Glory Box

After a short summer break I've resumed Lightbox, the Skwigly series of animation mini-docs I'm producing for our fledgling YouTube Channel. To get you up to speed here's Laura-Beth's exclusive interview with Ben Bocquelet, creator of the bizarrely endearing (or endearingly bizarre, either work) Cartoon Network series The Amazing World of Gumball.

Also in the lead-up to this year's Encounters festival, this week's episode features a chat with their 2013 jury member, special guest and great filmmaker all-around, Isabelle Favez.

Isabelle's work includes the shorts Valise, Tarte aux Pommes and my personal favourite Au Coeur de l'Hiver which accommodates my guilty penchant for cute cartoon things scampering about. They're also pretty chucklesome so if you manage to track them down they're worth the effort.
Don't forget to subscribe on YouTube to catch each new episode, plenty more a-comin'!

Still Skwiglin'

Just a quick fumble to keep you all appraised of some Skwigly updates.
The latest episode of Lightbox is now up and features the amiably amiable Dean DeBlois, director of How to Train Your Dragon 2. I'm more of a casual Dreamworks fan and, while I certainly enjoyed the first film, the sequel is a genuinely solid, witty piece of work which I'd definitely recommend checking out when it opens in the UK tomorrow.

There's also more Annecy 2014 coverage I haven't yet mentioned on here, have a read of some of the short film highlights and special events. Also the first piece from our time with Cartoon Network is up, wherein Laura-Beth chats to Ben Bocquelet, creator of The Amazing World of Gumball. Laura-Beth has also stepped up to design and animate this month's site banner:

These are getting to be a really nice way of engaging out writers and readers alike. You can check out an archive of prior banners here, including two personal favourites by Rumpus:

...and Sophie Klevenow:

Both of whom fall firmly into the category of people I periodically have to fight the urge to call up and say how awesome I think they are, mainly because it'd doubtless creep them out.
Some news to end on is that I've been told that Project Group-Hug is in the final stage before getting the go-ahead or not. As I've never elaborated on what it even is I appreciate that any interest in said news is probably less than nil. But it's worth keeping tabs on should it proceed. And if you never hear of it again...well, consider it a massive, derision-worthy failure. If I can offer you all nothing else than schadenfreude it's surely the least I can do.