The Brunch Bunch

It's been a week since the Cardiff Animation Festival wrapped and when all's said and done it was an absolutely brilliant first edition, with some of the best overall energy and enthusiasm among the attendees that I've encountered doing the ol' festival rounds. It was a real honour to have been as involved as I was and I have nothing but gratitude and massive respect for the team who pulled it off so well.
For those of you who weren't able to make it, once you've scrubbed the stink of shame off you Laura-Beth has a great write-up on her personal highlights you can check out, while Steve and I will be going through ours in the next podcast due out this week.

In the meantime I was also able to get recordings from the Filmmaker Brunch sessions in which festival guests whose films were playing in competition were able to chat a bit about their work. These included:

• Phil Brookes – Composer, Enough
• Roos Mattaar – Animator, Sparks: Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)
• Myles McLeod – Marfa
• Oscar Barany – Thirsty
• Christina S. Nerland – Leave A Print
• Dotty Kultys – The Hunchback and the Swan
• Thomas White – Cretin
• Yoni Salmon – Niggun
• Ilenia Cotardo – Lemon and Elderflower
• Evgenia Golubeva – I Want to Live in the Zoo
• Sophie Dutton – Lost
• Jake Harvey – Lost
• Anna Eijsbouts – Hate For Sale
  
• Somnath Pal – Death of a Father

What a haul! You can listen to the three-part podcast minisode series I've produced from these below:

Another limp offering

The migration of my old tunes to Spotify and other various platforms continues this month with another EP, this time the 2016 Silverfish release Limp and Numb.
For those who missed the original release, this one's a mix of remastered songs from around 2007 with a couple of exclusive tracks thrown in. It's a mix of me being loud/daft and quiet/creepy, something to start off your week on a confusing note with. If nothing else it's nice and short!
Stream below or alternatively check it out on iTunes/Apple Music.

If they call you 'butt' over there it means they like you, I recently learned

It's Friday! We made it to the end of another week! Go us!
That means there's now a mere six days to go before Cardiff Animation Festival kicks off and I'm very excited to be heading over there alongside Skwigly brethren and animationey pals alike.
There's a packed schedule of amazing events from Thursday 19th through to Sunday 22nd and while it's worth taking the time to peruse the full programme here are a couple I'm involved with:
As part of the Industry Day on the 19th I'll be on the 2pm panel Getting To Market with Helen Brunsdon, Adam Bailey and Huw Walters where we'll be discussing "the fine art of promoting and selling your work, from TV ideas to short films, at markets around the world". You can pick up an Industry Day pass here if you've not done so already.

Kim Keukeleire

On Saturday 21st I'll be chairing the Q&A session Making Isle of Dogs at 8:45pm, which will directly follow a 6:30pm screening of the film itself. This will be a great opportunity to learn about the crafting of the exceptional new Wes Anderson film from artists Joshua Flynn (puppetmaker), Kim Keukeleire (lead animator) and Kerry Dyer (puppet repairs), so you won't want to miss it.
I'll also be speaking with some of the attending filmmakers in competition for the Animator's Brunch Q&A sessions that will take place on the 21st and 22nd at 10:30am. Not only will you be able to meet/grill these splendid folks but you'll get to do so with coffee and croissants to hand - plus both sessions are free to attend, so treat yisselfs!

Other festival highlights you'll want to check out include a festival-long exhibition and Friday night special presentation for Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, the spectacular stop-mo feature I contributed some VFX bits to last summer, as well as a talk by all-around top bloke Grant "Hey Duggee" Orchard, a writing for animation panel, the official launch of Anim18, life drawing, a Bring Your Own Animation session (at which I may attempt a sneaky preview of my latest film Sunscapades), screenings and Q&As for recent features Early Man and The Breadwinner - not to mention a heap of parties and networking events you can get sauced at. Then there's the official selection itself, which as a member of the jury I can assuredly say is packed full of absolutely top-shelf work. Say hello* if you're there!
*Not an obligation. In fact an across-the-room-half-nod is already above and beyond.

Updateables

The fine folks at CRC Press are having themselves a sale so, should you be so inclined, you can pick up my book Independent Animation: Developing, Producing and Distributing Your Animated Films at 20% off! Well that's surely better than a kick in the pants. In fact if you buy two or more CRC Press books you get 25% off, so go ahead and have yourselves a little browse. Here's one I recommend. And another. And another. And another.

Also, having previously mentioned that the first Bertram Fiddle game A Dreadly Business was coming to Nintendo Switch, I can cheerily confirm it's available now on the console's official store for a measly fivepoundce. Get fiddlin'!

Onward and Upward

Our latest podcast is a little more heavygoing than most, what with there being a certain big, creepy, Canadian elephant in the room. It's probably been hard to miss the aftermath of Ariane Lange, Katie Rice and Robyn Byrd's speaking out against John Kricfalusi, and while a fair few folks have been asking me about my thoughts on the matter, Ren and Stimpy enthusiast that I've been over the decades, I haven't had a whole lot to add to the discussion that doesn't merely echo the same mix of disappointment and sadness that so many others in the animation community are feeling. That being said, this podcast has grown over the years into a platform to spread awareness about key issues that we hope said community can rely on as well as being, as Steve puts it, "therapy for the both of us", so for those who are curious about where we stand it's pretty much all in there. Even more stuff has come out since the episode was recorded, so I have a feeling this saga is far from over.

Thank you @skwigly! This shouldn't be something women have to say, but... Thank you for believing us. https://t.co/hewjs9UrkT

— Robyn Byrd (@TopographicFish) April 5, 2018

To lighten the mood some we were able to include Steve's excellent recent chat with Simon Tofield, creator of the indie-animation-turned-merchandisable-behemoth Simon’s Cat, recorded during last month's tenth anniversary celebrations. We also give YouTube's ‘Copyright School’ a deserved smashing and go through some upcoming Cardiff Animation Festival highlights. As always you can direct download or stream below:

Easter Mundi

Another update from the Lendas Animadas camp - one of my episodes Como Surgiram as Estrelas will be featured as part of a special series of programmes taking place at the Rio Creative Conference this weekend. Put together with the lovely folks at Anima Mundi (where this episode screened in competition last year and was picked as one of the 10 best Brazilian films of that edition) the screening kicks off 11am on April 7th at the Cidade das Artes in Rio de Janeiro.