Exercises in Humility

Jutra (Dir. Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre)

This week on Skwigly I have an interview with Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, a kindred spirit in the sense that she makes animation documentaries, albeit with more of a creative spin. Working with the NFB and notably influenced by Norman McLaren, she's made the multi-award-winning McLaren's Negatives and last year's Jutra among others. She has a brilliant style and interesting process, you can learn more by giving the interview a read here: 
Interview with Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
Back in the more straightforward world of my mini-documentary series Lightbox, this week we have a special on Aardman's Shaun the Sheep Movie in anticipation of its release on Friday. We went up to Aardman Features in Aztec West where one of the film's lead animators Will Becher gave Steve, Laura-Beth and myself a nice demonstration of their puppets:

I'm quite interested in seeing how the film does compared to their other recent features, especially as this one feels more unabashedly/traditionally Aardman without trying to play to a broader audience.
Elsewhere I've had some disappointing news regarding the planned distribution of my most recent film Bullies. The short version is that interest from a company I'd been holding out for since last summer has been rescinded, so I'm back in limbo for the time being. Bit of a knock but I'm fondly keeping this little cinematic analogy in mind:

Frankly I'd been getting a little spoiled with things coming off without many hitches of late, so in a sense it's good to be brought down to Earth every once in a while. Keeps a fella humble, which is always a hard business given how unbelievably gifted and handsome I am. Plus, sometimes when we feel like we're floating without a paddle...well, new plans emerge. Watch this space.

Finally, just a reminder that I'll be in Cheltenham this Saturday, exhibiting at True Believers. Swing by and peruse my bookey wares, why doncha?

What Once Was

This here's one of those procrastination posts, the kind that keep me from getting on with the crop of proper, important stuff I have laid out for the rest of the evening.
I'm gonna go ahead and come clean, the blog's gonna be pretty sparse for the next little while. Aside from Skwigly roundups like documentaries and podcasts, since the Channel Flip contract ran its course I've gone back to working on projects that can't be publicly discussed. As far as personal projects go, there's always stuff on but I feel like some streamlining needs to be done. I recently sat down in front of Excel and put together a grand master plan to see if I could tie up all the loose ends I have as far as unfinished projects by the end of the year. The conclusion, in short, was "No effing chance."
Nothing new about this. I'm a habitual bite-off-more-than-I-can-chewer, always have been. For every five things I set myself, if I can get two done it's a minor miracle. I guess on some subconscious level I've adopted the approach from my musical hero, entrepreneur and sometime anger sphere Mike Patton:

Study the above video well, mainly the bit before the awfulness of Wolfmother deservedly gets a dressing down. Let's recap the upcoming projects he lists from about seven years back:

•"A couple film soundtracks" - these you gotta give him, as he's scored three feature films and an indie short in the years since.
•"A record of 60s Italian music with an orchestra" - this also got done, came out in 2010 and is bloody great.
•"A record with Dan The Automator" - one assumes this is a project called Crudo, very little of which ever saw the light of day if it was finished at all.
•"A record with Amon Tobin" - Yep, this never happened
•"Me and Rahzel are gonna do a record" - If only, but nothing's appeared as of yet.

So that's two out of five. Am I calling the man lazy? Hells no. I admire his proactivity, and one thing I myself have experienced many a time since this video was filmed is that lots of creative projects fall through for a multitude of reasons. Also, plans change; The Amon Tobin, Rahzel and Dan The Automator albums never materialised but instead we got three live DVDS (with Fantômas, Melvins and Kaada), a third and fourth Tomahawk album, six Moonchild albums, an album with Ictus Ensemble and over twenty guest spots on other records. Oh, and he also had the good manners to rejoin Faith No More for a three-year reunion tour. He performs countless live shows, does voices for video games, runs his own record label - the man's a busy sumbitch. Seriously, I don't understand why someone wouldn't be a fan, if you don't like one of his records you only have to wait ten minutes for a new one that sounds completely different.
So I doff my cap and try and take some cues from his attitude and overall approach as an artist. Not everything one wants to have happen will happen, but as long as you're enjoying the process, go for broke.

Obviously paid work comes first, but as far as things to attempt to get done in my free time, right now I have:
Bullies - fourth film which has been 'finished' since 2013 but still just doesn't quite hold together. If I tweak away at it much longer it's in danger of falling apart completely.
Speed - fifth film I don't think I've ever mentioned before, which is 'half' animated but, complicatedly, not completely written yet.
Throat: Book 3 - pretty much ready to go but waiting on final sign-off for the additional content.
Brain Scrapings - a second volume of sketches following on from Brain Spillage
My Pretties - a compendium of character designs, a very limited run of which went out in 2011 but since the surge of design work last year brought in I'd like to put out a proper, updated edition.
The Birdcage - latest Struwwelpeter album that has been marinating since 2011 after the release of The Book of Women.
Erica - first graphic novel since Throat, although I'm contemplating releasing it as a miniseries of five 20-page comics first.
On top of all these is a potentially major project I have to bite my tongue about (which I'm referring to just as Project Group-Hug for the time being), remastered reissues of all my major musical releases in the past decade or so, an assortment of behind-the-scenes vids, promotional whatchimajiggery and the demanding mistress that is Skwigly, which in and of itself involves documentaries, podcasts, regular written content and the odd field trip.
So, which of the above will get done? Who the bloody bloodying hell knows? Irritatingly I have two more film ideas I really, really want to get started on now, but that would take an already ridiculous situation and make it outright farcical. Realistically the next few months will yield two more Skwigly documentaries which I've been having a blast putting together, the final volume of Throat and, if I'm being super-optimistic, the final cut of Bullies. Whether or not that means other stuff will evaporate remains to be seen. I hope they don't but I don't exactly shift enough units to suggest that the world would stop turning if they do.
So I'll be retreating for a while, to focus on the slog and poke my head out for podcasts and whatnot. On a sort-of related note, I'll be with Skwigly at this year's British Animation Awards to get some coverage of the event, so knock wood there'll be a nice little featurette out of it next week sometime. If any of you folks will be there and I don't seem too squirrely, tap me on the shoulder and say hi.

One last thing, I recently found some source files for two EPs I put out in the lead-up to The Book of Women, one in 2008, the other in 2010. Both feature a smattering of early versions/alternate mixes and I figured there'd be no harm reposting them on my Facebook page. The physical versions of each have long since run out but they each come with printable artwork if you're old school and like your music in them shiny plastic boxes.

Download Sibling Ribaldry EP (2008)

Download Digital Stimulation EP (2010)

Ben The Bully

I'm in what I sincerely hope will be the final stretch of the production of my fourth short "Bullies". Making this film has been a sporadic, on-again-off-again affair over the last couple years, chipping away at it between commissions, Skwigly taking off and "Throat" turning out to be more of a dominating force in my life than expected. But my sincere hope is for "Bullies" to be doing the rounds before the end of the year, as I've already started work on my fifth and sixth shorts and can only have so many plates spinning at any one time without losing my mind entirely.
So as it nears completion I'm putting together a series of webisodes on the making of the film. Episode 1 went up this week, documenting my spectacularly professional approach to voice directing. The gentleman being bullied is old paisan and bromance partner Chris Richardson, who plays Liam. Watch in actual awe below:

More to come.

Bully Backgrounds (Part 1)

Here's something for a merry Friday afternoon that you can all shove in your eyeholes should you so desire - the first batch of backgrounds for my fourth short "Bullies", a film which is defying logic and expectation by inexplicably coming together.
Ain't they purty? It's a bit of a departure from my prior background work as far as the level of detail goes, though the general approach to construction and design has stayed the same. I owe a big hearty back-slap of gratitude to the lovely Luca, who has been lending a hand here and there for no reason other than being spectacularly awesome. She's also been a massive help with my animated "Throat" promo, which should be online sometime in August, so get out the zester and keep those eyes peeled. In the nearer future I'm off to London to indulge an extended weekend of Faith No M'awesomeness, so steel yourself for some fanboy gushing over the next few posts.

Back to the Box

While “Bullies” is progressing in a more or less entirely digital manner, a thought occurred recently that a potentially effective way to promote “Throat” might be to put together a teaser trailer for it. After contemplating the motion graphics angle briefly, I figure it would be better suited to proper, traditional animation so as to be truer to the overall look and feel of the panel art. Which means it’s time to dust off ol’ Molly the lightbox (who’s served me well as a very effective coat rack since I bought Cindi the Cintiq) and get back to some lovely, ol’-fashioned pencil-on-paper animation. The idea is to pick several excerpts from the book that might translate effectively as brief 2-5 second animated vignettes, edited together in a way that doesn’t reveal much of the story but hopefully percolates the interest of people who haven’t read the book yet. I’m still in the throwing-stuff-against-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks phase but here are some sample layouts:

As mentioned above, “Bullies” has been pretty much a completely Cintiq-centric affair, but in keeping with the old-school theme, here are a few pencil sketches on which some of the layout and background work will be based:

And with that I think I feel the familiar twinge of carpal tunnel coming on. How I missed it so!

Yep. Definitely have a cold. There goes the weekend...

Good news regarding the short film side of things (remember back when that was something I did?), there'll be a double screening of my cartooney cheeriness this month at Porto7 Oporto International Short Film Festival which takes place in Portugal from June 13th-17th. This rather happily marks the Portuguese debut of "The Naughty List" some 58 festivals down the line (ditto for "Ground Running", which is also being screened, although the in-progress version did get some Portuguese exposure a few years back). Happier still, however, is that between my three films to date this will officially be the one-hundredth festival event to publicly screen my work! Yay for triple-digits!
While I don't see a parade in my honour coming this way I suppose I'll have to settle for some type of sense of personal achievement, in accomplishing something I - and I'm sure a fair few others - never thought possible. On top of that it serves as something to show for nearly four years of sticking with an industry that has taken a massive slug to the gut, entirely on my own.
But a parade would've been nice. Just sayin'.
Or failing that, maybe something that resembles enthusiasm from the direction of a few more of these locally-based animation studios. That'd be nice too. I'm right here, folks! Animator for hire!
OH WELL, keeping things positive I'm sincerely flattered as always that there are still places out there willing to give me some exposure, especially as production has begun proper on "Bullies" after its 'get "Throat" finished'-induced hiatus. Speaking of which, here's a little glimpse at an in-progress line test. What a shock, it's something of mine that features unnecessary nudity...

Happy 40th!

Another festival checkpoint has been reached as of this morning, with "The Naughty List" clocking up its fortieth screening! That's four fifths of my long game for the film achieved (my plan is to retire it once it hits fifty), so cold turkey leftovers for everyone! Vilnius Film Shorts will take place in Lithuania from October 13th-16th, and knock wood I may be able to grab a long weekend and head on over there. The only Lithuanian I know is a barista who I'm pretty sure spits in my coffee every morning, so maybe if I immerse myself more in her culture she'll instantly love me. I really do make grounded, logical plans.I may as well use this opportunity to make the somewhat overdue announcement that I have received a grant to part-fund my fourth film "Bullies", which is trundling along nicely. Assets are gradually being built, deadlines are in place and, most importantly, I'm making headway getting the animatic edited down before I start the animation proper. Right now it's down to eighteen minutes after its initial twenty-five. There's lots more whittlin' down to be done (ideally if I can get it down to ten then I'll be in much better shape) but all in all, things look good. I also figure that, as with "House Guest", the unused dialogue that doesn't necessarily work as a film could still be used as part of a graphic novel adaptation once it's done. Look at me with my planning ahead as opposed to my usual barreling blindly into calamity. It's like I'm becoming a grownup.

Affected

The last few days have been spent putting together a rough dialogue record for "Bullies", which has led to the crushing revelation that the film as it presently exists is TWENTY-FIVE minutes in length. Fucky-fuck-fuck. And, might I add, a fuckity-fuckeroo.
That's actually not so much a concern as far as the production goes - "House Guest" was originally eighteen minutes and took about six months to produce, including the trial and error of cutting my teeth on the software and a more laborious overall animation style. The issue is that longer animated shorts just don't do as well. Sales agents and the festival circuit tend to like their films short and punchy. The exceptions tend to be the types of films that break new ground or just massive studio productions. Mine ticks neither box, so unless Aardman want to pick up the rights (Hinty-McHint) I'm in a lickle quandary.

That aside, I'm really happy with the way the recording went. I may have to redo it more professionally down the line, but for the purposes of an animatic it came off quite well. Here you can see me step up to the plate as a mic stand on top of my directorial duties:

The guy playing Liam is my old school friend Chris Richardson, which is apt as it's a film about old school friends reuniting. Also Chris has pretty decent acting chops, which is kind of important when it comes to, well, acting. We first met at school where him and a couple other kids would record skits impersonating members of staff with eerie precision. They were calamitous, indecipherable at times and frequently abandoned at the midway point due to constant corpsing. But motherfuck, they were funny.

The Larry Soundtrack, for which I designed the cover. Trust me, it both made perfect sense and was incredibly witty back in 2000

I kept trying to insinuate myself into the process, encouraging them to do it professionally in a way that I could make marketable. Even at fifteen I was a fiscally conscious executive douchebag at heart. Fortunately they smelled my despicable agenda a mile away and wouldn't have any of it. But now the tables have a-turned!

In a slightly more professional environment (note the use of an actual pop shield in lieu of an unwashed sock - and they say Kubrick gave his performers shit) I recorded my dialogue separately, on my lonesome which made for a strangely schizophrenic experience:

So, with altogether too much material to work with, the film's preproduction is pretty much done. Sumbitch, I may just end up pulling this off. If I can decide which region of Ireland my character's meant to be from...

Bullyboarded

Here are some more random storyboard excerpts from "Bullies", my current in-progress fillum. I'm purposefully dealing with very limited, Hanna-Barbera-esque animation this time around, so my range of expression is automatically restricted. Hopefully the dialogue and compositing will fill in the gaps and make it fun to watch.
I'm not putting these up in any kind of chronological order, so there won't be a lot of sense made from them. Ain't I the mischievously mysterious scamp?






Storyboard is pretty much done at this point, so the next stage is the dialogue record and animatic, both of which will be equally crucial in determining whether or not the film can be feasibly produced without funding. Otherwise I'll have to start puckering up to thems with the monies, yo...

Bully For You

The impulse with my latest short "Bullies" is to keep things all very hush-hush as it comes together. Why, however is beyond me; I'm not exactly making the next season of "Breaking Bad". Wikileaks doesn't have a special category labeled "Ben Mitchell's Cartooney Horseshit". I think it's more a reflection of my own over-cautiousness as it's a different type of film than I'm used to, story-wise as well as visually, and if I were honest I'd put up the whole warts'n'all process so the world (by which I mean the microscopically small percentage of its inhabitants who read this blog) can see me trip up at every hurdle.
But I'm not honest. No, I'm driven entirely by deceit and misrepresentation - not just on here, but in every facet of life. Don't judge me, it's society's inability to accept grown men who still watch "The Real Ghostbusters" on DVD and count Tangfastics as one of their five-a-day that has forced me into this corner.
The hell was I talking about?
The hell am I ever talking about?
Well, anyway, in a bid to get over my preciousness, here are the concept designs for the main characters, in full view for the first time. Meet Patrick and Liam:They're douchebags. Of the lovable variety, if I pull this little endeavour off right. And here they are in non-sequential storyboard form (my compromise is I'll keep the actual dialogue under wraps for now):






So there you go, the first gander at film #4, albeit a sketchy and smudgy one. I'm storyboarding the whole film as written (which is presently a tad overlong) and will put up some more excerpts in a few days. In the meantime, here's a man in his underwear:

Getting Packed

My Stuttgart trip is drawing near and, predictably, the main thing on my mind is "How oh how can I best whore myself until I'm literally somewhat chafed?". Last week I officially gladhanded the last of many "Naughty List" promotional business cards to...I dunno, probably some Caffe Gusto barista I was trying to flirt with, that's where most of my cards end up. So I took the opportunity of a free evening to whip up some new "Bullies" cards in their stead. Hey, I bet that's where the word 'instead' comes from, right? I just taught myself something about my first language. Go me.

Technically it should read 'In lengthy, awkward, uncertain, self-doubt-plagued pre-production' but, y'know, font size...

Also, before I changed my mind and went with my "Naughty List" xmas card campaign, I'd designed a DVD showreel cover that went unused, so I've whipped up a quick DVD with my films and showreels to pass on to fellow Stuttgartgoers to go with it.This way all those empty cases won't be sitting around my apartment anymore, mocking my lack of follow-through. Well, I followed through, dammit! Five months later...
Some other festivals "The Naughty List" is scheduled to appear at after Stuttgart:Starting with Vienna Independent Shorts in Austria, which will show it on May 27th as part of their noon screening Très chic. Which is pretty très awesome of them, innit?
Next month it comes back to Germany for the International Filmfest Emden-Norderney, which runs from June 15th-22nd and will show the film twice, first as part of the main festival and then as part of a supplemental, family-friendly showcase. Exact times and venue information should be online early next month.I was also surprised to hear that in July my first film "House Guest" will be getting a screening at the Fest Anča International Animation Festival, an event that intrigues me given that its mascot appears to be a large, red, angry, toothed vagina. I generally consider the film to be retired from the festival circuit but it still pops up occasionally. Specifics closer to the time but that'll be sometime between July 1st-3rd.
Well, I should probably get my very small suitcase and attempt to jam at least one change of clothes in amongst all my self-promotion-ey crap. Toodles.

Pitched Out

It's been a mostly sleepless week living off cornflakes, yoghurt and instant coffee (my digestive tract is both anxious and befuddled) as I'm gathering pre-production materials for two short film pitches. Hoping to stick with my pattern of producing one short of my own per year, I'm leaning toward the more developed, easier-to-pull-off "Bullies". I have a script and a large chunk of the storyboard done, plus I can get on the asset building while I wait to hear back from potential backers. That way if I don't get any bites I'll have enough material in place to pursue other opportunities or possibly just take more time to knock it out myself.
I'm really excited about this one as it's shaping up to be a completely different visual experience than my previous films, relying more on the production processes of certain commissions and slightly more contemporary character design work. To that end I'm torn between showing off or keeping under my hat the proposed designs I have now. So here's my concession:Speaking of short films (which I guess is pretty much all I do on here) Sophie Klevenow's 2009 short "Noesis", for which I did the sound mix, just got accepted into the AG Kurzfilm German Shortfilm Catalogue, which is excellent and well-deserved news. It really is uniquely remarkable for a student film and has been very well-received with good reason. If you've yet to see it I'd recommend you check it out.Some screening news to end on - "Ground Running" will be getting another showing at this year's Skepto after its inclusion last year. It's part of a 'Best of 2010' pre-festival screening on the 25th which is pretty flattering.Elsewhere - Tamil Nadu, specifically - "The Naughty List" will be part of the 2011 International Short Film Festival of India which starts on the same day. Given the country's increasing relevance within the animation industry it's very encouraging to get a screening over there.
Now to prepare for a weekend of scanning and compositing, fueled by my 18th Müllerlight of the day...