Summer Podding

Thirsty for some podcasts? Then boy howdy have you come to the right place. Here are two new episodes of the Skwigly Animation Podcast for your suckling lips to latch on to. In episode 84 we’re thrilled to speak to one of modern animated television’s most respected writer/producers Josh Weinstein. As a writer Josh has been involved in The Simpsons (alongside partner Bill Oakley), Gravity Falls, Futurama, Strange Hill High and Danger Mouse. Most recently Josh has developed the new Netflix series Disenchantment – which dropped last month – alongside creator Matt Groening.
Direct download link here if you're not in a streamy mood.

In episode 85 we welcome Ben Steer, director of the multi-award-winning Mamoon, released online this week. Developed as part of Blue Zoo’s long-running animated short films programme, the film is an expertly-crafted visualisation of the emotional toll of the Syrian Civil War in which a mother and child find themselves in peril.
What, you want another direct download link? Here, bloody well take it why doncha?

Stocking Fillers

Before I retreat into Xmasdom there are a couple of new podcasts ready for your listenin' ears over on Skwigly. Last week we resumed our longer-running series with a couple of timely guest spots, namely Ferdinand director Carlos Saldanha and Google Spotlight Stories composer Scot Stafford whose first directorial effort Sonaria was recently released. Some of you may recall we spoke with Scot in the first Animation Composed podcast outing about a year ago regarding his music output.
This morning saw us hit episode 75 (not counting all the other series strands and minisodes) with a focus on some holiday animation, primarily Blue Zoo (guests Tom Box, Simone Giampaolo and Francesco Mazza)'s new internally-produced short Lynx and Birds and director Jeroen Jaspaert tells us about the latest Magic Light Pictures Julia Donaldson adaptation The Highway Rat that you can catch on BBC1 Xmas day.
You can stream them above or direct download them here (74) and here (75).
Right now I'm far far away doing my best to get all the character animation done and dusted for my latest film Sunscapades. There are some sequences in this one that I'm incredibly chuffed with and would love to post up here but it would sort of spoil the film so I have to abstain. In the meantime here are a couple of Insta-peeks:

A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on Nov 20, 2017 at 1:21pm PST

A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on Dec 9, 2017 at 9:56am PST

A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on Dec 10, 2017 at 7:28am PST

A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on Dec 15, 2017 at 1:40pm PST

More of that good shiz if you follow me on Instagram, the 34-year-old man typed without hating himself whatsoever.
Captain dipshit over here was already on his way to Portland for the holidays before he realised he'd left his Cintiq pen back at his home office in Bristol, so any productivity in the next couple of weeks is entirely owed to the brilliant Dani Abram who posted her spare one to me. Some beverages and a big shiny Special Thanks credit in her future, but here in the present let me point you in the direction of her website so you can bask in her awesomeness. Spirit of the season and that.
Now to the past, and a last little bleat of gratitude regarding Klementhro, the film I really should have drawn a line under since its online release but just won't shut up about. Mainly I want to extend my thanks once again to the Short of the Week team who took a punt on it, including Rob for the original write-up and Georg who included it in his Top 10 of 2017. Here's a cheeky repost of last year's holiday animation for the benefit of those who hadn't seen the original film when it originally went up:

Blizzard

Here are some more Skwigly advent calendar contributions to help you get your holly and jolly on:

Claude Cloutier

Sean Cox

Stephen McNally

Ross Phillips

Blue Zoo

We've passed the halfway point but fret not, there's still plenty more goodness to come. In the meantime you may wish to peruse some other Skwigly offerings such as Lucinda Parry's recent interview with Peter Sohn (director) and Denise Ream (producer) of Pixar's new feature The Good Dinosaur:

Also Laura-Beth has some holiday gift suggestions for the animator in your life, as well as interviews with Pa director Lawrence Rowell, Snowfall director Conor Whelan and Cooped director Mike A. Smith, all fantastic films from this year (and the latter we had the pleasure of screening at MAF last month). Meanwhile Steve Henderson has interviewed Fresh Cut Grass director Rob Cullen, Stephen Cavalier has added some more entries to his ongoing 100 Greatest Animated Shorts series, Johannes Wolters brings us a chat with Pete Doctor (director) and Jonas Rivera (producer) of Pixar's other 2015 film Inside Out (now out to buy) and new contributor Heather Wiggins gives an overview of MAF's inaugural edition as well as the feature film highlights of 2015. Meanwhile I recently caught up with Canadian director Howie Shia of PPF House about his latest NFB film BAM (a fabulous piece of work indeed) along with a Q&A with Tom Gran of Spin Kick Bros about their new webseries Lone Wolves.

I was also kindly invited by Marco de Blois to contribute again to Revue24's end-of-year animated short film critics' lists, my personal top ten being: 

1. World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt (États-Unis / USA) 
2. Teeth, Tom Brown, Daniel Gray, Hungary (Hongrie-États-Unis-Angleterre / Hungary-USA-England) 
3. Splintertime, Rosto (France-Pays-Bas-Belgique / France-Netherlands-Belgium) 
4. We can't Live Without Cosmos, Constantin Bronzit (Russie / Russia) 
5. Ernie Biscuit, Adam Elliot (Australie / Australia) 
6. If I Was God..., Cordell Barker (Canada) 
7. Stems, Ainslie Henderson (Royaume-Uni / UK) 
8. Sonámbulo, Theodore Ushev (Canada) 
9. Very Lonely Cock, Leonid Shmelkov (Russie / Russia) 
10. The Story of Percival Pilts, Janette Goodey, John Lewis (Australie / Australia) 

Interesting to note that there isn't quite as notable a disparity between my picks and the other critics as last year. Have a read of the full article and see what you think. I'm looking forward to checking out the films others have picked that I've not yet come across so far.

Chocolate Substitute

Our Skwigly advent calendar has wrapped up for another year, and what a thing of beauty it has become!
Here's another sampling of brilliant contributions:

Tanya Scott

Ross Butter and Louis Hudson

Rok Predin

Blue Zoo

Charlie Miller

Elliot Crutchley

Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi

Massive gratitude again to everyone who took the time! Until next year, boys and gals.