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.

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.

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.

It's the 6th BFI Future Film Festival

Here is a trailer for this year's BFI Future Film Festival, made by Rob Savage. We won the Festival a couple of years ago in the Best Animation category, and we were asked to help out with the trailer - we just did the yellow animated bit at the end, but still it's nice to get back in touch with the BFI guys!

The Festival is on 16-18th February in Southbank, London.

Festivals for the New Year

It's London Short Film Festival in a few days, and Hum is showing twice! We're screening as part of the general mixture of short films and whatnot on Thursday 10th January 2013, and then again as part of the Rich Picks programme. Rich Picks is very interesting, as this time around it is a selection of films about sleep paralysis. We sent off Hum, which is, er, partially about sleep paralysis, and thankfully we got in. I would have been quite sad if we hadn't, as the subject matter is so niche!

Also, whilst we are screening twice, we are actually screening two different versions of the film. In the main screening is the original version of Hum, but for the Rich Picks screening we entered a new edit. I would call it a directors' cut, but that suggests it is longer (as generally it tends to be with directors' cuts) - but in fact it is shorter, haha. It's a jerkier, more abstract edit which we wanted to have a go with, and we're quite pleased with how it turned out.

Anyway, Emily will be presenting the film at the Festival, so that's nice, and here are the details for the Rich Picks screening, which is also supported by the Wellcome Trust: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2013/01/10/681.

Hum is also showing at - for I think the third year in a row! - at Lightspielklub Short Film Festival's programme of British Shorts. The Festival takes place in Berlin in the New Year, and you can see more about it (including a very nice festival poster) if you click here.

And ain't it a beautiful day

Hum will be showing in Bournemouth at BUtiful Film Festival. It's on in a couple of weeks, so if you are around that way you should go and see our film! I command you.

BUtiful is only in its second yeah (I think), so if you fancy showing some support and liking their Facebook page, I am sure they would be happy. While you're at it, you can like us too, hahaha.

Dance, dance dance

Hooray for Raindance! We had our screening on Saturday and it was much fun. Some great films were seen by all. A particular favourite of mine was Joseph Pierce's latest film The Pub, you can watch a trailer for it here

Also I loved this vegetable number, dancing vegetables!! Florette, when broccoli meets aubergine. A lovely and funny animation by Gus Filgate & Paul Miller.

Rain pours on everyone

Hum at Raindance this weekend! Don't forget to check out the trailer, hope it whets your appetites...

I'm only happy when it rains

So a few weeks ago I promised Hum news, and here is that news: Hum will be showing at a prestigious film festival in London this month, one we've never got into before. If you're wondering which, look for the subtle clue in this post...

That's right! Raindance Film Festival! Emily and I are both super excited, as we'd held off submitting the film to other London-based film festivals, with the hope it'd get into this one. Raindance require a London premiere, you see.

Hum is showing in Shorts Programme 6 on Saturday 29th, and you can book your tickets if you go to the website which is here. Emily's going to the screening, so say hello if you see her!

First thing she said was we're the German Girls

Yey, I'm pleased to say that our new short Hum will have its German premiere next month at Film Leben Festival. Hooray for Germans and their excellent taste in experimental animated films. We are planning on editing together a trailer for Hum sometime soon, and we'll pop that up here when we do. Before that though, we need to make a dress or two from ping pong balls... I'll explain later...

Girl get busy

Well, time flies. In the last two months Emily and I have moved house; we're now both based in Manchester, which is bad for National Rail/Megabus' profits, but good for us. It is nice to be in the same neck of the woods, and indeed the same flat!

We've been busy beavering away on animated adventures too. We are separately working on some television series. I am animating on a CBBC one, and Emily is illustrating on a CBeebies one. We've also got a couple of commissioned film projects which are almost done, so we shall certainly be shouting about them soonish. Soonish = in a month or two I guess.

But anyways, right now we have a screening coming up! Our old Poo film will be showing at Manchester's Cornerhouse cinema later this month, on the 15th, and Emily and I shall be both be there to introduce our film. The programme is called Filmed Up and features North West filmmakers. We are first on, so if you come along (and it would be lovely if you did) make sure you get there on time! That goes for me too; I don't often get to places on time. Here is a link from which you can purchase tickets and find out more: this link here!

Right, dinner time now. Here's a picture of a beaver.

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!

Let's talk about movies

Don't forget Billy and I will be at Cornerhouse tomorrow to talk about the making of Hum. The discussion will focus in particular on the production side, and how to work with funders. There may also be babble.

You know how to get along humming

We have finished our third film! It's called Hum, and it's an abstract animation about sleep paralysis.

We developed the idea for the story after meeting with Nikky Norton, a playwright and poet based in Manchester. She's working on a big project with Contact Theatre, mixing sound, animation, illustration, theatre, poetry, and performance art, which Hum will have a part in.

That's not until next year though. In the meantime we have plans... We're pleased to announce that Hum will premiere at Exposures Film Festival at Cornerhouse in Manchester next month. The film will show on Tuesday 21^st at 5pm, along with a live action drama also commissioned by Cornerhouse at the same time as ours. Afterwards there will be a Q&A session with me and Billy (Hum's composer), as well as Mark Haig, who directed the other film. Emily can't make it unfortunately, but hopefully Billy and I will be enough. Tickets for the premiere and Q&A event can be purchased here: http://www.exposuresfestival.co.uk/programme

Hope to see you there!

You stole the sun from my heart

Earlier this year, Emily and I worked on the new film by director Charlotte Boulay-Goldsmith, called The Man with the Stolen Heart. We setup the character rigs in After Effects, took ages, but it's a lovely looking film and is now complete! It's about a sad man who loses his heart only to find that someone else is using it. It's got a real painterly look, very sketchy too.

The film's shown at a few festivals already, but it's showing this week at Encounters in Britsol, which is very cool. Emily is there this week at the festival, so if you see her say hello!

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!!

London calling

We're very happy to say that Spin Spun Span has been selected for the British Showcase strand at this year's London International Animation Festival! Apparently looooads of films were entered, but we are one of the lucky 15 to be screening! Also in the 15 are two filmmakers I know, Julia Pott, who we both graduated with, and Linda McCarthy, a fellow Northern animator. I am pleased we are keeping good company. The screening is the 1st September, but the whole Festival runs from the 26th August. You can find out more and buy tickets if you so wish here.