I'm back from my not-as-rainy-as-expected Annecy trip and feel like I've run a marathon. It was a whirlwind of catch-ups, meet-ups, write-ups, interviews, parties, rain-dodging, sun-spotting, networking and completely responsible drinking; all in all, we made massive pests of ourselves and had a blast doing so.
Following on from last week's pre-fest round-up, here's the first batch of coverage put out while we were over there (and check back later in the week as there's plenty more to come). Firstly, as promised, you can have a read of my interview with Franck Dion, whose film The Head Vanishes was one of my personal highlights of the festival that had the good manners to win the Short Film Cristal!
I also note with glee that another top pick, Theo Ushev's Blind Vaysha, received not only the Jury Prize but the Children's Jury Prize - you can have a read of my recent interview with him about that project here.
Another Cristal winner (also picking up an Audience Award) was the gorgeous feature film My Life as a Courgette by Claude Barras. While it initially lured a lot of festivalgoers in simply by looking pretty, when word got around about just how amazing it was on the whole the remaining screenings sold out pretty quickly. You can have a read of my attempt to put my own enthusiasm about it into words in my review, which went up today.
Also discussed previously, I was able to chat with Canadian filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming about her feature-length NFB production Window Horses, brought to life by an assortment of top Canadian animation talent such as Kevin Langdale and Janet Perlman. It's a lovely film and a tremendous showcase of different animation approaches and styles, so keep an eye out for it.
The latest episode of the podcast is our first to be recorded from the festival's gathering ground for inebriate tourists, Captain Pub. Give it a listen to hear about my travel woes, an interview with Chris Renaud (director of The Secret Life of Pets, which saw its premiere at Annecy on Thursday) plus Katie and Julia join us to discuss Annecy's good sportsmanship traditions. Download here, subscribe or stream below:
Later on in the week we did our first ever live vodcast via the Skwigly Facebook page, where myself, Steve and Katie discuss some of the highlights of the fest as well as the grim fate that befell our Marketing Director Aaron.
I also swung by the Toon Boom booth at MIFA to catch up and found myself being interviewed about Skwigly, the festival and my upcoming book Independent Animation. You can give it a watch below:
On our last day I met the world's biggest Klementhro fans, one of whom being acclaimed Lithuanian animator and caricaturist Ilja Bereznickas who was keen to immortalise me, throwing in some references to the film (cheers to Steve for documenting).
Will post again soon with more good stuff from the fest, in the meantime check out the full list of special prize recipients and award winners from this year's edition!
This first Skwigly podcast of 2015 is up today!
Be sure to stream, download or subscribe to never risk being out of the loop and, rightly, shunned by your betters.
In this episode we have Julia Young's extended chat with Disney veteran and Duet director Glen Keane; Steve Cav and earnest protégé Fiona Stuart-Clark grill the directors of the Oscar-nominated The Boxtrolls (out to buy next week) Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi; and I dig out my interview with Torill Kove of the NFB on her latest short Me and My Moulton, which is also amongst the Oscar nominees. You can also watch a bit of said interview and get a glimpse of the film itself in one of my Lightbox docs from last year:
Elsewhere Steve and myself keep it real whilst recalling such technological game-changers as the Game Boy Printer. Mmmboy, that's good listenin'!
I mentioned last week that we would put up an extended version of Julia Young's brilliant interview with Disney legend Glen Keane. Here it be!
This is the first episode of what I've lazily dubbed Lightbox Plus (because, y'know, it's Lightbox with extra bits), a series I expect will be less regular than the standard Lightbox episodes and exclusive to our Vimeo channel. Don't forget we have another interview with Glen about his pre-Duet Disney years in the latest podcast (which you can download here).
Meanwhile the latest regular Lightbox features Seb Burnett, Creative Director of Rumpus Animation, talking about the previously mentionedBertram Fiddle game. There are still some e-shopping days left and I suspect it would make the perfect cheap-as-chips gift for the indie point-and-click retro-gaming/Victorian era enthusiast in your life. So long as they have an iOS device. Have a watch below:
Learn more about the game at the Bertram Fiddle website. Look at me, brimming with seasonal altruism (in the self-serving-because-I'm-in-it sense).
Good Lord, the time's whizzing by. We're pretty much at the end of the month and there's much by way of updateables, so tilt yourself at a nice comfy angle and let yourself be gently coated in news.
Firstly we at Skwigly recently did our annual Encounters coverage, this time around covering the festival's 20th anniversary edition which included some excellent events, guests and new films. You can have a read of my competition and special screening highlights as well as Laura-Beth and Julia's top picks of the fest.
One major perk across the board was getting to meet Disney veteran Glen Keane, a legendary chap responsible for some of the studio's most iconic contemporary characters who's recently partnered up with Google to create the jaw-dropping interactive short Duet. Expect to see some brilliant insight from the man up on Skwigly in the not-too-distant future.
Another special guest of the festival was Yoni Goodman, who presented the Ari Folman films Waltz With Bashir and The Congress, both of which he served as Animation Director on. I managed to catch The Congress at last year's Sommets du Cinéma d’Animation (you can read my review of it here) and was glad to get a second chance to watch it as there's a great deal to take in. I have some ambivalence toward it as an overall film but visually it's mind-bending and, at times, truly inspired so I'm very glad I got some time with Yoni:
On the subject of Lightbox, last week's episode featured Canadian filmmaker Janet Perlman, whose relationship with the NFB goes back almost 40 years. Her latest short Monsieur Pug premiered at OIAF last week and is a very nice piece of work, so have a watch and keep your eyes out for it:
On the more experimental side of the NFB animation spectrum is Michèle Cournoyer, director of The Hat and Accordion whose most recent short Soif is an equally no-holds-barred affair, exploring the tragedies of alcoholism. The film also played at OIAF and got an honorable mention, you can read more about it andMichèle's work in our interview which went up this morning.
Also up today is our latest Skwigly Podcast, featuring extended interviews with LAIKA President Travis Knight (The Boxtrolls) and Yoni Goodman, as well as a chat with Jesse Cleverly of Wildseed Studios, a Bristol-based initiative for the development of new animated series pilots. Download, subscribe or stream below:
Laura-Beth also chats about her recent involvement with Animation Toolkit's first crowdfunding endeavour Pooch Proposal. The campaign has gone live as of this week, I lent a hand in putting the pitch video together and I recommend you all check it out. Should it go ahead there's some brilliant talent involved and the incentives are excellent, especially for prospective stop-motion animators in the market for high-end, professional grade armature kits:
We're in the last stretch of it now which, given that the 25th has already come and gone, may seem a bit confusing. Last year we had a lot of people getting in touch asking if they could get involved after all the slots had been filled, so we extended the idea of contributing illustrators to include the 12 days of Christmas. This year we've done more or less the same thing:
For the last one I helped out a bit on the animation (such as it is) front, using some basic After Effects whatchimajiggery. For the benefit of those who may not know, the guy leaping about in the picture is Aardman co-founder Peter Lord (who I interviewed a little while back when his film The Pirates! had just been released), which seemed appropriate. We kind of put it together spontaneously without mentioning it to him beforehand but I'm pleased to say he was sporting about it:
