Wait - wuh'happened?

Received this in the post today along with a program for the Festival of Nations in Austria. On the surface it seems pretty cut and dry, apparently 'House Guest' was in a festival on June 19th that I didn't know about until now. It's happened from time to time, every couple months I self-google and find the odd screening I didn't know about.
Here's the bit that doesn't make sense - the film screenings ended on the 18th. And there's no mention of me or the film in the program or on their website. And there's no record of me ever sending anything to them in my emails or the ponderous Excel spreadsheet that has all my festival submission info.
I suppose I could get to the bottom of it but I'd rather not take the chance it didn't get in after all and not be able to add the festival to the list of ones it got into. Denial, my friends. It's a beautiful state of mind.On a somewhat similar note, this website is stating that 'The Naughty List' (the Santa-in-his-underwear film) will be part of the Iaşi International Film Festival this October, which would make its international debut Romanian and not German as originally thought. Again though, there's no mention of my film or any of the 2010 program on the Iaşi site yet. So I'll get back to you on that one as to whether it's actually happening or not.One thing I do know for sure is that I've finished the first of what will hopefully be several showreels tailored to different skill sets. Up until recently I'd only had enough experience to cobble together showreels that encompassed all my visual work - live action, animation, post-production, vfx blah de blah de blah. Turns out (as pretty much everyone I know in the industry had already told me) companies don't feel quite as at ease with freelancers who purport to be able to do a whole bunch of different things as they are with specialists. Ideally if I have different showreels and CVs for specific areas of animation/post-production/design and only refer to whichever one is appropriate when pitching for a job it'll cut through the treacle.
To that end, this is the first one that's just animation. The grand plan is to, further down the line, have separate showreels for different areas of animation such as digital, traditional, motion graphics etc but this is a start for now. You can watch it on Youtube (in HD if you can handle my sweet, sweet definition) and also Vimeo. Because that's a video website too. Yep.

Adieu, rotting duck thing.

I woke up this morning to the dramatic thump of something large and cumbersome being pushed through my letterbox. Turned out to be the bulky (and very pretty) program for Anima Mundi along with the return of the last 'House Guest' screening copy. Thus ends my zombie duck's reign of terrifyingly adorable shenanigans on the international festival circuit. As I have so vainly documented, it's had an astoundingly good run given that it was both my first film and a student film made for literally nothing. A little over two years since its completion I cannot really explain what a humbling experience it's been seeing it do the rounds alongside other films by friends, contemporaries and even some of my heroes in the industry. I know that on here I write like a self-aggrandising ass most of the time, and maybe some people who don't know me in real life might not pick up on the irony, but the truth of the matter is that we're living in pretty rough times where to keep afloat in the industry you have to drink the Kool-Aid for the most part. Sometimes it can be a lot of fun but generally speaking when you work for a company or someone else's project there are plenty of moments of second guessing and self-doubt. As 'House Guest' was always mine its completion and positive reception have kept me inspired to keep hammering out my own projects, hopefully with an equal balance of confidence and self-awareness. So thanks once again to everyone who selflessly helped with the film, all the festivals (big and small) that gave it a chance and everyone who contacted me personally to say nice things about it.

They also threw in a 'participation' certificate. Which is both a new one on me and pretty nice of them.

So moving on, first I want to mention the Babelgum Animation Film Festival which currently has a whole bunch of shorts online you can watch and vote on. Nothing of mine in there but some friends' films such as 'Wherever You Go There You Are' by Sara Barbas, 'Ami' by Dominique Bongers and 'Noesis' by Sophie Klevenow are all worth a look. I haven't had time to watch the others but some that I'm familiar with and enjoy include '8-Bit Waterslide in Real Life', 'Marcel the Shell With Shoes On' and 'Pigeon Impossible'.Finally, yesterday was the last day you were able to hear my new Struwwelpeter song 'Set You Free' as part of BBC Introducing. If you missed it, I of course recorded it myself and you can forever listen to it here.
If you want to hear the song without the intro and strange backhanded editorialising at the end it's part of 'Digital Stimulation', a download-only EP available now and completely free. It includes three songs from 2006's 'Agnosticaust' and three from the forthcoming album 'The Book of Women'. All the tracks are alternate mixes/edits to the ones that appear on the albums themselves and as such are completely exclusive to this release. So download it and spread it around like a delightful musical compote!Download 'Digital Stimulation' by Struwwelpeter
Alternatively you can stream the EP on SoundCloud.
Now for a weekend of showreel editing and updating. Try to contain your envy.

"Introduce Yourself (Right On)"

Some very cool non-animation news this time around. Tune in to BBC Radio Bristol this evening to hear the radio debut of my track 'Set You Free' from the new Struwwelpeter album 'The Book Of Women'! It will be playing as part of BBC Introducing which is broadcast 1am-3am, the peak time for all the happening youths to be at home listening to their radios. But if you can't catch it live then the show will be on-demand from saturday onward for about a week via BBC iPlayer.Happy weekend!

Compensation

After the low note last week ended on, I've had a bit of a turnaround in disposition being presented with a couple of reasons to cheer up.

Firstly I was very happy to see that, for the time being at least, one of the animated segments I produced for Channel 4's SuperMe project is the first thing you're presented with when visiting the production company Somethin Else's website.

That's right, I screengrabbed it. I'm that type of person.

Nice to have the extra exposure while I can get it.Next up is the very welcome and sooner-than-expected news that my third animated short 'The Naughty List' will be making its festival debut this October at Internationales Köln Comedy Festival, with a TV broadcast thrown in. Merry xmas!What makes this especially good news is it gives me an excuse to visit my Cologne-based friend and frequent collaborator Veronika Broscheid whose own film 'The Lonely Socks Club' makes a cameo in mine, playing on Santa's TV.

The film within the film.

She also helped out a lot with the film in cleanup/post and provided some last-minute German subtitles for the screening copy, so it's really fortuitous that it's first screening will be in her city.
Festival specifics to follow, as always. It's looking to be a good week.

Phlegmatic

As alluded to earlier, the main focus for the rest of the year as far as personal projects go is a new graphic novel I received an advance for after pitching it during my recent jaunt overseas. This one is pretty autobiographical save for changing names and likenesses (kind of the opposite of 'Mitchells In England', where all the characters were named after real people but the stories were completely fictional) while hopefully being sort of amusing.

The working title was 'Throatfukt' which has been shortened to 'Throat' as my first concession to its potential publishers, it's also a little less on the nose. The story is essentially an illustrated adaptation of thoughts I'd jotted down during a pretty significant and sobering health scare I went through earlier in the year, with dialogue added and a lot of the plodding, self-involved, morbid streams-of-consciousness shit edited out. Apart from this blog I generally don't keep journals - not being either a girl or, y'know, twelve, - but this was kind of done on impulse as a coping mechanism. It took a lot of the drama out of the situation and helped hugely when it came to moving on.

Concept/(possible) cover art for 'Throat'

The drawing style is kind of new territory for me. It came from a rather stressful period during a work commission where none of the concepts we were coming up with were quite hitting the mark, so I wound up just throwing out as much variety as possible, including this loose, thick-line style. In the end we went with something more conventional, but the style really appealed to me as it doesn't really look like anything I've done before. There's something Ralph Steadman/Dave McKean/John Callahan-ish about it that seems to complement the medium of graphic novels and the writing style rather well, so I decided to pull it out.
Here are some character designs, not coloured or properly textured at this point but they should more or less set the tone.

Before the devil knows you're dead

How's the world treating you these days? Everything good? Sun shining, birds singing, spring in your step?
LIAR.
Fuck that nizzoise. I'm sad and now you have to be too. Whaddaya think of them apples?I found out recently that one of my heroes John Callahan has died. It fucking stinks. He was probably one of the more significant influences on me as a kid, shaping me into the cuddly sociopath I am today.Thinking back almost as far as I have memories stored, I recall sneaking glances at his cartoon anthologies lying around the house. Words couldn't describe the glee I felt at seeing the distinctly adult subject matter married with childishly-scrawled cartoons. Obviously in today's post-Adult Swim era the concept is well-established, almost to the point of being hackneyed. But back then it stood out from anything else.While plenty of syndicated comic strips embraced the notion of catering to adults - the poignant philosophy in 'Calvin and Hobbes', the bitter disillusionment that riddled 'Life In Hell', the joyfully dark surrealism of 'The Far Side' - Callahan's nameless strips floated in a limbo outside convention, limiting his exposure no doubt but with the welcome absence of boundaries as a trade-off.At perhaps too young an age, his work introduced me to a world of adulthood I couldn't wait to be a part of. One particular short story he wrote was my first encounter with the concept of cunnilingus, something that never would've crossed my mind at that age (I think I was about seven), but man alive did it seem like a tremendous way to pass the time.What differentiated his crass and sexual humour from the likes of, say, 'Viz', was a level of legitimate wit and non-contrived cleverness that would rear its head. Occasionally the amateurish visuals would unintentionally imbue an otherwise average panel with an amusingly childlike silliness, and in instances where the drawings were almost unintelligible the writing could make it hysterical.
The quality of the drawing style was attributed to the very reason his gallows humour was so well-earned. In his early twenties he was permanently paralysed from a drunken car wreck. The frustrations and protracted anxiety of adapting to life without movement were candidly told in his autobiography "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot", a genuinely inspiring read that I can't recommend enough.Along with a follow-up book, a couple of not-too-terrible animated shows and a laudable stab at music, his true legacy can be found in the anthologies of his work. If you can track them down, treat yourself.
RIP.

Chavettes

Another one of the SuperMe animations I produced for Channel 4/Somethin Else is now online, this one was visually a lot simpler and came together under a pretty tight deadline. It deals with the fairly relatable topic of teenage girls talking nonsense.

I really enjoyed doing the character designs on this one, it's a huge departure from my usual style and it was a lot of fun brainstorming.

Fine tuning during the concept art stage.

Here are some of the original sketches the two girls were picked from:

Self-Esteem (or "A Transvestite's Journey")

In recent months I did some animated segments for a project as part of Channel 4's education department. It's called SuperMe and is targeted primarily at teens to bolster their self-worth and whatnot. A noble cause, although none of the cocksure, swaggering packs of adolescents that roam my neck of the woods seem to need any encouragement in that regard - if anything the irascible scamps need taking down a peg or several.
For the benefit of the less visible (holed up in their rooms with the curtains drawn, no doubt) shy'n'introverted contingent, the SuperMe site went live this month. Here's a fairly detailed Guardian article on it:
SuperMe: Channel4's plan to make the world a nicer place for teens
Personally this has been one of my most positive industry experiences to date. I had a lot of creative freedom for the visual side of things while at the same time being actively encouraged to explore some new visual styles. You can see as much from the development of the concept art:The final animation is now online on YouTube and also as part of the site. Have yourself a look:

Pour Rire

It's a beautiful, sunny day in Montreal, the best city in the world. Yet here I am, alone in a friend's apartment, blogging on her laptop with the curtains drawn. I disgust myself.
Having spent the last week completely away from civilisation, now I'm in the city I'm hurriedly catching up on missed correspondence, work crap and a smattering of early responses to the new film so I can get my ass outside where I'll doubtless stop at the nearest Second Cup (the closest Canuck approximation to a Caffe Nero) and settle in the sunshine. In other words, business as usual.As well as a much-needed break in the country I have a whole mess of Juste Pour Rire shows booked this week, starting last night on an amazing note with Greg Giraldo and 'Opie & Anthony' regulars Li'l Jimmy Norton, Bawby Kelly and the lovable stammering mushmouth Rich Vos. I should elucidate as to why this is relevant - during production of 'The Naughty List' and pretty much every work-from-home commission I've taken on over the last year, I've been listening to O&A nonstop. It's the shit. Nothing takes the edge off having to scan a hundred frames of animation like a good Ramone call, misogynistic Bill Burr rant or some down-to-earth relationship advice from Patrice O'Neal (to my delight both Burr and O'Neal will be playing later in the week, as well as fellow regular Jim Jefferies). Last night also introduced me to Tiffany Haddish, who will hopefully become a big deal very soon as she's genuinely hysterical.Now that I've sufficiently kissed enough arse, it's time to predictably turn the spotlight back on me in yet another abandonment of humility and self-awareness. I'm really very happy to say that 'House Guest' will be getting SEVEN screenings at Anima Mundi, five in Rio and two in Sao Paulo.It's a real coup. Opening the 'Horror Panarama 2' strand, here are the times and places as copied off the website:
Centro Cultural Correios - Praça Animada
18/07/2010-21:00

Cinema CCBB SP
28/07/2010-19:00
31/07/2010-17:00

Unibanco Arteplex Botafogo
21/07/2010-22:00

Cinema 1 CCBB RJ
22/07/2010-17:30
25/07/2010-19:30

Cinema Odeon BR
23/07/2010-20:00

I am a happy Canuck.

The Giver In Me

Tomorrow I'll be heading off to Canada for a while to cavort amongst the grizzlies like Timothy Treadwell. So consider this the final chapter on "The Naughty List" unless it gets picked up by some festivals later on down the road. Here's a promotional teaser-clip I slapped together for it:I've fiddled with the edit a bit but it generally represents the film quite well, hopefully it'll leave people wanting to see more of it. The video is up on Vimeo and also Youtube, please circulate it amongst any animationey-geek-type-peeps that might find it interesting.
Bye for now, until I can locate a tree stump in the Laurentians that might have wi-fi.