On and on and on we'll go until we freeze

There's a new website that just started called Itzon. It's a new idea for showing films and such on the internet, in that the films have a specific screening time. It's video on demand, but you don't have to spend ages searching for something to watch because it's all good stuff lined up and ready. Also, it is in full screen HD, and it's free. And, it should all be good content, as Itzon has a focus on festival winning films...which is where A Film about Poo comes in!

The film is showing on these days and times:
25-05-2011 at 15:23
27-05-2011 at 00:00
28-05-2011 at 13:26
29-05-2011 at 02:04
30-05-2011 at 07:09
31-05-2011 at 10:58


Itzon is also magical because the timings are universal. So if your scheduled listing is 7pm then it will be 7pm for everyone in all territories and time zones. Magic.

It would be fantastic if you could tune in and watch but also let me know what you think of it by voting. We are part of the itzon monthly film festival and the finalists are decided by audience votes (you do need to have an account to vote, but it literally takes seconds to create one, and is completely free).

It seems like a lot of my posts lately involve voting requests or zine fair alerts. Is this likely to change in the near future? Who can say.

There you have my vote; I'm catching the next boat out of here

We've entered Spin Spun Span in to Shooting People's Film of the Month competition, which signals another plea for you to click on a link. Would you like to click here please thank you, and watch and vote a thumbs up for us?

Animations hardly ever win Shooting People, which is sad, and I don't think representative of animation being made by Shooting People members. I'm not necessarily saying that Spin Spun Span should win (ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY IT SHOULD), but it would be nice if an animation got in the top 3 for once. The last animation I remember winning was by Robin Bushell (who actually graduated the year below me at Kingston) with Zoo, which is a really lovely animation about a school trip. Watch that too, cos it's good. And watch ours! And vote. I think that was my main point.

Look how pretty Spin Spun Span is:

Now vote! Please.