In episode 121 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we welcome the team from the upcoming animated series Ghostbusters: Night Shift – Ben Hibon, Elliott Kalan, Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan and Amie Karp.
Also discussed: CAF highlights including Julia Pott’s masterclass, Sketch Showdown antics and The Midnight Walk, festival karaoke traditions, beating the heat at Annecy, teasing Wildwood with Travis Knight, Richard Williams’s posthumous final film Lysistrata, Ricky Gervais’s Alley Cats, Ben’s attempt to get through Charlie Kaufman’s stop-mo-themed novel Antkind, the rise of both AI and the vehement pushback against it through projects including Jorge Gutierrez’s abandoned project Punky Duck and the Annecy furore around Hisko Hulsing’s Danse Macabre.
Excited to again be involved in another edition of Cardiff Animation Festival, which this year takes place April 23rd-26th at Chapter Arts Centre. I'll be there with Laura-Beth to present a few Skwigly brunch events including a book presentation 10am Friday 24th (talking Intimate Animation alongside Joanna Quinn, Les Mills and Greg McLeod discussing their own recent literary ventures) and filmmaker Q&A sessions on the 25th and 26th. See you there!
Also discussed: The increasing sneakiness of AI creators passing their content off as animation, adult fandoms of popular children’s shows, pleasing Oscar and BAFTA outcomes with wins for The Girl Who Cried Pearls (Dir. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) and Two Black Boys in Paradise (Dir. Baz Sells), Aardman‘s upcoming Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, upcoming Cardiff Animation Festival highlights, the ‘social experiment’ of Konstantin Bronzit’s Oscar-nominated short The Three Sisters and we review the recent BBC series Small Prophets featuring animation by Ainslie Henderson and Will Anderson.
A couple of events next week for y'all to check out.
Our Summer edition of Bristol Animation Meetup (BAM) will be taking place on Tuesday July 8th. This time around we'll be teaming up with the returning Encounters Film Festival for INBETWEENS, a special screening event at The Cube Microplex celebrating contemporary queer animation. The programme was curated by BAM team member Luzie Ilgner, who's done an incredible job of putting together some fantastic films as well as a series of interviews over on Skwigly. There'll also be a Q&A with attending filmmakers on the night and some time in the bar afterwards for the usual BAM millabout-ery.
I'm doubly excited for this one as it serves as the first step in bringing animation back to Encounters (it was sidelined for a while, as I've ranted about), something I'll hopefully be able to do more of in my new role as Animation Programmer for their upcoming 30th edition this September. We also appear to be in an alarming time where unevolved ignorance and narrowmindedness has become concerningly emboldened, and so any opportunity to celebrate and bring the community together is very welcome. You can grab tickets here and the full lineup is below:
If you can't make it on the 8th, Skwigly and Cardiff Animation Festival will be hosting a repeat screening of INBETWEENS at Chapter Arts Centre on August 23rd - more info and ticket link to follow.
On Friday July 11th I'll be up in London for Hungarian Animation 111, an event celebrating Hungary's contribution to animation landscape as marked by its selection as guest country at this year's Annecy festival. The evening will be divided into three parts, starting with a shorts programme curated by Friss Hús featuring work from Péter Vácz, Julia Tudisco, Dominika Demeter and Ervin B. Nagy. I'll then be moderating the panel discussion Frame by Frame: The growing influence of Hungarian Animation with Anna Ida Orosz, Jez Stewart and Lydia Reid before the evening closes out with a screening of László Csáki's feature film Pelikan Blue. The evening will kick off 6pm at Liszt Institute London, register for free here and hope to see you there!
Got some events for your diaries, folks. Starting with the first Bristol Animation Meetup (BAM) of the year, gonna be a casual one with our pals at Festivus on May 1st from 7pm at The Three Tuns. Swing by BAM x Westivus and we'll all have a nice catch-up.
The following week Laura-Beth and I will be celebrating the launch of our new book Intimate Animation in London on May 7th with the lovely folks at Bar Shorts. From 8:10pm at The Garden Cinema we'll be screening a selection of the major case studies in the book, followed by a Q&A hosted by the brilliant Chris Shepherd. Click here for more info and to get tickets.
That weekend we'll also be at the Fine Lines Illustration and Animation Festival in Cheltenham with a slightly more condensed version of the screening starting ̶6̶p̶m̶ 6:30pm (disregard image above) at the University of Gloucestershire Park Campus, TC014 Lecture Theatre. Grab a free pass here. At both Bar Shorts and Fine Lines we'll be selling copies of the book (as well as some other goodies) at an exclusive discount, so bring your wallets and treat yisselfs.
After some ruminatin', I think there might still be a few last gasps of life left in this here blog. Ahead of a big announcement coming up next week (that will probably explain why my energy for writing has been depleted of late), here's a roundup of some fun stuff I was involved with during the quiet spell that may be of interest.
Back in May Laura-Beth and I were at the always-wonderful Cardiff Animation Festival to host their brunch sessions and chat with attending filmmakers Tanya J Scott, Gerald Conn, Hannah Fisher, Naomi Crame, Lleucu Non, Josh Hicks, Tova Persson, Hoching Kwok, Gus Andrews, Qianhui Yu, Samantha Moore, Greg McLeod, Robert Brown, Katie King and Faye Craig. For those who weren't able to make it, these were recorded and put out as podcast minisodes, so brew some coffee, grab a croissant and have a listen. It'll be like you were there, boy-howdy.
Skipping ahead to November, Manchester Animation Festival was great shakes as ever. More of a flying visit this time but I did manage to cram in hosting duties for three events, including an all-new Skwigly Screening, the ever-bloodthirsty Skwigly Quiz and a special event wherein emerging talents from the Ukraine presented their animation projects in development. The event was part of a mentorship initiative brought about by Skwigly's collaboration with the Linoleum Festival and the UK/UA Animation Lab, which also yielded a series of free online lectures seeing industry professionals dispense invaluable advice. I was privileged to host one with producer extraordinaire Helen Brunsdon (below) and you can check out all six here.
To my delight, everyone's favourite stop-mo nightmare-weaver Robert Morgan (of Bobby Yeah and The Cat With Hands fame) had his first feature film Stopmotion released. A live-action/animation hybrid tale of an animator's relatable descent into madness, the film is hideous and horrible in all the best ways and definitely worth checking out. I was very happy to host a special CAF screening and discuss the film with the director himself, which you can check out below:Robert and I discuss the film further in episode 113 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast, which is still ticking along. Other episodes we put out last year include a British Animation Awards special, a celebration of Cartoon Saloon's 25th anniversary and chats with the talents behind 2024's holiday features and specials.
On the guests front we've also featured Chris Sanders (The Wild Robot) with Nick Park making a welcome return alongside fellow Aardman-ites Merlin Crossingham and Ben Whitehead to chat all things Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. In our Animation One-To-Ones strand, which has continued to be a fantastic vehicle for our contributors to get some facetime with the movers and shakers of the industry, I also caught up with industry stalwarts Torill Kove and Job, Joris & Marieke. Speaking of contributors, I would be remiss to not shout out the fantastic work being created for the site by our wonderful team including Ryan Gaur, Martyn Warren, Jordan King and Kévin Giraud.
On the written features side of things, a couple pieces you might want to check out include chats with the fabulous NFB producer Maral Mohammadian as well as Zach Woods (creepy Gabe from the US version of The Office) and Brandon Gardner on their stop-motion NPR tribute sitcom In The Know. More recently I wrote a little summary of the late great David Lynch's own dabblings in animation over the years. Not an easy write as, being such a massive influence and all-around mensch, the news of his death rattled me. But ultimately it was a gratifying exercise and a rare excuse to lump together a bunch of factoids floating around my head that wouldn't necessarily have had much use otherwise.
Throughout the year Skwigly, Rumpus and Sun & Moon also continued our Bristol Animation Meetups (BAM), with four hugely successful seasonal events that included our established industry one-on-one sessions in the Spring and Autumn, a big chunky BAM quiz in the Summer and a seasonal collab event with AnimInspo to cap off the year. We have some fun irons in the fire on the BAM front, so keep your eyes on our socials to not miss out.
As to why I didn't bring any of this up at the time, well...here's the culprit.
Her name is Ivy. She saps all of the time I used to have for blogging because she's so adorable and her demands are both constant and merciless. Kind of lowkey ruined our life at the beginning, but hey, at a certain point you come around and fall in love. Dogs, what are they like?
So I think you're about caught up now. Stick around, more news a-comin'.
It won't be in print because a brand-new, updated second edition will be coming out on April 11th.
In essence this is the same book at its heart but it was a welcome opportunity to condense elements of it and keep it more up-to-date, as well as adding in a bunch of brand-new case studies and expanding on certain areas that have become more invaluable to indie artists in recent years, such as navigating the festival landscape and getting films out in the world and seen by the right people. As with the first edition, it is loaded with exclusive insight into the working processes of some of the industry’s most noteworthy indie animation talents, including Signe Baumane, Adam Elliot, Don Hertzfeldt, Kirsten Lepore, Robert Morgan, David OReilly, PES, Bill Plympton, Rosto, Chris Shepherd and dozens more; not to mention curational perspectives from the folks behind Ottawa International Animation Festival, Animafest Zagreb, Manchester Animation Festival, Cardiff Animation Festival, London International Animation Festival, . It also boasts a new cover model courtesy of the incredible stop-motion talent Joseph Wallace, whose pictured film Salvation Has No Name is smashing it at the moment (be sure to catch it at Annecy if you've not seen it yet). It's a little sad to bid farewell to the original Ernie Biscuit cover, but rest assured the areas of the book that cover Adam Elliot's work have remained untouched.
You can preorder now - and if you buy it directly from the publisher you get free shipping to boot. PLUS if you buy it at any point throughout April you get a freakin' massive 20% discount. We spoil ya, so we do.
It'd be nice to get a new film of my own off the ground at some point in the near (or at least not horribly distant) future. In the meantime I'm still riding the magnificent Laura-Beth's coattails all across the magical land of Wales with Crafty Witch's CAF on Tour inclusion. Next stop will be the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea, Monday 24th April at 7:30pm.
Circling back to the subject of shilling my wares, the extraordinarily short run of the My Head is Too Small for My Body physical CD editions is nearly depleted; there are just four copies left so if you don't want to miss out (just imagine the unbearable, wide-reaching shame) be sure to hit me up on Instagram or Facebook and we'll sort you out.
We also welcome back Turning Red director Domee Shi speaking with Skwigly contributor Ryan Gaur about the film’s positive reception and road to the Oscars. Download here or stream below:
In spite of myself, I've put out an EXTREMELY limited (because I'm delusional but not that delusional) CD run of my latest album My Head is Too Small for my Body. Pop me a message on Insta or Facebook if you want to grab one up, if for no other reason than to have something shiny to put your mug of tea on. Or even better, waggle it about when your mates come over and bond over what the fuck that Ben Mitchell thinks he's doing.
A mere £5.50 incl. postage (UK only soz) and boasting a chunky SEVEN bonus tracks #phwoar
Of course if you don't fancy the clutter and like your music all digital-like, you can check it out on a variety of streaming platforms. I'm not up to much else outside of work these days, so here’s some more podcasts for ya:
After a bit of a hiatus I've resumed my Independent Animation companion podcast series, starting with a chat with indie filmmaker Sean Buckelew about his incredible film Drone, which some of you may have caught at my Manchester Animation Festival screening back in November. If you didn't come then, firstly, you're dead to me, but the good news is you can now watch it in full online. Hopefully that'll bring you some comfort in death.
There's also a new Animation One-To-Ones where I meet Hair Love co-director Everett Downing Jr. and Patrick Harpin to discuss their new family animated Netflix series My Dad the Bounty Hunter. They're nice guys, so go check it out and cheer yourself up, for chrissakes.
It’s been probably the longest stretch of radio silence on here since I started the strange, protracted, attention-seeking endeavour that is this blog. Personal circumstances innit. Anyways, here’s some stuff that’s happened in the interim.
Laura-Beth and I wrapped up the fourth season of Intimate Animation with a special live edition recorded at Manchester Animation Festival (which was a blast) back in November. We’re joined by director Phil Wall and producer Chloe Beale of Strange Acre Studios, discussing their recently-completed BFI-funded short film Woodland, as well as Julia Wiza to talk about her Nottingham Trent University thesis film Bogdanka. Much gratitude to everyone who came, as well as the MAF and HOME team for getting everything set up.
The last Skwigly Animation Podcast of 2022 features a chat between myself and - holy shit - Guillermo del Toro, joined by Pinocchio co-director Mark Gustafson. Not too fucking shabby, eh?
If that hasn’t gotten you dazed and confused, another chap possibly more well-known as a live-action director that I got to speak to recently is Richard Linklater, chatting about his recent feature Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood alongside his longtime animation collaborator (A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life) Tommy Pallotta.
CAF on Tour, featuring Laura-Beth Cowley’s Crafty Witch, is still making its way across the wonderful land o’ Wales. A couple dates for your calendars this month:
Some events comin' up for ya. TheLinoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival's I'M FINE! programme put together in collaboration with Skwigly is getting itself another screening in Lviv this Friday, November 24th. This one will be happening 6:30pm at America House and is completely free. You can register for it here.
On that subject, the fourth I'M FINE! podcast minisode from our filmmaker Q&A sessions is online now (stream/download), featuring insights from Konrad Hjemli, Jakob Eiring (Pandiculation) and Anna Samo (Conversations With A Whale).
Another event coming up that I, in all honesty, had just about nothing to do with is the premiere of Ainslie Henderson's Shackle, which will get its first public outing at London International Animation Festival on Nov 25th. Laura-Beth played a significant part in developing the eye mechanisms of the puppets and, frankly, I'm a pretty big Ainslie fan so I felt like giving it a shout-out. Also screening will be the feature-length mixed-media documentary A Cat Called Dom by longtime collaborator and Shackle producer Will Anderson, as well as Will's short film Betty. It starts 6:10pm at The Barbican and all told it looks to be a great way to kick off the festival, so check it out if you're in the city.
Speaking of Laura-Beth, which we sort of were, there's another chance to catch her recent short film Crafty Witch (on which I slapped some post-FX and noises) as part of the Cardiff Animation Festival touring programme of 2022 award winners. If you're in or about Milford Haven on the 30th swing on by the Torch Theatre for 8pm (more info here).
Encounters is gearing up for the return of its physical edition next month. Things have changed a bit over there and I'm no longer involved in the way I'd been the last few years but, rather splendidly, they'll be screening Speed following its inclusion in the 2020 online festival for a special retrospective programme. The film will be screened as part of Strange Hearts, kicking off 11am September 28th at Bristol's Watershed. Come on by, we can split a flapjack.
Two other films I nosed my way into that are getting themselves a repeat showing will be Laura-Beth Cowley's witchy shorts The Gift and Crafty Witch that were part of the 2020 and 2021 edition respectively. You can catch them in The Strength Within programme that screens at 12:30pm on the 29th and again at 4:30pm on the 30th.
Also coming up for Crafty Witch is a screening at this year's edition of Frightfest on Monday August 29th as part of Short Film Showcase 3. The programme starts at 1:30pm in 101 Films Discovery Screen 2 at the Prince Charles Cinema.
It will also be part of a programme from this year's Cardiff Animation Festival who will be taking nine of their accoladed shorts on tour across Wales, starting this Saturday (27th) with a screening at the festival's main venue Chapter at 2:30pm.
On a separate note, it
struck me that it's been a little while since I had an actual website. For the first time in about five years I actually had a bit of downtime last month
so I took the opportunity to cobble one together. It's kinda basic but then, shucks, so am I. Also managed to finally update my showreel for the first time since 2018, so if you fancy a gander check 'er out below:
A couple new podcasts for ya, both a bit different from the kind of stuff we usually do but definitely worth a listen. In the latest episode of Animation One-To-Ones I'm joined by Cardiff-based animator Lauren Orme, who previously appeared on episodes 80 and 93 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast. In this latest episode we talk about the ways in which she has steered both Cardiff Animation Festival and her animation studio Picl in a more eco-conscious direction while also actively researching practical and practicable solutions for combating the increasingly concerning realities of climate change.
The latest endeavour of Lauren’s is the newly-launched Planet Positive Animation Network to help animation, VFX and games companies and freelancers become environmentally sustainable and help us reach net zero sooner. You can watch the interview above or stream below (or download here).
While the new network will be hosted digitally, CAF has plans to run events enabling members to meet and share ideas in person. CAF is also sharing resources on their website, and is offering a consultancy service for animation companies who want a little more help reaching net zero or becoming environmentally sustainable.
We've also popped up the first of a four-part series of special podcast minisodes for the I'M FINE! project we've been presenting with theLinoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival. Taken from the Q&A panel sessions that accompany the screening programme, these feature artists sharing their experiences and insights into mental health, burnout and staying motivated as animation filmmakers. In episode 1 we hear from Will Anderson (The Making of Longbird), Anna Mantzaris (Enough) and Margarida Madeira (Playing Death). Stream down there or download right here.
Who likes podcasts? Well, whether you do or don't, that's literally all I have for you today so get with the programme.
As I grapple with the grim realisation that I've been podcasting for over a decade I may as well pop up the latest batch for your delectation and/or derision. Firstly we report back from this year's British Animation Awards, which took place at London's BFI South Bank in March. This episode features Steve's exclusive post-ceremony chats with event director Helen Brunsdon and producer Kieran Argo as well as some of the awarded attendees: Joanna Quinn and Les Mills (director and writer of Affairs of the Art, winner of Best Short Film, Writers Award and Best Voice Performance), Jeroen Jaspaert and Matt Tea (Showrunner and director of Pip & Posy, winner of Best Children’s Pre-School), Grant Berry and Dane Winn (directors of The Beast, winner of Best Immersive Animation), Adrian Rhodes (Sound designer of Zog and the Flying Doctors, winner of Best Use of Sound) and Julie Lockhart (producer of Ron’s Gone Wrong, winner of Best Long Form).
Speaking of CAF, Laura-Beth and I were delighted to be able to muck in with their fantastic third edition and first return to the physical format since they kicked off in 2018. Recordings of the Filmmaker Brunch sessions we hosted have been put out as a two-part podcast special that you can check out now. In Session 1 I speak with Laura-Beth (discussing Crafty Witch), Joanne Fisher (Stache and the Inner Walk), Emlyn Davies (Foo Fighters: Chasing Birds), Joanna Quinn and Les Mills (Affairs of the Art), Daniel Gray (HIDE), Paul O’Flanagan (Memento Mori) and Callum Angel(The Catalyst).
My pals at the Manchester Animation Festival have kicked off a new series of year-round social/screening events MAF Presents, which began earlier this month with their first programme They Love Me, They Love Me Not that kindly featured my latest film Speed. If you're up North be sure to keep your eyes on their site and socials for updates on upcoming events as I'm sure you're itching to get back into the swing of that whole human contact thang.
On a similar note, the wonderful Cardiff Animation Nights gang have resumed their in-person events as well as carrying on the online screenings they started during the pandemic, so be sure to follow what they're up to as well. Even more exciting is the return of the Cardiff Animation Festival, whose third edition will take place at their usual Chapter Arts venue April 7th-10th, knock wood, with an online version going through to the 24th. There'll be more specific programme info to come but in the meantime I can confirm I'll be there to host the filmmaker Q&As and Laura-Beth Cowley's recent project Crafty Witch is among the festival's official selection as part of the Shorts 7: After Dark category. Pop it in your schedules!
Also on the events front, the biennial British Animation Awards - on which I mucked in as preselector/jury - will be happening on March 10th at the BFI Southbank with signal events in Bristol, Cardiff, Salford and Stirling if a Thursday night trek to London isn't doable but you still want to check out the festivities. All being well I'll be at the main event so hopefully will see some of y'all in the big smoke; I won't hug you but we can affectionately exchange finger-guns. Otherwise be sure to check out their site for the various viewing and ticket options they have.
Before any of that will be Speed's inclusion as part of Anima Brussels next weekend. Since the announcement of the official selection I now know it will be part of the second Animated Nights block on Saturday, March 5th, kicking off at 10pm in Flagey Studio 4 and 10:30pm at Palace. I'm properly gutted that I won't be able to make it in person as seeing Sunscapades as part of the same programme a couple years ago was an absolute blast, but right now the faff of getting in and out of Belgium would just be too disruptive to make it feasible. Fingers crossed I'll make it back over there before too long.
Following on from last month's UK streaming release of Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, it will be traveling further afield as of March 1st with its arrival on streaming platforms in the US, Canada and Australia. It's a job I have a lot of fond associations with and it's really nice that all the hard work the crew put into it will get some wider visibility. Check out what viewing options are available to you here.
Over on Skwigly I've delved a bit further into the production of the incredible Netflix film The House (the directors of which I interviewed last month) via an interview with Nexus Studios producer/co-founder Charlotte Bavasso. As well as discussing the film itself we also go into the early days of the studio and what the future may hold - it was a real treat to chat with her and I hope you find her insights as inspirational as I did.
Having been out of print for a little while I'm pleased to see that We Still Care A Lot, the tribute album I contributed to in honour of the late Chuck Mosley, has finally gotten itself a digital release. You can check out the full album over on Bandcamp.
Not a whole bunch else I can explicitly talk about but if you happen to be one of those trendy youngsters who lurk about on TikTok you might want to go ahead and follow this little IP that's on the grow. The keen of ear may even detect a familiar vocal performance in the video below:
I've recently finished jury duties (Animated Series and Animated Films for Children) at Russia's Big Cartoon Festival. This is an event that gave Klementhro a lot of love over the years and it's been great to be involved in a new capacity alongside Irene Sparr and Alexey Alekseev. Main awards for Animated Series went to the exceptional Bluey (Under-12s) and Elliott From Earth (Over-12s) with special mentions to Kiri & Lou and The Story of a Word respectively. Best Animated Film went to Guillaume Lorin's wonderful Vanille with a special mention for Louis' Shoes by Théo Jamin, Kayu Leung, Marion Philippe and Jean-Géraud Blanc.
Elsewhere in the Big Cartoon Festival programme is Laura-Beth's BBC Arts short film The Gift, which is in the special midnight ТОЛЬКО ДЛЯ ЖЕНЩИН (Women Only) programme which will play online November 6th, 7th and 8th.
The Gift will also be getting itself a screening at the Ax Wound Film Festival, an event focused on horror written/directed by women and non-binary filmmakers (also winner of best festival name since the invention of festivals). This will be an online event going from December 10th-19th, will pop up updates and specifics if I get 'em but in the meantime keep an eye on their socials. I'm pretty confident it'll be a fun one.
Lastly, Speed will be shown as part of Cardiff Animation Festival's series of in-person screenings of their online 2020 program they've been rolling out since things opened up a bit. If you can make it to the Chapter Arts Centre at 4:30pm on November 21st be sure to check out Shorts 3: Heart to see the film alongside some other great work.
Speaking o' work, I have a metric s**t-ton of it to get through so I'd best wrap this up. Stay warm, folks.
