Our Skwigly guest spot at the London Animation Club earlier this week was a massive success. Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to Martin again for having us, hopefully you all enjoyed it as much as we did! For those who weren't able to make it I got the impression some of it was filmed and I believe that will go up at some point down the line, so keep checking their website.
In the meantime I've uploaded a special Lightbox compilation video I edited together as part of our presentation. It's impossible to do a complete 'best-of' in 20 minutes but this I think gives an impression of the range and scope of our coverage, from emerging up-and-comers to established Oscar-winners.
The video features snippets our chats with Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, Robert Kondo, Dice Tsutsumi, Bill Plympton, Torill Kove, Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson, Will Becher, Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed and Jeff Turley. Don't forget you can watch all of their interviews plus many more in full over at our official channel.
For those of you based up North, I strongly urge you to check out This Is Not A Cartoon, a new Skwigly venture in association with the BFI Film Hub. The events have been programmed primarily by Jen Hall of Manchester's Cornerhouse/HOME, the first of which taking place April 24th at the Stoke-on-Trent Science Centre featuring a live Q&A with the aforementioned Ainslie Henderson, director of Monkey Love Experiments and I Am Tom Moody. For more info on the programme and upcoming events head over to the website.
The Oscar and BAFTA nominations for 2015 have now both been announced, which I've taken as a cue for a bit of reflection on some films of note.
Leading the charge are Dice and Robert of Tonko House, whose film The Dam Keeper is an astounding concept-art-come-to-life piece of work. If asked to put together a 'Top 10' list of the best films of the past year it'd easily be amongst them. Proof of which is viewable at Revue 24 Images, for which I (along with numerous other more accomplished critics and curators) was asked to put together a 'Top 10' list of the best films of the past year. See, I zigged when you thought I was gonna...well, zig probably.
If your clicking finger is broken then the other films I picked are:
The lists were compiled by Marco de Blois who, amongst other laudable animation-related activities, is the main programmer for Quebec's Sommets du Cinéma d’Animation. As this Cartoon Brew article makes clear, one thing I can't be accused of is going with the crowd. That being said, many of the other critics' favourites would easily make my top 20 (also some folks cheated a bit and picked films from the year before, but what am I, the list police?). In fact, for the sake of why-the-hell-not, here's my next ten favourites of last year:
Give those all some investigation, my lovelies. Anyway, our first Lightbox of 2015 is on the making of The Dam Keeper. Seriously, if you haven't come across this film yet at all, treat yourself to a peek here:
You can also hear more from Rob and Dice in episode 25 of the Skwigly Podcast.
Also in the running are Daisy Jacobs, Joris Oprins, Disney with Feast and, happily, Torill Kove of the NFB, who I interviewed during the production of the film.
Aside from the comparatively indie Song of the Sea, the feature film noms were all fairly predictable. Though I'm not so up-in-arms about The Lego Movie being ignored I would've loved to see Bill Plympton's Cheatin' and Signe Baumane's Rocks In My Pockets in with a shot. Que cera cera. Fortunately this arrived today so I can start my weekend off right:
Going back to the shorts, Alan Holly's Coda really stood out to me last year and I urge everyone to keep their eyes open for it:
That this film and Glen Keane's Duet (admittedly more successful as an interactive experience) didn't make the nominations is a massive shame - I've yet to see Plympton's Footprints but I'm sure I'd feel similarly - massive kudos to them at any rate for getting shortlisted.
Also worth mentioning that amongst the BAFTA noms was Will and Ainslie's Monkey Love Experiments, which has already won itself a Scottish BAFTA but one more wouldn't hurt.
Fantastic stuff from those two, though this one will probably remain my favourite for a good long while:
Our Skwigly advent calendar has wrapped up for another year, and what a thing of beauty it has become!
Here's another sampling of brilliant contributions:
