More excuses to leave the house

Exciting developments here in Bristol as the briefly-dormant Encounters Film Festival will be returning later this month for its 30th edition. Having worn a bunch of different hats for this event over the years, it was a privilege to take the reins as Animation Programmer and put together five programmes packed with incredible new shorts, as well as consulting on the festival's genre programmes and industry events. More info on each programme below (all competition screenings take place in Cinema 1 at the Watershed and will be followed by a Q&A with any attending filmmakers):

• Animated Encounters 1 (1pm Sep 24)
  From a father grappling with his son's emigration to a woman literally birthing her reproductive organs, these animated stories confront life's awkward realities head-on.
• Animated Encounters 2 (5:30pm Sep 24)
  A European traveller sketches her way through Cape Verde, a cat seeks enlightenment, and a mother weaves memories through colourful sweaters. These contemplative works range from Nordic winter poems to drag queen revelations, united in quiet contemplation.
• Animated Encounters 3 (10am Sep 25)
  The messy realities of minds and bodies under pressure. Characters battle screen addiction, explore their own anatomy, and confront childhood trauma through bold animation techniques. These unflinching stories tackle everything from teenage pregnancy to language identity, using surreal visuals to make the internal external.
• Animated Encounters 4 (2:30pm Sep 25)
  Tender stories celebrating memory, family bonds, and the search for belonging across generations.
• Animated Encounters 5 (12pm Sep 26)
  Eight exciting works push animation into uncharted territory, unafraid to go places live action cannot. Ancient Chinese erotica inspires an Estonian tale of vanity, while nude models battle mosquito stings and a hypersensitive woman navigates a harsh world.

The 25th will also be a dedicated animation industry day, and kicking off proceedings will be a special presentation on mine and Laura-Beth Cowley's new book Intimate Animation, featuring special guests Baz Sells and Ben Jackson of One6th who'll be discussing the production of their recent short Two Black Boys in Paradise (also screening in competition); we'll also be selling books at an exclusive Encounters discount if you haven't yet snapped it up and want to save a few sheckels. Also on the docket throughout the day are presentations from the likes of Dan Ojari, Tanya Scott, Karni & Saul, Dane Winn, Neeraja Raj and Chris Shepherd as well as dog life drawing, a stop-mo workshop and a showcase and reception for the newly-launched UK branch of Women In Animation.

Capping off the day will be another edition of Bristol Animation Meetup (BAM), again teaming up with our pals at Festivus and taking place at the Three Tuns pub from 7pm. 

The next day at Watershed Cinema 3 I'll be hosting an Artist Masterclass with storyboard artist Jay Clarke, discussing his career with a focus on his work for acclaimed director Wes Anderson. Other events you might want to check out include a special screening of the modern classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman in attendance, a UK premiere for Gondry's new film Maya, Give Me a Title, the legendary Late Lounge featuring some stunningly twisted animation and a preview screening of Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese's Australian animated feature Lesbian Space Princess. In fact, there's too much good stuff on offer to list here, so give the programme a peruse and grab your passes now.

Heavy on the puppets today

In the latest episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we welcome Mikey Please and Dan Ojari to discuss their seasonal Aardman short Robin Robin, coming to Netflix next month. Written by Ojari, Please and Sam Morrison, the short is produced by Helen Argo with Sarah Cox exec producing; it's lovely looking and something wholesome to bung on as the nights grow darker and foreboding-er, so be sure to add it to your watchlists.

Also discussed in this episode: Event highlights from this year’s upcoming Manchester Animation Festival, including feature film presentations My Sunny Maad (dir. Michaela Pavlátová) and Flee (dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen), The House WIP, Animated Answers featuring Ainslie Henderson, MAF Fellowship Award recipients Jorge R. Gutiérrez and Sandra Equihua’s new series Maya and the Three and the return of the much anticipated/feared Skwigly Animation Quiz.

Stream above or hoarde it for keepsies.

After a long period floating around in distribution limbo Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires (on which I whipped up some old-school, Richard Edlund-esque VFX and made some grunty background noises) will finally be getting itself a UK cinema release. Head over to the film's official site for local showtimes; it'll be around for a week or so from the 29th. If you're not sure what to expect, well, the trailers don't really leave much room for ambiguity:

It's sure to be contentious (I doubt the director would have it any other way) and I have immeasurably fond memories of working on it as well as the wonderful folks I got to know through it. It also boasts some of the strongest stop-motion animation I've ever seen by some of the absolute best in the business; a shame for them, then, that my job was essentially to scribble all over it.

Box Trawls

Our Skwigly guest spot at the London Animation Club earlier this week was a massive success. Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to Martin again for having us, hopefully you all enjoyed it as much as we did! For those who weren't able to make it I got the impression some of it was filmed and I believe that will go up at some point down the line, so keep checking their website.

In the meantime I've uploaded a special Lightbox compilation video I edited together as part of our presentation. It's impossible to do a complete 'best-of' in 20 minutes but this I think gives an impression of the range and scope of our coverage, from emerging up-and-comers to established Oscar-winners.

The video features snippets our chats with Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Robert Kondo, Dice Tsutsumi, Bill Plympton, Torill Kove, Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson, Will Becher, Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed and Jeff Turley. Don't forget you can watch all of their interviews plus many more in full over at our official channel.

For those of you based up North, I strongly urge you to check out This Is Not A Cartoon, a new Skwigly venture in association with the BFI Film Hub. The events have been programmed primarily by Jen Hall of Manchester's Cornerhouse/HOME, the first of which taking place April 24th at the Stoke-on-Trent Science Centre featuring a live Q&A with the aforementioned Ainslie Henderson, director of Monkey Love Experiments and I Am Tom Moody. For more info on the programme and upcoming events head over to the website.

The "What the hell happened to October?" Blog Post

Despite my semi-regular declarations of being snowed-under with life, work and other fabricated commitments, it's actually quite rare to let over an entire month go by without forcing my inanities on the blogosphere. Things have kicked into gear in an amazing and, at times, slightly terrifying way and my time is rarely my own. Probably for the best as when I have free reign over my own time I tend to use it playing emulated SNES Lemmings while eating dry cornflakes from the box. I'm not even talking name brand here, folks; I'm talking ASDA's own. Eeyup.
All in all, life is good. Faith No More are plugging away in the studio and Twin Peaks is coming back, so those two alone should give me a will to live at least through 2016. Work-wise I'm back in the bits and pieces world of animation freelancing alongside the now quite full-on Project Group Hug (it's a book, by the way, though I doubt there was any lingering mystery as it's been up on my LinkedIn for a while now).

Whilst researching for this film I lived with The Stig for eleven months

This follows a quite long contract with the fabulous folks at Slurpy Studios doing a series of educational videos for Oxford University Press. It wrapped up in September and you can have a look at a couple of the vids I worked on at the Activate Kerboodle site.
Skwigly is still maintaining its stride with some great coverage up since I last posted. New articles include reviews of Signe Baumane's wonderful Rocks In My Pockets (which I'm delighted to see is performing brilliantly) and Floyd Norman's quasi-autobiographical animation handbook Animated Life.

Interview-wise there are new chats with Canadian NFB directorial duo Nicola Lemay and Janice Nadeau (No Fish Where To Go) as well as Australian animator Anthony Lawrence (Grace Under Water), both of whose films were screened as part of this year's London International Animation Festival which I was able to swing by. Another NFB film which premiered in the UK recently was Seth's Dominion, a brilliant feature documentary on Canadian cartoonist Seth directed by Luc Chamberland (interview here).

Also worth catching up on are the latest episodes of Lightbox, with J.G. Quintel (Regular Show), Mikey Please (Marilyn Myller) and Dan Ojari (Slow Derek) of Parabella Studios and experimental, drawn-on-film artist Steven Woloshen (1000 Plateaus). 

October's podcast has a fabulous line-up also: Animator Craig Smith interviews Tonko House (who made the amazing Dam Keeper), Julia talks to Jorge R. Gutiérrez (director of Reel FX's The Book of Life) and I chat with artist Lisa Hanawalt, designer on Bojack Horseman, a show I have to say I'm quite tickled by.

All the usual listening options are here for you, folks. Stream below, download for keepsies or subscribe, whydoncha?
This marks the twenty-fifth episode to date (not even including the various specials and minisodes) and I have to say the continuing support and feedback over the years has been amazing, so thanks so much to all for keeping us going. From my perspective there's no danger of it slowing down soon, so here's to twenty-five more!

Gawd 'elp us...