Octoberfests (2019 edition)

There's a small smattering of opportunities to see Sunscapades out in the world this coming October, so for those of you who were all "Where can I see Sunscapades out in the world this coming October?" then this is the post for you, boy-howdy.

First up will be this week at Animacine - Agreste Animation Festival that takes place in Pernambuco, Brazil. The film will be part of a special international shorts programme curated by Sávio Leite of the MUMIA Underground World Animation Festival which it also participated in last year. Swing by 2pm this coming Thursday, October 3rd - more info available here.

The week after Sunscapades will be gleefully among the line-up of the inaugural Shock Reel Cinema Film Festival, a new event rolling out this year as part of the longer-running Fantasm Orlando horror convention that goes from October 11th-13th. Pretty sad I can't make the trek as it looks like a fun one (Cliff Clavin's gonna be there, fer cryin' out loud) but keep an eye on the site for specifics.

Later on and a little closer to home I'll be presenting the film at Shorts In Focus which takes place in Bath at the Komedia and Laura-Beth will also be there with Boris-Noris. This is more of a show-and-tell type event that looks to be in the vein of the old CineMe screenings I used to be involved with, so hopefully will be fun. It'll kick off 7:30pm on Monday October 21st if you fancy popping along.

Also on the subject of festivals, the Encounters Short Film Festival (at which Sunscapades screened last year) has just wrapped up its 25th edition. This time around I was on the preselection jury on top of hosting the animation filmmaker Q'n'A sessions so after a pretty intense spell of film-oriented mayhem I'm a little fried right now. It was however enormous fun and a real treat to spend some time with some amazing new and established talents, so kudos to Kieran, Rich et al for getting it put together.

To help alleviate the post-fest comedown I'm happy to say I'll be putting out each of the sessions as podcast minisodes, starting today with Animation 1: WhatThe? In this episode we hear from directors Ross Hogg (4:3), Rebecca Blöcher (Lickalike) and Adriaan Lokman (Flow) as well as Andi Haller, who served as sound designer on Thomas Renoldner's Don’t Know What. Download here or give it a stream below:
I'm aiming to get out five - possibly six, fingers crossed - episodes out over the next fortnight, so keep your eyes on Skwigly for more as it comes.

Predicting good things for this one

In the latest episode of our Skwigly podcast series Intimate Animation Laura-Beth and I meet Netherlands-based director Floor Adams, who has drawn upon her unique personal and professional experiences with people on the autism spectrum to create Mind My Mind. A remarkable film that takes on the prevailing issues of social and emotional limitations through its sympathetic portrayal of model aeroplane-enthusiast Chris, Mind My Mind also explores the conflict of navigating new romantic relationships and sexual experiences against his reluctance to disrupt his established routines.
Presently enjoying a strong festival run that has so far seen it pick up awards at Anima Brussels (where it premiered), ITFS Stuttgart, Go Short International Short Film Festival Nijmegen and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, Mind My Mind was recently granted an Oscar®-qualifying run in the USA by EYE International and will be screening in competition at Bristol’s Encounters festival this week.
Also discussed in this episode: Highlights from this year’s Encounters festival programme of other animated short films that deal with themes of love, desire and intimacy as well as the new animated Amazon Prime series Undone and its interwoven explorations of relationships and mental health issues.
Direct download here or stream below:

"Rabbits? Where? Ooh, wow!"

Following last week's streaming preview the remastered reissue of my 2006 Struwwelpeter album Agnosticaust is now available to buy. You can get your hands on it (not literally, digital only releases from here on out) pretty much everywhere that sells music but I'm inclined to point you in the direction of Bandcamp as that version features an extra five bonus songs. You can check out the whole album before you buy below:

The extra cuts are Tom Waits For No One (hidden track on the original CD release), the video remix of Let Slip, a remastered version of the original album mix of TGI Nancy Friday and two previously unreleased live performances of The Rachel Capers and Laughing At A Wall. I spoils ya!

Catapulting ourselves into the present day, in the 93rd episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast I catch up with Lauren Orme, Festival Director of the Cardiff Animation Festival, founder of Cardiff Animation Nights and co-founder/Creative Director at Picl Animation. Lauren has also recently finished her short film Creepy Pasta Salad with Winding Snake Productions that screens next week at Bristol’s Encounters festival in the competition programme Herstory on Thursday September 26th at noon.
I also speak with David Hutchinson of Wildbrain to discuss navigating the often-overwhelming world of online animation having recently created the YouTube series Boy and Dragon.
Finally Steve chats with Connor Heaney and John Walsh of The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation to discuss the various upcoming Harryhausen 100 events in honour of Ray Harryhausen’s centenary and John’s book Harryhausen: The Lost Movies. Ray also makes a special cameo appearance from beyond the grave, which is sort of fitting when you consider his body of work. As always you can give it a stream (below) or download for keepsies.

Stop saying 'Lund'

Bit o' Sunscapades news for ya today. It's going to be screening in the lunderful land of Lund later this month as part of the programme for the 25th anniversary edition of the Lund International Fantasy Film Festival. Lund!
The Lundtastic screening will be An Animated Cocktail that takes place on September 29th 1:30pm and marks the film's Swedish premiere.
Happily it also marks the latest of several pairings up with Anna Mantzaris's Good Intentions which also features music by Phil Brookes. Y'all should hire him, dude's clearly a good-luck charm.
Sadly I can't make it in person but it looks like a wonderful fest - they're even screening Hellraiser fer crissakes - so any Swedes in the area be sure to check it out.

I like pink

Original phonograph cylinder release

Some good news in that this month sees me finally ticking off a big ol' ticklist item. What with physical media being pretty much utterly redundant when it comes to independent music distribution, I'd wanted to migrate my back catalogue of albums to the platforms I've been using more recently. The slight issue being that everything prior to 2010 was mixed and mastered pretty abysmally and it's been hard to justify putting too much time toward sprucing up old music that was never that big of a deal to begin with.  So getting them all remastered and freely available on today's newfangled streaming platforms will be an ongoing, protracted endeavour - but one that's finally underway.

A week today will see the rerelease of my 2006 Struwwelpeter album Agnosticaust. This has been out-of-print for over five years since the CD sales dwindled to non-existence but back in the very brief days of MySpace convincing its youthful patrons to arbitrarily buy anything with the word 'indie' in its metadata this album did pretty well, relatively-speaking. It's a bit of a shame that I subsequently made two far better albums (The Book of Women and The Birdcage) that never quite found a similar wave to ride, sales-wise, but revisiting this record having not heard it in a very long time I was relieved to find it didn't make me puke blood with embarrassment. That being said, it took a lot of time to get it remixed to a listenable standard alongside the newer records. I won't bore you with a track-by-track breakdown; basically it's a bit louder, a bit fuller and some of the multitracking on the vocals has been redone from scratch as they were a rushed mess at times.
It will be available to buy from Bandcamp and various other outlets on the 20th but in the meantime you can already stream it on a variety of platforms including Spotify:

Despite the revamp it's still a pretty warts-and-all, no-budget affair with some ludicrously corny moments (inexplicable white-boi rap moments? Check!) but there's hopefully some stuff in there to enjoy. Mainly I'm glad it's back out in the world for the fond memories of a time when I could just spend my days just slapping a record together with my mates.
Well, my mates and that one bag of shit who stole my rare Dillinger Escape Plan EP for drug money, but hey - water, bridge etc. Needless to say I'm glad my social circle these days is mostly people who make cartoons and drink tea.