An empty space to fill in

Still working on the new film, and here is a nice oil pastel drawing from it. We've decided to do a couple of sequences hand drawn with oil pastel. I've not finished the first sequence yet, but I think I'm going to need to buy some more pastels! I had forgotten how long it takes colouring by hand onto paper. The last time I did this was for my graduation film... It's straight-ahead rather than keyframe animation because I'm drawing straight into an old, found book. Hope I don't mess it up...

And here's Emily!

She's cutting out and making a paper model in this picture. Using her magic powers, Emily then makes the paper model actually glow...

Amazing. What will the paper models be in the film? They will be mountains of course.

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!!!

Charlie Brown, you blockhead

Emily and I did some animated weirdo characters for a music video a little while ago, and now the music video is all alive and finished, and so I can show you! It is for Punks Jump Up, and the song is Blockhead. We did the job for the very lovely Mushie at Partizan, a very brilliant illustrator and awesome director too. If you go on his website, make sure to look at Moleskin B and Rainbow Kids, they are my favourites. Anyway, here is the video:

Also, you can go here for more infos.

I'll have the last laugh on you, cos instead of one head I got two

Congratulations to Emily for winning Best New Talent at Indie Cinema the other night in London. Emily showed her less-than-new graduation film The Psychiatrist. Emily is awesome.

B R I L L I A N T

Come on! Feel the Illinoise!

I'm back from Chicago International Childrens Film Festival, and it was lovely.

I saw loads of really good films, but my favourite was Googuri Googuri, a Japanese animation about a little girl and her grandad taking a nap together. The technique was painting on glass, and it looked brilliant - lots of energetic, swirling transitions. The sound design was spot on too, made up partly of murmuring voices of the little girl and grandad, whispering "googuri", their secret word. I just loved it. You can see the trailer for it here:



I also really liked The Boy & the Beast, a German animation for TV which won an award at CICFF. The animation style was quite fresh looking, and I loved the story. Here's the trailer:



I had a good time doing the Q&A for the young audience at CICFF, and also met lots of fellow filmmakers and festival folk. One was Christina, who wrote about A Film about Poo on her blog, which is quite ace and is here.

Thanks to all at CICFF for a great festival!

Amazing scenes

I've clicked on many a link in my time, but this is one of the best. Two of my favourite things in life are dogs and Lady Gaga, and here they are, beautifully combined:

HERE.

Jesse Freidin, photographer extraordinaire, thank you for making the world a happier place.