More for the pile

Having quasi-premiered at the Manchester Animation Festival back in 2015, Klementhro will be paddling his way up North again for To The Screen: Animation Unlimited, a one-day festival event put together through Creative Industries Trafford. Even better news is it will be screening alongside Laura-Beth Cowley's new film (and relative newcomer to the festival circuit) Boris-Noris! So if you're able to make it to the Greater Manchester area this coming Wednesday (April 19th) the programme will kick off around 7pm at the Waterside Arts Centre. It's sure to be a fun'un!

As some may recall, last year Klementhro followed in the footsteps of its predecessors Ground Running and The Naughty List by getting itself screened at the Skepto International Film Festival. I've just been informed by the lovely folks over there that it will screen again on April 29th for a special pre-festival 'Best of 2016' event in Sassari, North Sardinia. Exact venue/time info a-comin' soon.
As a little bonus bit of good news, these recent additions to the upcoming screenings means that, come the film's appearance at the Cardiff Independent Film Festival in May, it will have cleared 100 public screenings, which was my self-set target to hit before putting the film online. So assuming nothing changes in the interim, the date it goes up will be Monday May 8th. Pencil it in, people - this time Klementhro's coming to you!

They're waiting...

Storm a-brewin'

The glut of April adventuring for our unlikely lad Klementhro is about to kick off good and proper, so here's a quickie roundup of where and when to catch him.

The next stop of the ongoing Kurzfilmnacht Schweiz tour throughout Switzerland will be Biel/Bienne, a city so nice they named it twice, evidently. The programme will kick off at Kino Rex at 8pm on April 15th - more info here.

As mentioned previously, the film will be playing at the Skepto International Film Festival, kicking off their Skeptyricon screening that also takes place on the 15th, at 10:25pm. The screening will play simultaneously at the Hostel Marina and the Auditorium Comunale in Cagliari. I'm very pleased to see it will screen alongside such excellent work as MANOMAN and Mute by recent podcast guests Simon Cartwright and Job, Joris and Marieke respectively.

Later on in the month I'm informed the film will get its Stateside debut at Kraken Con, a cartoons, comics and cosplay convention that takes place in Oakland, California. The film will be included in the event's inaugural animation festival which kicks off 2pm on Sunday 24th at the Oakland Convention Center, keep your eyes on their website for more info as it comes.

I can also now confirm that Klementhro will indeed be part of ITFS Stuttgart's official selection this year. This is wonderful news as I was able to attend the festival in 2011 when they included The Naughty List and had such a good time I swore to myself I'd be back the following year with a new film. Instead it's taken five years, but hey, I get there in the end. The film will screen in the International Competition 5 programme at 9pm on April 30th at the Gloria Kino (screen 1) and again at 11am on May 1st at the Metropol (screen 2). I'll be in attendance for those dates so if anyone else plans on being there give me a shout!

"Satirico, grottesco e oltre"

Zürich ho!

As March wraps its sweet little self up I'm happy to be able to bring you folks up to speed with what awaits paddling troublemaker Klementhro this coming April.

This Friday (the 1st) he'll begin his involvement in the first of two touring film programs that will be playing throughout Switzerland. The first - Kurzfilmnacht Schweiz - will be focusing on Swiss-German speaking cities, with its first screenings taking place in Zürich at two venues, the Arthouse Le Paris at 8:30pm and the Arthouse Uto at 9pm. Klementhro will be part of the Happy Aging program, more info for which can be found by clicking here.

Later on in the month I'm happy to say the film will be playing at the Skepto International Film Festival, an event I'm well-acquainted with as it has screened both Ground Running and The Naughty List in the past. It's in some excellent company this time around, screening alongside such terrific filmmakers as Simon Cartwright, Job, Joris and Marieke, Konstantin Bronzit and Réka Bucsi. Klementhro will play as part of the Skeptyricon (Satire, Grotesque and Beyond) screening and the festival itself will run from April 13th to 16th in Cagliari, Italy. More specifics to follow, but in the meantime you can check out the festival website here.

"Hello again, Terminal 5..."

As the hectic holiday season has officially engulfed us, I am falling behind in certain areas, like keeping this blog up to date, for one. Rest easy, readers of this newfangled internet, for come the new year I may well be back on form and taking forever to say absolutely nothing of value like I usually do. While I have some time waiting on a flight that'll propel me away from this island for the holidays, I’ll quickly knock out some Christmassy chunks of good news: Firstly, Canal+ have added another handful of broadcast slots for “The Naughty List” over the holiday season, you can head on over to the channel website for full listings.Secondly, said tale of seasonal disenchantment will be screening in Italy alongside “Ground Running” as part of the Skepto International Film Festival’s pre-fest event tomorrow at Cagliari's Hostel Marina (7:30pm for pantsless Santa, 9:30pm for pantsless baby…I’m starting to pick up on a recurring theme in my work).Lastly, “The Naughty List” will also be getting its first – and possibly only – screening of 2012 next month at the Short Soup International Short Film Festival in Sydney, Australia. As part of Movies By The Boulevard, a series of outdoor film screenings at Sydney Olympic Park that runs through January, my film's in Short Soup’s ‘Dessert’ section which begins at 10:25pm on Sunday 22nd. So, if you find yourselves feeling any post-holiday melancholia, head on over there and cheer yourselves up. Granted, for those of you who don’t actually live in Australia, the incurred travel expense may depress you further, in which case you may just want to pick up a batch of reduced-price mince pies instead.

Creature Discomforts

Here are some more indeterminable creatures following on from last week's, using a significantly different colouring process. This relies heavily on public domain watercolour textures that I've been playing about with since slapping together the "Book of Women" album artwork. I don't really have any planned projects that involve them (their main purpose is to add more contemporary content to my portfolio) but I could see them as part of something targeted toward younger audiences. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out and how not-my-usual-style they seem so I might just sell the images as a series of prints.




Here's a sped-up vid that more or less shows the process, taking one of the uglier initial sketches and making it look sort of passable through textures and relief shadows. Actually kind of an effective cure for a hungover Sunday afternoon.Speaking of Christmas-themed animation, which I absolutely wasn't, the second edition of the Cagliari-based Skepto International Film Festival will be screening "The Naughty List" on April 9th. As with Salento Finibus Terrae, it's an Italian fest which also screened a short of mine the previous year ("Ground Running" in this instance) which fills me with fuzzy warm validation and seasonal cheer.

Pitched Out

It's been a mostly sleepless week living off cornflakes, yoghurt and instant coffee (my digestive tract is both anxious and befuddled) as I'm gathering pre-production materials for two short film pitches. Hoping to stick with my pattern of producing one short of my own per year, I'm leaning toward the more developed, easier-to-pull-off "Bullies". I have a script and a large chunk of the storyboard done, plus I can get on the asset building while I wait to hear back from potential backers. That way if I don't get any bites I'll have enough material in place to pursue other opportunities or possibly just take more time to knock it out myself.
I'm really excited about this one as it's shaping up to be a completely different visual experience than my previous films, relying more on the production processes of certain commissions and slightly more contemporary character design work. To that end I'm torn between showing off or keeping under my hat the proposed designs I have now. So here's my concession:Speaking of short films (which I guess is pretty much all I do on here) Sophie Klevenow's 2009 short "Noesis", for which I did the sound mix, just got accepted into the AG Kurzfilm German Shortfilm Catalogue, which is excellent and well-deserved news. It really is uniquely remarkable for a student film and has been very well-received with good reason. If you've yet to see it I'd recommend you check it out.Some screening news to end on - "Ground Running" will be getting another showing at this year's Skepto after its inclusion last year. It's part of a 'Best of 2010' pre-festival screening on the 25th which is pretty flattering.Elsewhere - Tamil Nadu, specifically - "The Naughty List" will be part of the 2011 International Short Film Festival of India which starts on the same day. Given the country's increasing relevance within the animation industry it's very encouraging to get a screening over there.
Now to prepare for a weekend of scanning and compositing, fueled by my 18th Müllerlight of the day...

Synecdoche, Bristol...doesn't work quite so well as a pun...

So, about a month after I'd hoped, I've finally shifted enough extraneous flabby tissue to have reached my target belt size. And yet I still have the body and disposition of a Philip Seymour Hoffman character. I need Marky Mark to give me a good dressing down.
Having dug out that clip I just realised that Hoffman circa '97 was in better shape than I am now. That reference sure bit me on the ass.
I've consequently betrayed my lineage and joined a gym. Amazing carrot-and-stick effect a nice pair of buttocks has when using the cross-trainer in front of yours. If you're a girl and reading this, that was an ironic and biting dig at the assumptions of a cynical society. For true.Changing the subject, my short film "Ground Running" will be making its first festival appearance of 2010 at the Skepto International Film Festival, taking place in Cagliari, Sardinia. To display my superb geographical knowledge, that's one of the Italian islands the boot is gearing up to punt.
This film was completed and put out in 2008 (a couple months after I finished "House Guest") and then quickly rescinded when a bunch of people pointed out some eerie similarities to another film. I amended these last year, ultimately lengthening the film as a consequence. Once I've retired "House Guest" I plan on putting more effort into sending the new edit of "Ground Running" around and getting it seen. In the meantime, the Skepto festival will take place toward the end of the month, exact day/time/place to follow.