All-nighter

Another exciting screening for Klementhro this coming Friday - it will be part of Big Animation Night, a massive five-hour event bringing together a bunch of the films that were gathered up by the folks from Russia's Big Cartoon Festival. As with other events spun off from this particular fest, this means my weird little film will have elbowed its way in amongst some of my absolute favourites of the last couple years, including Love, Negative Space, The Burden, Catherine, Wednesday With Goddard, Nighthawk, Ivan's Need, The Head Vanishes and Mr. Madila.
The event will take place at the in Moscow this Friday night at 10pm (which means Klementhro will show up around the 2:55am mark on Saturday - crikey, watching it on its own is enough of an endurance test) - for full programme info and tickets head over to the Karo cinema website.

Sol Power

Following on from last week's encouraging world premiere, I'm happy to be able to officially announce that Sunscapades will have its Spanish debut at the sixth edition of Caostica next month!
The event takes place in Bilbao from June 1st-11th, as ever when I have the specifics I'll let y'all know. In the meantime I want to give a special shout-out to fellow UWE-alum Nagore Rementeria for sorting me out with the Spanish subtitles.

Proper continental-like

Brothers in arms

Another upcoming festival roundup for Boris-Noris (Laura-Beth Cowley's fantastic UWE MA film on which I made some unpleasant noises and removed some rigs) as it continues to knock it out of the park. This Monday, May 21st, the film screens at Albania's A-FestFilm (formerly Anifest Rozafa) in their Films for Age 13 programme that will kick off at 11:30am at the Millenium Cinema in Tirana.

From the 25th of this month La Boîte Carrée's touring programme Le Plein de Super  (whose 2018 season Boris-Noris is a part of) will kick off its first batch of screenings throughout France. The dates for this leg of the tour are:

• 25th May - Brissac-Quincé
• 2nd June - Étrich
• 8th June - Saint-Nazaire
• 15th June - Montbert
• 29th June - Ligné

The tour then resumes in July, this time traveling throughout Portugal at the following locales:

• 14th July - Ericeira
• 19th July - Alfarim
• 20th July - Lagoa de Albufeira
• 21st July - Quinta do Conde
• 22nd July - Sesimbra
• 24th July - Santa Cruz
• 27th July - Proença-a-Nova
• 28th July - Sobreira Formosa
• 29th July - Montes da Senhora

For full information check out the tour's official website and if you make it to a screening be sure to send a postcard!

The Bristol Festival of Puppetry's specially-curated screening Women in Puppetry and Puppet Animation will be shown again in June, this time as a standalone event at Exeter Phoenix. As a nifty bonus for this one Laura-Beth will be in attendance for an onstage Q&A with Puppet Place curator Emma Windsor after the screening, which will be happening on Tuesday June 12th at 7:30pm - more info here.

The following weekend the Art All Night - Trenton International Film Festival will be taking place at New Jersey's historic Roebling Wire Works. This one is an intense, 200-film marathon that takes place entirely within 24 hours. Fortunately Boris-Noris will be screening at the civilised 12:05pm slot on the Sunday (June 17th).
That's all for now but there'll be plenty more a-comin', so stay alert.

Rising Sun

Came home to some rather lovely news that Sunscapades just won itself the Best Animation award at the Fylde Film Festival! It's been a slow start for this one as far as getting it out there so this is a really encouraging start and hopefully I'll be able to share news about upcoming screenings in the near future.
This also marks the official world premiere of the film, the first time an animated short of mine has ever actually debuted in the UK, so it's very reassuring to hear it went down well. Once again many thanks to the brilliant talents who helped it get done - Laura-Beth, Hannah, Fiona, Phil and Carwyn in particular - and to the festival team for taking a punt on it. After a bit of a grumpy weekend y'all perked me up some.

Available time to design the cover was clearly limited

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!
Canadian Mother's Day, that is (before all you non-Canucks panic). Instead of a reissue this month I've decided to put together a new EP collection in loving tribute to the most Canadian Mother I have. Just think, if she hadn't birthed me you wouldn't get to enjoy any of my at-times-moderately-well-received creative endeavours. No zombie duck film, no cartoon witterings, no poorly-rendered nudity - frankly it wouldn't be worth getting up in the morning. So raise a glass to mum and, y'know, to me as well (obviously). From both of us: You're welcome.
These are the six songs out of the 100+ I've written over the years that she likes, or at the very least doesn't find objectionable; a full LP's worth would've proved far trickier to pull off. As one might imagine, this is me at my most pop-ey and accessible so is probably a little easier on the ears than the other records of mine I've been putting up lately. So give 'er a free stream below (and for you non-Bandcampers it's available for a mere bag of shells over on Amazon):

Hittin' the Beach

A promising start for my new film Sunscapades - it has received a Best Animation nomination at this year's Fylde Film Festival (whose prior incarnation the Fylde Film Showcase included Laura-Beth's film Boris-Noris last year, so they already rank highly in my estimation) in beachy Blackpool, fittingly enough.
From what I can tell it's structured a little differently from most festivals, retaining the showcase element for special events that took place over the last couple months, with one more planned for non-nominated films. Folks can check this out at the Blott Art Gallery on May 14th throughout the day, then there'll be a screening/awards ceremony for the nominees that evening at Viva Blackpool.

Wish 'em luck!

Dogged Persistence

For our eightieth episode (EIGHTIETH?!) of the Skwigly Animation Podcast I'm delighted to bring you an assortment of insights into the making of Wes Anderson’s latest critically-acclaimed stop-motion feature Isle of Dogs from four of the film’s key crew members!
This episode features audio from the special presentation Making Isle of Dogs that I was privileged enough to get to chair at the recent Cardiff Animation Festival, where we hear from:

• Kim Keukeleire (Lead Animator)
  After finishing her Masters degree in Animation Cinematography and Videography at the Enseignement National Supérieur des Arts Visuels (ENSAV) de La Cambre in Brussels in 1992, Kim has worked for several companies such as Passion Pictures, BBC Animations, Aardman, Cosgrove Hall and Will Vinton Studios (now Laika).
  Amongst others, Kim animated on Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson), Frankenweenie (Tim Burton) and Chicken Run (Nick Park & Peter Lord). She was the animation director of the recently Oscar-nominated French animation feature film My Life as a Courgette.
• Joshua Flynn (Sculptor/Fabricator)
  Joshua is a sculptor and puppet fabricator specialising in the stop-motion industry for feature films and commercials.
  Originally from Cardiff, Josh studied BA Animation at the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales). After graduating in 2011, he has worked on a number of productions across the UK including Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and his most recent film, Isle of Dogs.
  Together with his brother Nathan, the two of them make up SculptDouble, creating sculptures, maquettes and animations.
• Kerry Dyer (Head Of Department – Puppet Hospital)
  Kerry has over 10 years experience working in Stop Motion animation, for both TV and Film. Including: Ooglies, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires and Isle Of Dogs.
  She began her career as an animator, before finding she enjoyed the mechanics of armatures and the feel of clay between her fingers. She recently ran a team of ten, stitching together and generally repairing the inhabitants of Trash Island for Isle of Dogs.

Laura-Beth also brings us an exclusive chat with Key Animator Tim Allen, whose stop-motion career began with Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride and has gone on to include TV series such as Fifi and the Flower Tots and Shaun the Sheep with features including Fantastic Mr Fox, Frankenweenie, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires and Isle of Dogs. Tim also conducts animation workshops at festivals and events across the world.
Also on this episode – an overview of our personal CAF highlights, cultural appropriation, the problem with Apu that The Problem With Apu has brought to light, how not to get a job at Aardman and a special appearance from festival organisers Lauren Orme and Dani Abram.
Direct download here or stream below: