KLIK! Bait

Since returning from KLIK! and its brief respite from what has to be classified as one of the most stressful and busy periods of my professional life (I love it, but I love to complain too) I've managed to piece together a brand new series of Skwigly podcast minisodes, something we haven't done in a while. The first three episodes feature excerpts from the festival's Filmmaker Talkshow sessions hosted by animation buff Hans Walther.

Unfortunately due to an audio glitch with the recordings provided not all of the interview sessions could be included but there's a lot of great insight from attending filmmakers Natali Voorthuis, Roman Klochkov, Stephanie Blakey, Laura d'Addazio, Alexandre Mailleux, Frederic Siegel, Veronica Montaño, Manuela Leuensberger, Lukas Suter, Sacha Feiner, Marilyn Haddad, Monique Almelle Renault, Susanna Szabo, Eugenia Pashkina, Liz el Saadany, Fela Bellotto, Lalita Brunna and Marieke Blaauw of Job, Joris and Marieke.
In episode four I meet the remaining two-thirds of said studio, Job Roggeveen and Joris Oprins, discussing their body of work that includes the fantastic Mute, the Oscar-nominated A Single Life and their most recent short (Otto). Also in the final episode I meet festival director Yvonne van Ulden, catch up with the brilliant PES about what he's been up to since last year's podcast appearance and speak with Cartoon Saloon's Tomm Moore about his involvement in the multi-artist animated feature The Prophet. You can listen to all four episodes via our Skwigly at KLIK! playlist below:
On top of the podcasts you can also read my report on the festival as a whole (as well as some personal highlights from the official selection) over on Film Hub NWC, the fantastic organisation behind This Is Not A Cartoon and who provided a bursary that helped make the trip over to KLIK! possible.
Special thanks to Tünde Vollenbroek, Samuele Mini, Jen Hall and Alison Kennedy. Here's hoping I'll be back over there next year!

Leaders of Men

Last Skwigly Animation Podcast of 2014!
No holiday play this year but I'm sure some of your Christmasses won't be completely ruined as a consequence. What more than makes up for it are the fantastic guests we have, and this episode's line-up is very esteemed indeed. In fact I think we all got time with a personal hero: Katie Steed talks to Glen Keane about his pre-Duet Disney career with some fantastic insight into the artistic theory and skill applied to his iconic characters such as the Beast, Aladdin, Tarzan, Pocahontas and Ariel; Steve Henderson brings Aardman's Peter Lord back (he was, if you recall, our very first major guest which really gave us credibility right out of the gate) to discuss the modern revival of his own iconic creation Morph; and I talk to indie genius PES about his fantastic stop-mo/pixilation creations, from Roof Sex to Submarine Sandwich (his latest, concluding the 'Food Trilogy' after Western Spaghetti and Fresh Guacamole).
I say this about a lot of them but this episode was another massive pleasure to put together. Stringing it all together Steve and I discuss upcoming features, Oscar predictions, animation 'celebrities', the oh-so-obvious Morph/South Park connection and we learn about Steve's 'incident' with Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
Download or stream over three hours of animation verbosity to stuff in your stocking! Don't say we don't spoil ya. For more goodness and to catch up on earlier episodes you can also of course subscribe on iTunes.
On a subject that could not be more unrelated if it tried, here's a clearer audio recording of one of Faith No More's new tracks, from a spontaneous live show they held at Amoeba Records on Record Store Day.

I am chomping at the goddamn bit to hear the studio version. Spontaneous Christmas EP, chaps?
What? You never know, they might be reading this.