June Shmune

A solid half-decade after it originally made its festival debut, I've finally put my fifth animated short Sunscapades online. It's a film I was initially quite proud of insofar as it came out exactly as I pictured it in my head, which is a rare thing indeed, but I grew a little conflicted about it for a few reasons I won't bore you with here. It had a nice chunky festival run either way, with stops including the BFI London Film Festival, LIAF, Encounters, LSFF, Just For Laughs, Sydney Film Festival, MIAF, Cardiff Animation Nights (twice! What a lovely bunch), Anima Brussels and a whole lot more. It was also an opportunity to work with the wonderful Weird Eye Collective talents Laura-Beth Cowley (producer and voice of Lily and Milly), Fiona Viani-Pericchi (voice of Billy) and Hannah Stevens (background paintings) and boasts some fantastic painterly contributions from Carwyn David, plus some spooky music courtesy of Phil Brookes. So give it a watch and let some sunshine into your lives:

Tomorrow night (June 22nd) I'm putting on another Bristol Animation Meetup (BAM) with my pals from Rumpus Animation and Sun & Moon Studios. This time we're congregating at the King Street Brew House from 7pm and I'll be shamelessly using the opportunity to have a quasi-launch of the new book.

You can have yourselves a merry little thumb-through and if you conclude it's a book you need in your life (as any rational person would) then I'm offering a special BAM-exclusive, mates-rates discount. As with every edition of BAM, all animation professionals, students, enthusiasts, fans and hobbyists from Bristol and the surrounding area – really anyone who fancies making the trek - are welcome.

Back to the book, check out the video above for a cheeky peek at what it looks like in hardback. Then spit coffee at your screen when you see how much the bloody thing costs. Ah well, some things just aren't in my control.

Things are busy as ever in the land o' Skwigly, so be sure to swing by and get caught up. On top of some great coverage from the team on indie hit Lackadaisy, Estonian masterpiece Old Man Cartoon Movie: Lactopalypse!, Star Wars Visions: Season 2, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Genndy Tartakovsky's new project Fixed, in the lead-up to the summer I've put out a trifecta of National Film Board of Canada coverage, looking at new work from Thao Lam and Kjell Boersma (Boat People) and the welcome return of previous Skwigly interviewees Janet Perlman (The Girl with the Red Beret) and Janice Nadeau (Harvey). Some other fun stuff coming up, so keep 'em peeled and be sure to follow us on our Twitter, Insta, Facebook and YouTube so you have a better chance not letting that pesky algorithm hide our goodness from you.

Okay, that's enough. Now be off with you.

Piggy, where'd it all go wrong?

Happy inauguration day folks!

Man alive, we actually made it to this point. To mark the occasion here's a completely unrelated new song I wrote about a certain Piggy that outstayed its welcome. The last Struwwelpeter EP in anticipation of the nearly-done new album My Head Is Too Small For My Body is available from today via Bandcamp (stream below) featuring the exclusive extra track Mysterious Bruises with guest vocals by Laura-Beth as well as an alternate acoustic mix of the title track.

Gracias to Hannah Stevens of Weird Eye Collective for the painterly assistance with the EP cover art.

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!

Got a light?

The hometown premiere of Sunscapades at this year's Encounters festival went encouragingly well, especially considering the screenings were the first time I'd seen the film with a sizable festival audience. As with all films it's been educational as far as which bits get the strongest reactions but all things considered I couldn't be happier with how it went down. It was also very nice to be able to bring along almost all of the film's modest crew (Laura-Beth, Hannah, Phil and Carwyn) - not to mention me mam - and hopefully come October everyone involved will have gotten to see it on the big screen.

Until then the film will be popping up around the world at a few more lovely events. To cap off the week tomorrow night will see it among the launch programme for the Roselle Park Short Film Festival, a branch of the Roselle Park Arts Festival. In Roselle Park, believe it or not. If you're on that side of the pond you can check out the screening at the Climax Brewing Company's outdoor theatre at 5:30pm.

One final reminder that if there are any David Lynch/Twin Peaks fans out there who haven't yet made weekend plans, my previous film Klementhro is screening as part of the Lynch Inspired Short Films programme at The Official Twin Peaks UK Festival. According to their social media there are still a handful of tickets left if you fancy snapping them up. The screenings will take place 3:30pm Saturday 29th and 11:30am Sunday 30th - I'm pretty sure it's the same programme repeated each day but I may be mistaken. At any rate here's the full list of films and you check out the complete weekend schedule here. Drink full and descend!

Rising Sun

Came home to some rather lovely news that Sunscapades just won itself the Best Animation award at the Fylde Film Festival! It's been a slow start for this one as far as getting it out there so this is a really encouraging start and hopefully I'll be able to share news about upcoming screenings in the near future.
This also marks the official world premiere of the film, the first time an animated short of mine has ever actually debuted in the UK, so it's very reassuring to hear it went down well. Once again many thanks to the brilliant talents who helped it get done - Laura-Beth, Hannah, Fiona, Phil and Carwyn in particular - and to the festival team for taking a punt on it. After a bit of a grumpy weekend y'all perked me up some.

Updates From Limbo

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 Libido screening 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:

Sunshine Days

An evening dedicated to making a child scream in terror is surely an evening well spent

With an optimistic, self-set completion deadline for the end of May, my latest film Sunscapades is starting to come together. Conisdering the last couple of my films have been pretty quiet affairs, I wanted to pay tribute to the faster-paced, economically-produced cartoons of my youth, something more in the vein of the Wobble Box series I worked on, or my old Jim Norton animation.

What a ham

This film came from some random scribblings I did around the same time as Klementhro and is one of three shorts I've outlined that largely revolve around the antics of mischievous triplets Milly, Lily and Billy. For now I don't think the story needs to be elaborated on, but here's a first little glimpse:

What rotten thing could they have done?
I'd like to express much gratitude to three wonderful ladies of animation - who make up Weird Eye Collective - Laura-Beth and Fiona (who contributed some superb voice work) as well as Hannah who's working on the backgrounds. Seeing this first sequence more-or-less done I have a particularly good feeling about how the film is turning out and I'm really looking forward to putting it out in the world when it's done. As always keep checking back here for updates and whatnot.