Hedge Hoggers..

Oh pygmy hedgehogs! Joy!

More creatures here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EmilyHowellsDesign

Designs for our film are underway...

So full of twilight, dreams that glitter

I went to Blackpool a couple of weeks ago to see our new film That Night up in the Illuminations.

Here I am, with poet and judge Polly Atkin, local Councillor Christine Wright, and winning poet Sarah Leavesley who wrote the very beautiful That Night. It was a bit cold outside by the sea during the screening, you can probably work that out from our hunched postures, but it was a very clear night, and a great atmosphere.

The evening kicked off at Blackpool Central Library, with poetry readings and the announcement of the winners. There was also hot pot!! Despite living here for five years, I have somehow never had this Northern delicacy; I liked it. So did my dog Freddy, who accompanied me and Billy, the film's composer. Freddy kept sniffing the air and looking around him quite optimistically.

From the library we took coaches to the Illuminations, and onto a big screen watched the film projected. Suprisingly, I took photos:

Would you like to see the film in question? It's actually still showing at the Illuminations every night for a week more I think, but hey here it is on the inter webs:

That Night from Wordpool on Vimeo.

You can read more about the evening on the Wordpool website here and here. Thanks to Clancy Mason and Lynne Pattinson from Blackpool Council for working with us; we loved it!

The time was passed so pleasantly

Hey, remember ages ago when we said 50% of Emily&Anne were going to Vienna to teach a week long animation workshop as part of Tricky Women Summer School inspired by the poem The secretary chant by Marge Piercy? Well that happened! And there are photos to prove it:

Okay, so one photo. Promotion is not our forte.

That's Phillip up there. I advised him to paint his hand and animate it and he did! Would you like to see the finished film, including the above animated hand, and many other animated goodies besides? Well, guess what, it's embedded here, just for you:

The secretary chant made at the Tricky Women Animation Summer 2014 from Emily&Anne on Vimeo.

It was a really wonderful week in Vienna; I loved it. Everyone I met at the Summer School was lovely, and working with the workshop participants was very, very fun. I hope they are proud of the finished film. They gave me a load of chocolate at the end, so I guess they were happy too!

The rhyme is losing to the riddling

We used to be pretty good at maintaining this blog and our "notable" activities, and lately (and by lately I mean the last 12 months or more), we are just rubbish. Well I don't know if that is about to change, but here is a new post nonetheless!

We've been asked to make a film for Blackpool Council's WordPool Festival of Poetry. As everyone knows, we love a reading and libraries and words, so we are very happy to working on this project. The short (very short) animation will be screened at the Blackpool Illuminations in the evening on October 2nd, which is when the winning poem will be announced and read by its author.

Details are here, and lookit, it's a poster:

Pet Portraits for one and all..

Emily's Pet Portraits are out and about. All creatures great and small...

You can order your own one here: www.emilyhowells.com

PechaKucha 20x20

20 pics x 20 seconds. The Pipeline: Powered by PechaKucha has invited us along with 10 fellow animators to share knowledge, experience and ideas. We'll be showing some images from out past projects, as well as project to be Archy Declares War.

Amongst the speakers will only be the awesome Jim Le Fevre... hoorah and shucks! http://www.jimlefevre.com


Tickets are £10. You can book your ticket here: http://bit.ly/1mybu8A
Or to find out more see here: http://www.pechakucha.org/

Strange Hill High series 2

I always prefer the second installment in a series - for example, The Two Towers, The Subtle Knife, The Empire Strikes Back... And guess what, the second installment of Strange Hill High is here. I spent 9 months in a large, cold, dark studio wrangling whatnot from 8am til 6pm, amongst a crew of ridiculously ace people, and here is the fruit of our labour:

The new series starts Tuesday 29th April at 5pm on CBBC. Watch it; it is good.

I don’t think Fritz Lang was a fantasist

Anne is going to Vienna in June, would you like to hang out with her? Well, you can if you sign up for one of the workshops at Tricky Women Animation Summer!

We've shown our films at past editions of the Tricky Women Animation Festival, and a couple of weeks ago they contacted us about doing a workshop. And thus, Anne will be teaching a 5-day class called "Drawn-Digital Animation Collaboration". Which basically means we'll be making a short 2D animation together, mixing up different styles of animation and different processes both traditional and digital. The resulting film will be based on Marge Piercy's The secretary chant, which she has very kindly given permission to use. It is a fantastic poem; have a read:

The secretary chant

My hips are a desk, 
From my ears hang 
chains of paper clips. 
Rubber bands form my hair. 
My breasts are quills of 
mimeograph ink. 
My feet bear casters, 
Buzz. Click. 
My head is a badly organized file. 
My head is a switchboard 
where crossed lines crackle. 
Press my fingers 
and in my eyes appear 
credit and debit. 
Zing. Tinkle. 
My navel is a reject button. 
From my mouth issue canceled reams. 
Swollen, heavy, rectangular 
I am about to be delivered 
of a baby 
Xerox machine. 
File me under W 
because I wonce 
was 
a woman.

You can sign up for Anne's workshop, or indeed any of the others, at this link right here to the Animation Summer website.

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:

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.

You know that we are living in a material world

Our short film Spin Spun Span will be shown as part of a screening at a new haberdashery that has just opened up in Birmingham. If you're out and about this Friday and fancy a bit of a knitting and crafting themed excursion then do pop along! Here see, these gentlemen are having fun...

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.

Stop Before You Start

We've just begun work on our second film with poet Sheila McGill. It is part of an "anti-starting" campaign about smoking. The scheme is being piloted across schools in Bolton and Sheffield.

We had our first sound session last week and all went very well. Our three voice artists Sheila, Matilda, and Josh did a great job and nailed it first time!

For more information about Stop Before You Start visit: stopbeforeyoustart.co.uk/ 

I fought in a war

For the past couple of weeks I've been working with FACT and Holy Cross primary school in Liverpool to create a couple of animations as part of the Battle of the Atlantic celebrations. This May will be the anniversary, and there are plenty of commemorative events going on in Liverpool.

I was commissioned to work with a class of 8-9 year olds. We were visited by John and Jack, two veterans of the Battle, who kindly talked to the children about their experiences. Inspired by these, the children are creating two animated films, helped along by me.

Here's a sneak peek of some illustrations which will be displayed at FACT. I collaged together different children's drawings to create the pictures, one for each film.

The animations will be finished in the next week or so, so I will post again about their exhibition.

We always have a laugh and then we all get in the bath

This Sunday we're in Manchester with a stall at the Victoria Bath Fanzine Fair. If you're in the neighbourhood, come check out our wares. Emily's recently added to her tattoo collection with some Arctic themed ones, including an orca, an arctic fox and some very pretty icebergs, ready and waiting for some happy buyers. See you there!

In the van, with my friend

We're really pleased to let you know that A Film about Poo will be showing at the Best of Cannes in a Van. The programme is made up of the Festival's favourites from the last few years, and they are very kindly including our 90-second opus. You can see A Film about Poo, and others, on Wednesday 8th May in London. Click this link for more information, including the other films so far confirmed.

Strange Hill High

I've been working as an animator on a new CBBC show for the past year, and it's finally about to broadcast! The show is called Strange Hill High, and it's on Wednesday 8th at 5pm on the CBBC channel.

Josh Weinstein, who was one of the writers on The Simpsons, is one of the showrunners, and it stars Doc Brown, Richard Ayoade and Emma Kennedy.

I've been really proud to work on this programme, as it looks really different from everything else out there, and the scripts are very sharp. It was put together with a strange mixture of live action rod puppets, plus CGI animated mouths and facial expressions (that's me), which in itself is also an unusual way of working.

Because of its unique look, the show is getting a lot of promo before it airs, which is exciting. Here's an article from the Independent, and if you go here you can watch a bit from BBC Breakfast where Weinstein and Kennedy talk about the show.

Despite animating on it, I still haven't seen it all put together, so I can't wait to see it! Hurrah!

I'll take the high road from factory to factory

We had a jolly old time at the Tate Collective's Event on Thursday; 'Glam 21st Century Factory'. You can check out some photos from our shoot here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyandanne/sets/72157633213289334/

Also to see more about the great venue Camp and Furnace see here:

http://www.campandfurnace.com/

Heads turning as the lights flashing out it's so bright

We're back in Liverpool this Thursday night for a Tate Collective party at Camp & Furnace. Emily and I will be running a photo shoot on the night - come be glamorous!