I wanna pack cute little lunches then read Danielle Steel

About a month ago we finished making a film for North West Libraries. It's part of the Time to Read initiative, and seems to have gone down well, they've even written up a report on its implementation and success in the region! If you enjoy information, you can read it here.

And if you like watching things, you can see the film here:

There's a little echo calling

The Liverpool Echo have written an article about the project I did with FACT and Holy Cross Primary School. The animations are not mentioned, but it does talk a lot about the veterans and the pupils' reactions to meeting them, which is nice. The article includes a really nice letter one of the children wrote in the last session. Very sweet!

Here's a photo of one of the students with Jack, one of the veterans. To read the full article, click here.

Now you've got a story that's worth talking about

My zine, Expectations, is featured today on Dab & a Dash blog! You can check it out here. The blog entry as about books. Books are good. You can buy Expectations and many other zine-y treats at our shop.

I read the news today, oh boy part 3

Some more literature for you: here's an interview with 1883 online magazine which we did a little before Christmas, following the OneDotZero screening at the BFI. Great stuff!

I read the news today, oh boy part 2

I'm know I'm slow with these things, but here's a nice link to an article about the OneDotZero screening we were in at the end of November. Read it here at Red Mist Reviews. The author describes Spin Spun Span as "some colossal mash-up of a Magritte exhibition, Fantasia and a trippier moment from Sesame Street", which I'm definitely fine with.

I'm not about to expect something more

How supercool! I just stumbled across a mention for my zine Expectations. Apparently Rotherham Zine Library have a copy, and they have written some nice things about it. I do know of Rotherham Zine Library, and I even remember meeting a couple of representatives at Victoria Baths Zine Fair, but I had completedly forgotten they had a copy! Well well, it is nice to read something nice. You can read the mention here, and buy a copy of said zine here. And you can see a picture of one of the illustrations from Expectations......here!

So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming and feeling so very lucky

More exciting news for the Back To The Future music video! Our work has been featured on Directors Notes, a website dedicated to independent filmmaking. I did an interview podcast with MarBelle from the website a few years ago for Sun in the Night Time, and now he's decided to put up a post about our music video for Jumeee. You can read it here. And in fact, I just did a little bit of scrabbling around, and you can still read the post on Sun in the Night Time, right here. I wouldn't recommend listening to it though, because my voice is just so annoying.

Guide & Inspire is awesome

A few weeks ago we met Rebecca from Guide & Inspire website, and she decided to interview us. Guide & Inspire is a new website aimed at young people who are or who would like to be filmmakers, and would like to be guided and inspired. It's got bits about filmmaking events, workshops and festivals for young people, and a profiles section about how other filmmakers work. Rebecca runs it all herself, which is really impressive, and she's also very nice to talk to!

You can read our interview here.

How about this Arienette, how does she fit in to all of this?

Last Friday I went along to the BFI to answer questions in a Q&A session about film festivals and young people. Noel from the BFI asked the questions. It was very interesting, and I met Alex from Adder Film Festival - he set up his own festival with a friend at 15! That is quite an achievement, plus he was very friendly, so it was a lot of fun.

Afterwards, I attended a press junket for the BFI Future Film Festival 2011, which, you may recall, Emily and I recently made the trailer for, after winning Best Animation at said festival last year. Attending press junkets is not how I usually occupy myself. I talked to four different publications! Here is one now; it's Live magazine:

Assuming I can find them on the interwebs, there will be more to follow...

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!

For careers you say you want to be remembered for your art

Have a look here on Ideastap for an interview I did about the trials and tribulations of being an animator. It's the job of the week!

It says I have "done it all", but I really haven't.

Well I just had to laugh

The article about Spin Spun Span was in last Friday's Manchester Evening News. Here's the online version, here.

I would hide under your porch

Billy went on the internet this evening and he discovered some online references to our Poo film, which I did not know even existed!

1. Flatpack Film Festival highlighted our screening on their blog!

2. The Sanctuary Newspaper believes we have "sage advice"!

3. Animation blog likes both Poo and The Psychiatrist! Lovely, lovely people!

I am so excited because not only do all of these people like the Poo, but none of them are blood relations/lovers/friends/paid off. Amazing. Billy also said there were some tweets relating to the film on Babelgum. I don't do tweeting, but I like their little blue bird logo, so this too is great. I feel happy, like this:

Once, at a festival, I overheard someone discussing our film, but they were slagging it off. They said it was "overrated". To be honest, this was also sort of amazing.