Not about me for a change. Just kidding, I totally make it about me...

"Damned" (Dir. Richard Phelan, ©2011 NFTS)

This month's main Skwigly feature is now online, so why not give it a gander? It's a double interview with two of last year (a particular strong crop)'s NFTS grads Richard Phelan and Francesca Adams. Their films have the shared traits of being traditionally animated and having all-animal ensemble casts, though in every other respect they couldn't be further apart.

"Bertie Crisp" (Dir. Francesca Adams, ©2011 NFTS)

Phelan's "Damned" is a sweet-natured tale of a beaver with ambition whose grandiose plan to convert the forest into a giant dam goes awry, while Adams's "Bertie Crisp" is a brutally adult story of an emasculated bear whose vicious wife send him to steal the baby of their neighbour (who's already burdened with a quadriplegic, possibly vegetative husband). In their own vastly different ways they're both pissingly funny and are two of the more standout student films doing the rounds this year, so I was really glad to get a chance to chat to both filmmakers.

Animal Instinct - A Conversation with Richard Phelan and Francesca Adams

"A Morning Stroll" (Dir. Grant Orchard, ©2011 Studio AKA)

On that note it was fantastic to hear that Grant Orchard, who I'd interviewed last year, won the Short Animation BAFTA last night with "A Morning Stroll", which has been doing brilliantly and is also up for an Oscar. It really is a great piece of work and most inspiring of all is how it came together without funding, pretty much as a labour of love the studio crew contributed to in their spare time over a two year period. So mazel tov again to Studio AKA and kudos to their modus operandi!
If it's of interest you can read my interview with Grant here (I'm a coattail rider, I admit it unabashedly, but it's a darn fun ride) for some backstory on the film and his prior work to date.

A Conversation with Grant Orchard

Cartoons Are Fun

Best souvenir ever...

My massive Encounters-athon has just come to a close and I'm shakily writing this in the interim between the final screening and a personal trainer session that's sure to finish me off. The festival's been great, if for no other reason that I drank until my eyes melted and got to meet some much-admired filmmaker types. Knock wood I didn't manage to completely alienate the greater percentage of them. "Ground Running"'s Saturday screening played to a slightly smaller crowd but the overall response to it seemed even better than on Thursday. Shame on all of you for laughing at that little naked baby's pain.
My own self-celebration aside, there were loads of amazing and inspiring shorts including some previous favourites "Damned", "The External World", "Bertie Crisp", "A Morning Stroll", "Greetings" and "The Eagleman Stag" along with a few seen for the first time:









All in all it was a great week and I'm especially grateful to Pete, Justine, Jo, Matt, Hans, Mel, Chris and Rachel for their support. Also I want to express my appreciation for the volunteers for all their help, including the frumpy one (who couldn't have been in a shittier mood if her knickers were lined with fibreglass) for not spitting directly in my face.
Well, it took three films and ninety festivals but I finally have this one crossed off the list. I finally feel at home in Bristol now.

Fifty is the new...uh...eh, who cares...

Another groovy little milestone for "The Naughty List" has been reached with its fiftieth festival taking place later this month. This will be in Gdańsk, Poland for Euroshorts 2011, screening alongside some smashing films such as Iain Gardner's "The Tannery" and Grant Orchard's "A Morning Stroll". This will be on November 23rd at 6pm, more info on their site.Also, if you're around for Bristol Encounters (which starts today), don't forget that "Ground Running", the runt of the litter as far as my films go, will be playing twice during the Animated Encounters screening "The Human Condition", firstly at 10am tomorrow (17th) and then at noon on Saturday (19th). There's loads of other events and screenings worth checking out, including the great John K's signings and Q&A discussion that I'm mildly losing my shit over in anticipation. So if that grim scenario is something you're okay with witnessing firsthand, pop along.

Spiffing, Strolling and Skwiglying

After a bit of a hiatus, Skwigly is up and running again with a batch of new features to read on their site. These include the piece I did on "Tales of the Spiffing", the Aardman collaborative graphic novel project I referred to awhile back, wherein a bunch of the book's contributors share their thoughts on how it came together, using sequential art as a storytelling medium and how their skills translate from working in animation. Some interesting insights from some very talented artists, so read, buy, share and repeat!
CARTOON NATION: A chat with the talents behind "TALES OF THE SPIFFING"

Another interview I did is with Grant Orchard, director at Studio AKA and known for his viral shorts such as "Park Foot Ball" and "Paintballing". AKA are probably best known at the moment for their massive Lloyds TSB campaign, the staccato-hummed music of which has been driving the nation mildly insane (they look very pretty though). Other projects include Philip Hunt's spectacularly successful adaptation of Oliver Jeffers's "Lost and Found".Grant's new film "A Morning Stroll" seems destined to fit in with their impressive body of work and is already kicking the festival circuit's ass; in less than a month out there it's picked up awards at nearly every festival it's been screened at. Nice feller too, so give it a read and check out the film when it plays near you:
Studio AKA's Grant Orchard on "A Morning Stroll"

As well as everyone who took the time to be interviewed, special thanks to Ashley Boddy and JP Vine for their help with the "Spiffing" piece, as well as Ren Pesci from Studio AKA who, as well as helping setup the interview, has the greatest name in existence.

Montag

I'm headed back to the UK this evening after a spectacular weekend away. The festival really was a treat and my only regret is that I wasn't able to get to Stuttgart sooner. In all candour, a lot of festivals tend to throw in a hefty percentage of films that really are mediocre at best and leave you scratching your head. Stuttgart however seemed to really keep the quality level of the chosen films very consistent. I'm very inspired but also very humbled and a little intimidated. The bar is friggin' high these days.
Here are some more films that I got a kick out of (look at me with my hip turns of phrase, Christ almighty...):

Others I couldn't find clips for include Matray's "Babioles", Alexandra Hetmerova's "Swimming Pool", Ruth Lingford's "Little Deaths", Peter Baynton's "Save Our Bacon", Magnus Carlsson's "Hon & Han" and Joost Lieuwma's "Things You'd Better Not Mix Up" nearly gave me a hernia.

I also saw "Tangled", which made me feel old. The Disney princesses have now officially stopped infuriating me for being girly and irritating (as when I was a young'un) and instead now infuriate me for being sort of unattainably bangable.

Don't judge me, one of the main plot points is that she's eighteen...

To a certain extent I sort of wanted to have a crack at the guy too.

Damn lovable rogue with a heart o'gold he was...

But as always they threw in enough funny stuff to keep it watchable for a disenchanted old prick like me; the horse did kinda kick ass although he did seem a little borrowed from Ren & Stimpy's Mr. Horse at times.The awards ceremony was last night, I didn't understand a word of it as I don't speak more than seven words of German. Given that the rest of the festival seemed to be predominantly English that was a little odd. They said at one point that we'd all been offered headphones with translations piped through. I don't know if that was a joke or not, but we definitely weren't. Regardless, a lot of great films that deserved to win actually won, which again is kind of a rarity in the festival world. The list of winners can be found here.

Now to see how many bread and sausage-based foodstuffs I can cram into my suitcase without going over the baggage weight limit. Tschüss!