Just a reminder that this Saturday I'll be hosting An Evening with Late Night Work Club and Friends, closing out Cardiff Animation Festival's day of taster events focusing on the work of the independent animation collective behind Ghost Stories and Strangers.
Special guests will be several LNWC members - Nexus directors Nicolas Ménard (Wednesday With Goddard) and Conor Finnergan (Asshole), Cartoon Saloon's Louise Bagnall (Loose Ends) as well as Eimhin McNamara of Paper Panther Productions. We also may very well have one or two special guests Skyping in, so if you don't want to miss an opportunity for some brilliant indie animation insight then be sure to be at Chapter at 6pm on July 22nd.
Many thanks to Lauren and the brilliant Cardiff Animation Nights team for having me be involved. Be sure to check out the full line-up of events, including an animation feedback session, a drink and draw plus screenings of both LNWC anthologies. If you want to learn a bit more about the history of the collective and how their second anthology Strangers came together then check out episode 2 (stream below or download) of my Independent Animation podcast series below, featuring interviews with Nicolas, Kirsten Lepore, Sean Buckelew, Alex Grigg, Loup Blaster, Charles Huettner and Jeanette Bonds:
Australian animation director and designer
Alex Grigg has produced work for clients such as Super Deluxe, Netflix
and Cartoon Network. Presently working at Mighty Nice in Sydney, Alex’s
independent work includes the multi-award-winning Ghost Stories contribution Phantom Limb.
The podcast also features exclusive insight about the independent production approaches for the anthology from other participating talents:
Charles is a Pennsylvania-based freelance
animator. As well as his involvement with the Late Night Work Club, he
was recently involved with fellow LNWC founder Scott Benson‘s indie game project Night in the Woods.
Having received an MFA in Experimental
Animation from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sean has since worked on
projects including We Are Your Friends, Consuming Spirits and the Annie Award-winning animated sequences of He Named Me Malala. Alonside his independent films he has worked with clients including Disney Channel, MTV, Arctic Monkeys, VH1 and Adult Swim.
Since receiving a BFA and MFA from CalArts
for Experimental Animation, LA-based animator Jeanette has gone on to
programme and participate in festivals including Slamdance, Platform,
KLIK!, Fantoche and the Los Angeles Film Festival. In 2014 her student
film Trusts & Estates was nominated for an Annie Award. On
top of her independent film work Jeanette is also the Co-Founder,
Director and Artistic Director of the GLAS Animation Festival.
Presently living and working in France as
an illustrator, animator and VJ, Louise Philia Druelle (AKA Loup
Blaster) grew up in Calais and studied animation at ESAAT and Volda
University College. In March 2012 she started BBBLASTER, an illustration, animation and music project.
Nicolas moved to the UK from Montreal to study at the Royal College of Art where he produced the popular student films Somewhere and Loop Ring Chop Drink.
During his career he has worked with dozens of clients including
Google, la Cinémathèque Québécoise, Universal and Time magazine. He also
works as a director at Nexus.
Thanks muchly to all the brilliant interviewees for their time and insight, as well as composers Skillbard and David Kamp for the use of their music in the episode. Don't forget that the Independent Animation book itself is available to buy now from pretty much everywhere else that sells books - though at the time of writing you can get it direct from CRC Press with 20% off plus free shipping!
Some updates to brighten an actually-quite-sunny-already weekend. Sunscapades is making slow but encouragingly steady progress. I've been blessed with having some absolutely fantastic background and close-ups painters who've really been helping to nail that 90s series vibe I'm going for with it. If you want to keep up with how it's coming together and get some sneaky peeks as they go up you can now follow me on Instagram. Here's a wee smattering of the goods you can come to expect:
It's also worth reminding y'all that there's a Skwigly Instagram that's been set up for a while now so if you're in a followin' mood then why not get in on that too.
Speakin' o' Skwigly, the end of March officially marked five years of the Skwigly Animation Podcast. It's been quite a half-decade, with co-host Steve and myself amassing literally days' worth of exclusive interviews and insights from the best and brightest of the animation industry. So naturally to mark the occasion I've put together a selection of bits where it's just the two of us pissing about in between interviews.
Traipse down memory lane in this compilation of conversational “highlights” including:
The second season of mine and Laura-Beth Cowley's more recent Skwigly podcast series Intimate Animation is continuing on also, with Kim Noce of Mew Labjoining us for episode 2. Since graduating from the NFTS with her 2005 animated documentary short After,
Kim has gone on to direct eight independent shorts, seven commissioned
films for the BBC, C4 and the BFI among others, as well as ten animation
installations, including The Evening Her Mind Jumped Out of Her Head for Watford Borough Council. Recently Kim was among several directors commissioned to direct Love in Idleness for the Shakespeare400 Still Shakespeare
series. The films took inspiration from original research by Sally
Barnden and were produced in partnership with London Shakespeare Centre,
Film Club at Th1ng and Sherbet.
Also discussed in this episode is Kirsten Lepore's curious new film Hi Stranger, made for the second Late Night Work Club anthology Strangers. Her contribution went viral in a big way a few weeks back and you can learn more about how it came together in my interview with her: Stranger Things: A Conversation with Kirsten Lepore
You can hear a longer version of the interview as well as more from the other Strangers contributors in a podcast special that will be going up soon (I'd originally planned to time it with a public screening event I'm involved in but as that's been pushed back until later in the year I'm aiming to get it up sooner) so watch this space.
In the meantime there's a new episode of my video interview series Lightbox in which I meet Kyle Carrozza, a nice fella whose frenetic contribution to the Cartoon Network series line-up Mighty Magiswords just made it to the UK this weekend. Have a watch and learn more about how it came together, it's quite interesting how its path to becoming a full series was a somewhat atypical one.
I know at this point you're all literally screaming "But what's happening with Klementhro?!" until your voice boxes are raw and bloody, so I'll put you out of your misery. I'm happy to report the film's getting a surprise screening in competition at Cortoons Festival Gandia. The festival takes place in Valencia, Spain and while I'm not 100% clear on the exact time and venue info just yet I can tell you it's held from April 27th to 30th and that my film will be part of the 1-4 minutes screening category. More when there's more.
Don't forget that shortly afterward it will screen on May 6th at 5:15pm as part of Cardiff Animation Nights' competition strand at the Cardiff Independent Film Festival at Chapter. Immediately afterwards at 7pm Steve and I will be hosting one of our inimitable Skwigly Animation Quizzes that are always good fun, so be sure to check that out also.
That morning Laura-Beth's new film Boris-Noris (on which I helped out hither and thither) will also be playing at CIFF as part of the Animated Family Shorts screenings put together by Cloth Cat. Keep your eyes on the online program in the coming weeks for more specifics and ticket info. The film has had a great start so far, already having screened in the States and the UK with other upcoming screenings including 7 Petits Cailloux (Tinqueux, France) and Zlín Film Festival (Kudlov, Czech Republic).
Eef, that was a big one. Okay folks, go back to enjoying your Sunday.
♫ New podcast day, new podcast day, ♫ ♫ Life's a bit less crap because new podcast day! ♫
Another good'un, alongside myself and Steve's
riveting discussions of crucial industry developments like the Postman
Pat movie and a possible Shrek 5, we have two fabulous guests, John DiMaggio (who was Bender off Futurama, currently Jake in Adventure Time) and Laura-Beth chats to "tiny director/animator" Kirsten Lepore. Kirsten directed the fabulous short film Bottle as well as her more recent Move Mountain which was recently released online:
On top of his voice work, John recently produced a documentary on, fittingly, animation voiceover artists. It's called I Know That Voice and looks pretty damn decent, so keep your eyes peeled for it:
The podcast, as always, can be downloaded, streamed and subscribed to and is still cheap as free, so go get it:
This episode is dedicated to Harold Ramis, a fine chap who, along with the likes of James Gandolfini, Patrice o'Neal and Philip Seymour Hoffman, has joined the ranks of too-soon-departed men I never met but admired hugely.
