Sunny Disposition

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A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on Oct 15, 2018 at 5:14am PDT

Getting to see Sunscapades in front of a proper festival audience for the first time at Encounters last month was pretty darn wonderful and a hard one to top. However the massive crowd at yesterday's BFI London Film Festival screening proved to be up to the task. I was also blessed to be among some fab film talent whose work was also screening - including recent Skwigly interviewee Anna Mantzaris - not to mention most of the Sunscapades crew Laura-Beth, Hannah, Fiona and Phil. I appreciate that when men who look like me get sentimental it just comes off as creepy so I'll be brief in once again voicing my love and gratitude to such a fabulous team as well as Elaine and the rest of the LFF gang for letting my creepy little film be part of such a great event. If you missed the Real Horrorshow screening yesterday then you can still check it out this Thursday 6:30pm at Rich Mix, if you act fast there are a handful of tickets still available here.

Having sadly missed the fourth birthday celebration evening for Cardiff Animation Nights I'm excited to be swinging by later in the month for their special pre-Halloween screening Cardiff Animation Frights, curated by the wonderful Dani and at which Sunscapades will again be playing. So let's all go ahead make scare ourselves shiteless at Chapter on the 27th (screening will kick off at 7pm, after which I'm sure there'll be a beverage or several to be had).

That same weekend the film will be getting its hotly-anticipated (in so far as nobody's explicitly informed me that it isn't) Serbian debut at Film Front, or Filmski Front as is more fun to say. These fine folks previously programmed my films Ground Running and The Naughty List back in 2010, nearly eight years ago; that's right, folks - I've mastered basic subtraction. Although they've announced the official selection I don't know exactly when the screening will be, but the festival takes place October 25th-28th at the Novi Sad Cultural Center.
Do sljedećeg puta!

Dogged Persistence

For our eightieth episode (EIGHTIETH?!) of the Skwigly Animation Podcast I'm delighted to bring you an assortment of insights into the making of Wes Anderson’s latest critically-acclaimed stop-motion feature Isle of Dogs from four of the film’s key crew members!
This episode features audio from the special presentation Making Isle of Dogs that I was privileged enough to get to chair at the recent Cardiff Animation Festival, where we hear from:

• Kim Keukeleire (Lead Animator)
  After finishing her Masters degree in Animation Cinematography and Videography at the Enseignement National Supérieur des Arts Visuels (ENSAV) de La Cambre in Brussels in 1992, Kim has worked for several companies such as Passion Pictures, BBC Animations, Aardman, Cosgrove Hall and Will Vinton Studios (now Laika).
  Amongst others, Kim animated on Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson), Frankenweenie (Tim Burton) and Chicken Run (Nick Park & Peter Lord). She was the animation director of the recently Oscar-nominated French animation feature film My Life as a Courgette.
• Joshua Flynn (Sculptor/Fabricator)
  Joshua is a sculptor and puppet fabricator specialising in the stop-motion industry for feature films and commercials.
  Originally from Cardiff, Josh studied BA Animation at the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales). After graduating in 2011, he has worked on a number of productions across the UK including Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and his most recent film, Isle of Dogs.
  Together with his brother Nathan, the two of them make up SculptDouble, creating sculptures, maquettes and animations.
• Kerry Dyer (Head Of Department – Puppet Hospital)
  Kerry has over 10 years experience working in Stop Motion animation, for both TV and Film. Including: Ooglies, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires and Isle Of Dogs.
  She began her career as an animator, before finding she enjoyed the mechanics of armatures and the feel of clay between her fingers. She recently ran a team of ten, stitching together and generally repairing the inhabitants of Trash Island for Isle of Dogs.

Laura-Beth also brings us an exclusive chat with Key Animator Tim Allen, whose stop-motion career began with Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride and has gone on to include TV series such as Fifi and the Flower Tots and Shaun the Sheep with features including Fantastic Mr Fox, Frankenweenie, Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires and Isle of Dogs. Tim also conducts animation workshops at festivals and events across the world.
Also on this episode – an overview of our personal CAF highlights, cultural appropriation, the problem with Apu that The Problem With Apu has brought to light, how not to get a job at Aardman and a special appearance from festival organisers Lauren Orme and Dani Abram.
Direct download here or stream below:

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:

Grill Stock

With the release date of Independent Animation looming and the onus of marketing being on the author's shoulders in a large way these days, I'm planning on doing some presentations over the coming months to spread the word in lieu of a traditional book tour. The first stop will be at Animation Grill, a regular Cardiff-based meetup organised by Gareth Cavanagh, this coming September. These are a great opportunity for people to gather together and show works-in-progress to industry professionals for honest feedback, something I feel is absolutely key to making a standout short film and as such is a great fit for the overall spirit of the book. This edition will be a little different as it will be an all-day event include presentations, a panel discussion chaired by Dani Abram and other good stuff. As well as my talk you'll be able to hear from the ever-brilliant Jane Davies (AKA Upstart Thunder), stop-mo maestro Ben Halliwell and Double Negative's Stephen Enticott. Early-bird tickets will be available from tomorrow onward for the first week, after which the price will go up a bit so get yours booked early!

Living Legends

It's been a particularly busy week over in Skwiglyville, with highlights including Katie's interviews with voice actor Jeremy Shada of Adventure Time fame and Jackson Publick, creator of the longest-running Adult Swim series The Venture Bros. Plus migraine-riddled worrywart Dani recounts her bank holiday weekend spent devoted to making an animated short from scratch and Laura-Beth interviews the team at MewLab about their ambitious installation-cum-short The Evening Her Mind Jumped Out of Her Head (which some of you may have seen at our MAF screening last year).

Meanwhile my Lightbox video interview series has kicked off again, featuring a chat with Job Roggeveen and Joris Oprins; two thirds of Job, Joris and Marieke, the Oscar-nominated studio who've made such fantastic work as MUTE, A Single Life and their latest, (Otto). You can hear from remaining team member Marieke Blaauw in our recent KLIK! Podcast minisode.

On the subject of podcasts, we've officially barrelled past the fifty-episode mark and are pleased to welcome back the legendary Bill Plympton, whose divisive (the LA Times call it one of his "most entertaining feature films", the AV Club call it "fundamentally misconceived") new film Hitler's Folly is free to stream from his website as of today. We also chat about other projects including Revengeance, the next fully-animated feature he has lined-up, a collaboration with kindred spirit Jim Lujan. As I've doubtless mentioned before, I credit Bill with my decision to shift my attentions from motion graphics to character animation and storytelling and am always stunned by just how prolific he is (he's like the Mike Patton of animation), so it's always a privilege to feature him on the show. Stream below, download here or subscribe for future listenin'!
Another crucial influence at a key stage in my animation studies was legendary Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, whose gloriously bizarre work embraces animation's full potential and often tows the line between comedic and nightmarish (an interplay I have a particular fondness for). As such I'm beyond thrilled to have gotten an interview with the man himself, which is up today. This was no easy feat with the language barrier - to the best of my awareness his English is only marginally better than my Czech - so I'm hugely grateful to him and his team for taking the time with their translation efforts.

Jan Švankmajer in his atelier (©Kazumi Terazaki)

In the interview we mainly discuss what he has declared to be his final feature film Insects, which he is presently crowdfunding. It looks to be an absolutely wonderful endeavour that embraces everything I love most about his work and process, I hugely advise you all to give it a look and help it become a reality!

Where am I? And how can I leave?

Criminey, a month-plus of radio silence. Surely bliss for the blogosphere?
Well, here I am again. Reconcile yourself with that and tough it out, friends.
The end of this week should mark a return to a life where I have more time available in the day than the scant few minutes in which to graze or micturate the last couple of months have allowed. On top of animation work I've been dealing with all sorts of exciting Skwigly diddlywotsits, unnecessary Throat (the book, not my actual throat) concerns, organising some special music events and the most needlessly protracted flatmove imaginable - especially considering it's within the same building. On top of all this I've also been in the final stages of getting something I'll refer to as "Project Group-Hug" off the ground. Based on a meeting I had last week things are looking good and, if it happens, it'll be something pretty damned amazing, so think warm gooey thoughts and spray them in my general direction.
Going back to the Skwigly diddlywotsits, here's a round-up:

Meeting celebs

Myself and Laura-Beth went over to Annecy the other week for the Sunniest Animation Festival Ever (thank Christ it was by a lake or our UK-acclimated selves would've snapped before the week was through). Predictably it was superb and, while I was a little nonplussed with a good deal of the competition selection, the special events and industry gatherings were spectacular. Stay tuned for some in-depth coverage of new developments from Dreamworks, Disney, the NFB and Cartoon Network to name a few. In the meantime here's some festival coverage to sink your toothies into:

Bill Plympton's Cheatin' - Review

Annecy Special Events

Award Winners

Puppets on Parade

 

Latest podcast featuring: Greg MacLeod (of the Bros. MacLeod) on his and brother Myles's recent films 365, Isle of Spagg and the upcoming Marfa; Jackie Cockle, whose work as an animator and director spans some of the most prominent stop-motion TV productions in the UK, such as Pingu and Timmy Time. Also included is some of the panel discussion I recently participated in alongside Dani Abram, Jane Davies, Gareth Cavanagh and Kerry Dyer. Download, subscribe and/or stream!
The Lightbox series of mini-docs which started up back in May has been going strong. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do so here and catch up with what's gone up so far:

Joanna Quinn (Beryl Productions)

Theodore Ushev (National Film Board of Canada)

Torril Kove (National Film Board of Canada/Mikrofilm)

Westley Wood (Animation Toolkit/CITV)

Bill Plympton (Plymptoons)

Other new interviews of the written variety include Anita Kwiatkowska-Naqvi, whose pregnancy-themed film Ab Ovo is one of my absolute favourites from the festival circuit last year. Also as part of our Producing Animation series of articles I was able to chat with Annecy's current Artistic Director Marcel Jean on his prior career as an Animation Producer. Some really nice insights here, especially on transitioning from directing to producing.

It's nice to look at the above as some evidence that I have actually been being productive for the last little while. In truth I've been in a bit of a stress blur with the move, and my absence from this blog has been substituted with endless moaning at friends and family with each dull development and setback. What's given me tremendous perspective is just how good I have it as far as support from all directions when seas get choppy. Plus I've lost about 12lbs since I started flathunting, which I guess is a silver-lining. That and the new place is bloody lovely, so I have to concede it really was worth it.
Always darkest before the dawn, and July is also looking to be an exciting month ahead for fanboy reasons. You see, as a longtime David Lynch enthusiast, every two years or so I put myself through the strange dual pleasure/torture of watching a now-very-old show called Twin Peaks. Probably it doesn't need an introduction, it being such a staple of pop culture - it arguably did more for the landscape of television in the 90s than David Chase did with The Sopranos over a decade later. The difference being that, while I can think of *maybe* two episodes of Sopranos that didn't do it for me, at least a third of the episodes of Peaks are borderline unwatchable. It's one of the biggest and most well-known laments of the Lynch fan, that a show which starts off so brilliantly devolves so quickly (in all there are only thirty episodes, the first ten of which are pretty much faultless).

I suppose I'm really more a fan of Fire Walk With Me, the much-maligned movie prequel made after the show which resolves virtually none of the cliffhangers that remained when the series was canceled. Knowing nothing about the premise other than Mike Patton once covered the theme song and that it was a prequel, I figured it'd be a safe bet to start with it and then embark on the show if I liked what I saw. It was 2002 and my Lynch fandom was still in its early stages, you see. Of course, had I known then that the concept of time is treated very loosely in the otherworldly Black Lodge and that its being chronologically a prequel doesn't mean jack shit in terms of fully understanding what's going on - or, more crucially, that the show itself is a goddamned whodunit and so by watching the murder happen beforehand would undermine the whole mystery aspect of the show - I might have tracked down the series first. But then I wonder if I would have liked the film as much that way around, or if I would've even made it past the midway point of season two at all.

In truth, having not seen the show makes Fire Walk With Me a classic standalone David Lynch film, and easily my favourite. While a lot bears explaining, that's also the case with Lost Highway and Mulhulland Drive and, in the same respect, contributes to its appeal as a film to be dissected and pored over with all the time you thought you'd be spending having sex because, after all, it's your first year in college and you don't assume that the only intermittent play you'll get is from that one recent-divorcee townie wracked with Catholic guilt who you met at such-and-such's house party.
Ah, Gabrielle. I don't want to think too hard about how old she must be now. But I digress.

The genius of Fire Walk With Me is that, from a story perspective, it does actually flow perfectly into the events of the show. The pilot episode and first season, while more conventionally structured and far less intense, very much feel like they're carrying on the story, albeit with a sudden change of hairstyles all round. Knowing who the murderer is while everyone else is trying to work it out makes it a satisfying watch for entirely different reasons than it would've been when originally broadcast. A lot of confusing aspects of the film, mainly the backstories of characters we know nothing about having not seen the show are expanded on, though some aren't; A decade later I remain disappointed that Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Isaac, Harry Dean Stanton and David Bowie's characters, all created for FWWM, never show up in the series. It makes the more bafflingly lazy storylines introduced in the later episodes all the more frustrating. Also the frustrations a lot of the fans of the show must have felt when watching the movie can only be appreciated in hindsight; Looking back it must have been a bit jarring that a lot of the main characters - Ben and Audrey Horne, Sherriff Truman, Josie Packard, Pete Martell et al - don't show up at all. Plus one major character is completely redefined when, in FWWM, they commit a murder of their own, one which they're never held accountable for in the series.

Granted the show does pick up near the end. Were it not for needlessly hammy dialogue and a penchant for pantomimey theatrics, Windom Earle might have had potential as a villain. And the last episode is one of the most amazing things I've seen on television - though it's clearly of its time, nothing has quite matched what Lynch achieved with the Black Lodge sequence. Plus it isn't until the very end that the mythology on which most of FWWM is based is properly introduced. Basically if you threw the whole series into Final Cut, lanced out five or so hours of weak subplots and cheesey moments, you'd have an amazing overall story (surely some geek out there has done this already?).
One of the big white whales for Lynch geeks like me has been the promise that somewhere there exists literally hours of footage shot for FWWM that didn't make it into the final edit, chiefly vignettes involving characters from the series that otherwise don't make an appearance. Various versions of the film's script include these and, overall, it reads like a more cohesive Inland Empire, one bound within the Twin Peaks universe. Omitting the scenes made sense to keep the film about Laura Palmer's battle with the demonic BOB, but for devotees of the show like myself who realistically assumed it wouldn't return, these scenes have been something of a holy grail. Last month, over 11 years after I first became fascinated with the movie (and over twenty for those who were there at the time), this appeared:

I'd always hoped they'd see the light of day but assumed it would be in a dusty, found in a vault somewhere, low-resolution state that most deleted scenes from old movies show up as.
This shit looks fucking amazing.
It's like watching a trailer for an entirely new film in which the main cast have managed to sidestep twenty years of aging (and, in some sad instances, death). And we're being told they've put nearly 90 minutes of it together. I am a happy little cinephile, my friends.
If that weren't enough, something popped up on Twitter last month that got my attention:

What. The actual fuck. Does THAT mean? I asks ya...
If Faith No More start producing new music (a conclusion I don't want to set myself up for the disappointment of not being the case but that a lot of music news outlets have drawn) the same month that the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me are released...holy shit, we could just call it: 2014 wins. It'll be an amazing day regardless but when I see them on 4th there might very well be some indication of what exactly is going on. In the meantime I'm watching their Twitter feed like a fucking hawk.

The Scene

Hopefully this will eschew the theories that the main character of the book is based on me. For starters I don't even have a beard at the moment... 

Having taken the last couple of days to catch up on sleep, de-stress and give my advance copy of Mr. Plympton's new book a much-enjoyed read, I'm recovered and back to my usual, bloggy self. Hurrah! Later on tonight (knock wood) I'll be conducting perhaps my most intimidating interview yet, for childhood-association reasons. So to stave off anxiety for a little while I may as well report on the Bristol Comic Expo, at which "Throat" made its scintillating debut!

Okay, maybe 'scintillating' isn't the most accurate term, but through glass-half-full eyes the venture was a success; I managed to get a lot of info handed out, glean some thoughts and advice from fellow exhibitors and even shifted some copies of "Throat" to both well-wishing friends and complete strangers - I'm on the fence as to which is more awesome, but either way it's a lovely feeling. Also quite cool was coming home to an unexpected boost of online sales which also included some copies of the "House Guest" adaptation.

Myself and the delightful Jo Hepworth who helped out with the first book. Note my solidarity for Doug Stanhope's short-lived presidential campaign: He might still surprise ya!

Wandering around and checking out the other independent ware-touters was somewhat eye-opening: To have written and illustrated a 230-page graphic novel without a publisher sees me somewhat anomalous, although it might be more accurate to use the phrase 'farcically nearsighted' or 'misguided to the point of idiocy'. Most of the non-represented indie guys'n'gals were going the more realistic route of free giveaways or charging small change for mini-comics. The main recurring factor of these would be one that I'm sure seems extraordinarily catty given my low standing on the totem pole:
They're NONSENSICAL. Deceptively constructed like comic strips with a fundamental absence of context or humour; For the most part they're just inexplicably cartoonised, entirely random minutiae from the average day of the writer,  which end before any kind of setup (let alone payoff) has even been established.  A bit like "Garfield Minus Garfield", without the metaphysical ingenuity. And if you think I'm one of those blowhards so cowed by the notion of online feuding and hurting strangers' feelings that I won't be listing any of them by name...you're 100% correct.
"Okay, chinless, what makes YOUR comic so fucking great, then?" 
Well, humble reader, I don't rightly know, and that 'chinless' remark cuts deep. I can't speak impartially for "Throat", although I guarantee its sense of humour won't be for everyone. I did put a lot of work into fine-tuning it from a structural perspective, however, and canvassed a range of opinions from people I respect on a professional level, as mentioned previously . From that I was able to get enough candid, critical feedback on what needed to be fixed to assume, reasonably, that the positives I got were genuine enough.
So, I'm not sure if I'm going about this the right way. Maybe I've gotten ahead of myself and need to rethink my strategy - is shorter form the way to go, and if so is there a way I can have that work for me as far as "Throat" is concerned?
The first step in terms of shaping how I plan to proceed is outlining what I'd consider the main tiers of 'success' for this type of venture. In hierarchical order, these would be:

1) Selling enough stock to make back all the money I've put into the book's promotion and marketing, including public appearances and giving copies out as gifts.
2) Generating enough revenue from expos and online sales to get any type of notable return on said investment.
3) As above, while factoring in the (mostly free) time spent working on the book itself so that the profit might amount to a salary, of sorts, which would cover that period.
4) Getting enough attention and visibility to fast-track the book to the types of market outreach schemes that would lead to national sales and store distribution.
5) Getting published outright, on a national level.
6) Getting published internationally.
7) Getting published in any respect, with enough subsequent sales to warrant continuous printing.
8) Becoming a millionaire, leading Molly Parker to leave her family for me whilst having no qualms about dressing like Alma Garret for the rest of our days.

While 1 and 2 only really apply to "Throat", I've made it to 4 with the "House Guest" graphic novel and 3 with all the rest (save for the "Mitchells In England" collections, which I don't push and I doubt would sell enough for it to be worth it anyway) on online sales alone, so I know it's possible. I suppose it's down to my own stick-to-it-iveness from this point on. So keep your eyes skinned, folks, if for no other reason than the delicious potential for schadenfreude if I fall on my arse.
To end things on a perky note, here are a handful of some of the more inspiring works I came across, mostly from the Markosia crowd:

 

 

Independent spirit, yo.