I recollect the violence of the struggle

Here's another linetest from the new film...

We did this in TV Paint and comped it in After Effects. It's not done - definitely not done - but the main animation is.

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!!!

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

Some new film artwork...it's the moon...

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 think last night you were driving circles around me

Some new film artwork:

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.

Got me a movie, I want you to know

Very happily, Emily and I have won funding to make a new film. It will be our third film, and the second to be funded, which is great. Cornerhouse, Mackinnon & Saunders and Vision & Media are the generous people helping us out. We've been working on it for quite a few weeks, but didn't want to post something until we were a bit further down the line. The film's story was partly inspired by our colleague Nikky Norton, who is a poet and playwright also based in Manchester...but the exact narrative details will be a surprise! However I will say that it is an abstract, experimental film.

I will try and post regular updates in between the actual animating, and here is the first: a little linetest. Don't blink or you'll miss it. (I probably should have put it on a loop!)