Sitting in the darkness, what a world to see

We've got a couple of film screenings going on at the moment. The first is this Tuesday 25th at Hebden Bridge Picturehouse, as part of Uncanny Valley Animation Festival. We have got two films in competition, Spin Spun Span and A Film about Poo! To get tickets, check out the festival at this link.

The second screening is today at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Sun in the Night Time showed there a few years ago, and it's on today as part of a commemorative screening in memory of Scott Ward, who spent ten years as one of the animation programmers for EIFF. He kindly selected Sun in the Night Time to screen there back in 2008.

His hands are busy, working overtime

If you're in Birmingham, perhaps you might like to toddle along to Flatpack Film Festival. We screened there in their mobile cinema last year, and they've asked us to screen again - this time it's Spin Spun Span. Our film will be showing in a specially curated programme called A Life's Work, a collection of shorts about people who work with their hands. I think the films will be primarily documentaries, so it's quite cool to be part of a different sort of line up.

Flatpack Film Festival takes places from 14-18th March. Whoo!

It's rolled out of my hands, where it stays in second place

Emily and I went to the British Animation Award public choice screening at the BFI on Friday, and it was really good. A lot of films stood out, but my favourite (and I think Emily's) was Thursday by Matthias Hoegg.

Each shot was really well composed with some lovely transitions, and even though the style was very flat and graphic, and the performance of the characters was great, especially the blackbirds. We also saw All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat), which I first heard about ages ago when I saw linetests on youtube. The film was really great, very original and funny. You can see Thursday here, and All Consuming Love's trailer here.

Whilst we were at the BFI (the storyboarding workshop went well by the way), Animated Exeter was taking place, and guess what - we won second place in the Screen Out Loud category! Coming in first was...All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat)! I am happy to come in second to a good film that I like, so that is all okay. A good weekend!

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.

Now who here among us still believes in choice?

I'm really chuffed to say that Spin Spun Span has been nominated for a British Animation Award in the  People's Choice category. Leading up to the BAAs in March, our film will be showing across the country and loads of venues in pretty much every city. We are in Programme 3, along with a bunch of other very good looking animations, and screening throughout January and February. Yey! Check here for the venues, I think I will try and go along to the Cornerhouse one in Manchester.

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 a festival, I'm a parade

Emily and I are back back back from Anim'est in Romania, and it was great! We saw so many good films, and met many nice and friendly animators. We also ate pig fat, which is apparently part of the Romanian cuisine. We also stroked a stray dog. We also saw lots of cool sights in Bucharest, including lots of Orthodox churches, and some very pretty cobbled streets with bars and boutiques. We both really enjoyed ourselves, and everyone at Anim'est was so welcoming and kind. It was brilliant! I hope we get to go back some day.

As I mentioned, we saw some great animations, and here are a few of our favourites...

A Morning Stroll from Studio AKA:

Out Of A Forest by Tobias Gundorff Boesen (one of our new friends, and what great music taste...):

And also Overcast by Velislav Kazakov, who was in our screening, and was also very lovely to meet. You can see his animation here.

Thanks again to all at Anim'est for looking after us. Good luck with the festival for next year, and I hope we'll be back!

I'm on a plane, I can't complain

Ta-ra! Emily and I are on a plane right now (hopefully), on our way to Romania for Anim'Est 2011, a lovely animation festival who have decided to show Spin Spun Span. We were invited to go the festival, so off we have gone. I love Eastern European animation, so am really looking forward to seeing some unusual stuff you don't see so much in the Western festivals. Neither of us have ever been to Romania either, so it will be nice to look around somewhere different. I think this is probably one of the last festival appearances for Spin Spun Span. Hopefully this time next year we'll be taking our new film out and about.

You win gold medals for when you're with me

On Saturday Billy and I went to Screen Stockport Film Festival, and guess what! We won three awards! We won third place in the Best Animation category as chosen by the jury, plus Most Original Concept and Most Original Soundtrack as chosen by the Festival Selection Committee, all for Spin Spun Span. As you can see from the picture below, I am very pleased about this, as is Billy and Emily. 

As Emily took possession of the last award we won, I will keep the medal, and probably wear it around the house as I please. As an extra piece of fun, we also got to take home a couple of Screen Stockport mugs. They look like this:

IT'S CHARLIE FROM LOST! As soon as Billy and I arrived at the Festival, we spotted Charlie on their poster. We later found out that Dominic Monaghan's image is appropriate as he grew up around Stockport: it makes so much sense now! A Lost-related endorsement just makes Screen Stockport even cooler, and I love the medal, and three awards is just amazing. Thanks to the judges, and especially John, Joe and Rosemary for creating such a great event!!

And where do we feature?

Excitingly, supercool music video website Radar Music Videos have decided to feature two of our films on their homepage! Check out Spin Spun Span and the music video we did for Jumeee right here. Whoop! And thank you to Caroline at the website for picking us.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it

Spin Spun Span screened in NYC earlier this week, and it looks like it was a lovely summer evening:

In other news, our website is sooo close to being updated... It's actually sort of online now, except that I messed up the video encoding, and so you can't see any of our animated work moving! Which is the main event, and so defeats the purpose. Sigh. I am going to fix it hopefully tonight or tomorrow; either way there really, hopefully, should be - fingers crossed - a new Emily & Anne website up and working by Monday.

Now there's no leaving New York

You probably don't live in New York, but if you did I would recommend that you go to Telegraph 21/Shooting People's summer short screenings. Rather delightfully, they are showing Spin Spun Span! I am always happy and surprised that Spin Spun Span apparently translates. It seems such a distinctly British film to me, and especially so Northern given its subject matter, but it has shown at quite a few international venues so far. It's also been accepted into a couple of big festivals recently, but I don't think I'm meant to mention specifics until they finalise their programmes, but rest assured they are good screenings!

I will stop blowing my own trumpet now.

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.

Underground, overground

We won Best London Filmmakers! Thank you very much to the Wimbledon Shorts judges. Spin Spun Span's first award, hooray!!

The judges said the film was "Glorious, charming and very enjoyable".  Very happy.

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!

You're so cute when you're slurring your speech, but they're closing the bar and they want us to leave

This Tuesday 31st, Emily and I will be in Stoke Newington in London, at Speech Motion. Speech Motion is a monthly art-type event where they have poetry and films, and we have very kindly been asked to be this month's featured filmmakers. We'll be screening all four of our films, which includes our two separate graduation films, and then there will be a Q&A session afterwards. That's right - another opportunity to hear Emily and I babble over the top of each other! Will either of us let the other finish a sentence? How red will we go? The answer to these questions, and hopefully many more, will be found if you come join us, which I hope you do.

The evening starts around 7pm, at The Others.

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!

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.

Monday, Monday - so good to me

The East End Film Festival starts today, hurrah. The Festival lasts for 6 days across different venues around, unsurprisingly enough, East London. This year is the Festival's tenth anniversary, and to mark it, they are doing something a little extra. On May Day bank holiday there will be additional, free screenings all over the place, including A Film about Poo and Spin Spun Span! Both our films! How nice of EEFF, they have good taste. For more information about the Movie Mayday, click here.