The evenings have been busy in the days since Sunscapades officially wrapped while I attempt to hammer out a plan of action as far as getting it out in the world. It's a slow-process and it'll be weeks or even months before I have anything to report on that front but watch this space for whatever I can come up with in the interim. Probably some teaser clips at the very least.
Meanwhile I'm happy to say that Klementhro will get a rare screening in his town of origin, that being here in rainy ol' Bristol. The film will be playing as part of the first CineMe screening in a few years, taking place at The Famous Royal Navy Volunteer at 8pm this coming Tuesday (27th). It's great to be involved as, under its original management, I had a very clement relationship with CineMe who included my work at a bunch of local events, featured a segment on myself/The Naughty List on their associated TV series Short Cuts and collaborated with Laura-Beth and I on our Love, Lust and Libidoscreening that served as something of a precursor to our current Intimate Animation podcast. Fittingly Laura-Beth's own film Boris-Noris will also be screened on Tuesday, as well as Blanked, a film from her Weird Eye companions Fiona and Hannah (both of whom helped invaluably with Sunscapades, as it happens).
Not much else to report, save for episode 77 of the ol' Skwigly Podcast that went up a couple days ago. If you didn't hear it yet then give yourselves a little treat - it's a quick one but it features the rather smashing (and Oscar-nominated, to boot) Glen Keane making a welcome return:
Today's reason to be rock-back-and-forth-giggling-and-crying happy comes in the form of Faith No More's latest album Sol Invictus being available to stream a week ahead of its physical release. I've been fighting the urge to listen to badly-compressed leaked versions of the album and as such it feels like I'm literally the only FNM fan in the world who hadn't heard it until today. But by Christ it was worth the wait. Every molecule of doubt that it wouldn't be up to their previous standard was jettisoned the moment I heard the first chorus of the opening title track. It'll need a few hundred listens for me to get a proper sense of it as right now listening to it is more of an emotional experience (I have emotions! Who knew?) than anything else, but in the meantime why not join me and treat yourselves?
It feels a bit limp and embarrassing to bring up my own music on the heels of such excellence, but in anticipation of the digital release of my latest Struwwelpeter album The Birdcage I've put up another new song, one that's fairly representative of the strangely upbeat, folksy/poppy feel of the LP as a whole. I imagine if I played this to myself as a teenager he'd screw his fat face up in confusion.
Also want to say thanks again to James of CineMe for having me on his show Short Cuts, talking animation, UWE, Bristol, Skwigly and my now-very-old short The Naughty List. The episode aired at the exact time last week's exit polls were causing the nation to collectively scream into a pillow so if you missed the broadcast you can watch it online here.
Quickie update to amend the info in the last post, the episode of Short Cuts I'll be appearing on will now air this Thursday at 10pm, not tomorrow. All the channel info remains the same to the best of my knowledge. A few frames of The Naughty List also seems to have made it into the opening credits. Take a gander:
I've made the somewhat douchey decision to self-set the release date of The Birdcage, my first LP in a good while, as the week of May 18th. I say 'douchey' because this is also the week both Faith No More's new album Sol Invictus and Clive Barker's Hellraiser swansong The Scarlet Gospels - two projects I've been hotly anticipating to say the least - both come out. There's no real connection, it just generally helps to have a deadline to work to when I'm in the last stretch of anything, plus I reckon my album's pretty much cooked at this point. I have to say I like how it's turned out - it's the quiet, folksy death rattle of a would-be-rocker-turned-production-music-scribe giving in to a secret, guilty urge to be melodic and quaint rather than edgy or avant garde. I expect I'll release it digitally on Bandcamp to begin with and then see what new options there now are for a physical release in the 4.5 years since my last LP.
This will pave the way for another upcoming release, the final installment of my lingering graphic novel series Throat. I'm still finalising the bonus content but the proposed release date is August 3rd. As with Book 1 and Book 2 it should be available to buy in US retailers and on Amazon for the UK and elsewhere.
On the Skwigly pile this week, the Lightbox series I've been producing has resumed with a video interview from mine and Laura-Beth's encounter with the talented and dapper Luc Chamberland, whose OIAF-winning NFB documentary Seth's Dominion (an exploration of the life and work of Canadian comic artist Seth) is playing at Toronto's Hot Docs at the moment.
Also on the site I chat once again to auld acquaintances Seb and Joe from Rumpus, whose game The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle is now available on PC via Steam as well as it's original App Store release for iOS. This interview is the first in a series of Skwigly profiles on South West-based studios/artists in association with the South West Animation Network, an organisation put together by Becalelis Brodskis and Susannah Shaw. Keep an eye out for more Skwigly/SWANraderie and if you're a South Westerner yourself check them out at swanimationnetwork.co.uk
Bringing it back to my own ephemeral output, as is my egomaniacal wont, I'll be appearing on the TV show Short Cuts hosted by James Ewen of CineMe, who's been a much-appreciated supporter of my work in the past. I'm not sure what'll get included in the final edit but I expect the focus will be on my old seasonal short The Naughty List. It'll be broadcast on Made In Bristol (Freeview 8/Sky 117/Virgin Media 159) May 5th at 8:30pm, so tune in if your receivers are suitably receptive.
Grand news to report, in that Love, Lust and Libido, the Skwigly screening I put together with the lovely Ms. Laura-Beth went down a treat last night. Great turnout and audience response, hopefully we enlightened some folks. Here's the final film list as screened:
There's a good chance it might get some repeat showings at other venues around the UK, though probably with a tweaked playlist (El Gato was CineMe's contribution and a couple of the others only granted one-time screenings). Many thanks to James from CineMe for his assistance and Ed from...I'm not sure where, but he helped get us set up on the night. Special thanks of course to the filmmakers themselves and to Laura-Beth for coming up with the main idea. Here are some more of the online flyers I slapped together to promote the event in the days leading up to it:
Following the success of our first showcase evening, in two weeks we have a new Skwigly screening event here in Bristol. This time around we're teaming up with James Ewen of CineMe and Tobacco Factory Theatres to present Love, Lust and Libido. As the title indicates, the focus of the screening is themes of relationships and sexuality, so things are bound to get a little risqué.
Flier design by Sereena Knapp
Spanning all forms of animation and storytelling styles, the event is the brainchild of Laura-Beth Cowley and it's been a joy to curate it with her the past few weeks. Some of the international filmmakers involved include Skwigly favourites Ruth Lingford, Signe Baumane and Grant Orchard as well as a bumper crop of both established and up-and-coming talent. For a mere £5 (£3 with concessions) it's sure to be a fun evening out, so swing by and enjoy the ribaldry! Love, Lust and Libido takes place Monday March 17th, 8pm at the Tobacco Factory Brewery Theatre. For more info and tickets click here.
It's another frightfully busy period o'time for me at the mo so here are a couple of quick updates. Firstly episode 3 of the Channel Flip/HuHa! series "Wobble Box" went up recently if you'd like to show it some love. I may put up some production materials for the bits I did later on down the line but in the meantime see if you can guess which ones they are.
In the physical world, there's another upcoming CineMe event in Bristol this coming Monday (the 22nd). Amongst the fine films being showcased are my patchy little shorts "Ground Running" and "The Naughty List". The screening will be at The Birdcage, one of my preferred new-ish local venues, so that's a nice plus. Come along, why doncha!
Quickie update regarding some upcoming screenings for my long-in-the-tooth Christmas short “The Naughty List”.
For those Spaniards amongst you who’ve yet to catch one of its TV airings on Canal+ Xtra, it’ll be on this Tuesday (27th) at 2:40pm. I suspect this will be one of its last TV showings – if not, the last – on that particular network, so do give it a pre-siesta watch if you’re so inclined. All told the channel’s been very good to me and my li’l film over the past year, screening it pretty regularly despite it being so season-specific, so gracias to the Canal+ folks for the exposure (and the extra chunk of change didn’t hurt none either).
Mere days before the film sees its third Christmas since completion - mother of God, time goes by fast – it will be screened on December 22nd at the West Side Cinema in support of “Rare Exports”, a Finnish Christmas film that passed me by but I’m tempted to check out as it seems to be quite highly regarded. Unfortunately I can’t make it to that one as it’s in Orkney which is pretty much as far away from me as possible without leaving the UK altogether.
Earlier in the month and closer to home, the film will be screened on December 6th at Bath Road Studios here in Bristol for CineMe Showcase 2012, a networking evening that will also include some of their previously screened films (“Naughty List” and a few others of mine were included at one of their events back in April). I’m aiming to be there to scope out the premises and hopefully not bomb. So if any of you readers decide that’s the night you want to start stalking me, I’m pretty much handing you my exact whereabouts on a platter. Spectacularly nearsighted of me, I’m sure I’ll come to realise.
If you’re still in the Halloween mood but are also itching for some Christmas spirit, you might want to head on over to the Arnos Vale Cemetary in Bristol - 8pm November 2nd - where “The Naughty List” will be showing. It's part of a program put together by CineFeatures, a new initiative for screening indie films that will feature it as a cartoon before the main film “Electric Man”. Just like in the old days!
For the benefit of those of you who paint Spain a light shade of green on this blog’s stat map, “Naughty List” is back on TV again in the graveyard (keeping with the theme I suppose) slot of 3am this coming Monday (12th) on Canal+ Xtra. Better than a kick in the baubles.
Brevity being the soul of so many things (self-promoting blog entries, in this case), I'll keep this one succinct just to update any Serbian folk out there on the screening time for "Ground Running" at the Belgrade Documentary & Short Film Festival, which just kicked off. It'll be part of the International Animation screening which begins 4:30pm on April 3rd, in the main hall of the Dom Omladine. Full info here, Serbs and Serbettes. Hope that sentence wasn't racist...
For the local Bristolian folk, the CineMe event I wrote of previously had to be rescheduled for later on this month, apparently the organiser's external HD with all the films on it decided to shit the bed. I've been there. Anyway it's now happening on the 24th (Tuesday) in the Tobacco Factory greenroom at 8pm. Please come, if you do I'll let you poke at me and rub my balding pate for luck.
I have no more things to say and will stop typing now.
Three of my films - "Ground Running", "The Naughty List" and "Norton & Friends" (my Opie & Anthony mini-short) are getting a rare local screening this coming Tuesday (20th, not the 27th as suggested by the flier below) at CineMe Shorts here in Bristol. It'll also be the first and possibly only time my O&A animation will be seen on a screen bigger than a computer monitor so I'm looking forward to that.It'll take place at the Tobacco Factory - a fine venue where I frequently go to, amongst other things, draw naked people - at 8pm and tickets are a fiver (more info here). So if you're a local come on down and berate me.As well as being shown Monday afternoon at 2:05pm, two more confirmed April broadcast slots for "La Lista Traviesa" (the Spanish incarnation of "The Naughty List") will be on Thursday 12th at 2:05am and Thursday 26th and 1:35am over on Canal+ Xtra. So if you overdid the ol' afternoon siesta and can't sleep, give it a watch. On a completely separate musical note, I've started doing my first live shows of 2012. Nothing worth advertising, just little slots here and there to stay practiced and work out some new material. I've also started recording again and have put online my first studio recording since "The Book of Women". It's kinda different, sort of melancholy country-western-ish, which is something I'd never imagined coming out of me. Give it a listen and, if you like, a free-as-gratis download over at SoundCloud. High Midnight by Struwwelpeter
Three of my films - "Ground Running", "The Naughty List" and "Norton & Friends" (my Opie & Anthony mini-short) are getting a rare local screening this coming Tuesday (20th, not the 27th as suggested by the flier below) at CineMe Shorts here in Bristol. It'll also be the first and possibly only time my O&A animation will be seen on a screen bigger than a computer monitor so I'm looking forward to that.
It'll take place at the Tobacco Factory - a fine venue where I frequently go to, amongst other things, draw naked people - at 8pm and tickets are a fiver (more info here). So if you're a local come on down and berate me.
As well as being shown Monday afternoon at 2:05pm, two more confirmed April broadcast slots for "La Lista Traviesa" (the Spanish incarnation of "The Naughty List") will be on Thursday 12th at 2:05am and Thursday 26th and 1:35am over on Canal+ Xtra. So if you overdid the ol' afternoon siesta and can't sleep, give it a watch.
