Tssst

What, you never seen two celebrities chippin' about or sumthin'? Tssst.

This is myself and Lyle 'Chip' Chipperson, international sensation. After a superlative set of his in Montreal this past weekend I managed to get a quick snap with the brilliant comedian and performer Jim Norton, known for his standup, The Opie and Anthony Show and, of course, this animation I did back in 2011:

He's lost a lot of weight since then (from "gahn t'the jahm'n ate'n beh-tehr") so if I ever have time to do another one I'll have to redesign his character to have a neck.
O&A has been a background staple of my working life since 2008 and, as some may be aware, it appears to be no more after Anthony Cumia fell prey to the media hypocrisies they've so astutely ridiculed over the years and got his over-passionately-tweeting self fired. I could rant about it but many others have voiced my exact issues with far more articulacy and wit than I could, especially magical man-giant and all-around top bloke Penn Jillette:

  

Sad times. But I got to meet Chip regardless, and Ant's starting a new show on August 4th which I expect will be pretty decent, so the world appears to still be turning.

Travellers

I don't usually post commercial work up on here but I'm rather fond of the way this recent one came out. Put together by the lovely folks over at Slurpy Studios, it was designed and composited by Katie Steed with character animation by yours truly.

I can't speak for the the service the company being advertised provide but I'm sure they're fine, upstanding chaps and chapettes. I mean, they work in insurance so they'd have to be, right?

Hermit Ben

Just before the holidays began, I made the conceivably misguided move of getting a whole mess of plates a-spinnin’ which will hopefully lead to some exciting stuff I can reveal come March. Until then I expect things on the blog front will get pretty quiet. Try not to drown in your tears.
The game plan is to shut myself away and barrel through as many ongoing commissions as I can so as to get started on what’s looking to be a ‘biggie’ with relatively few distractions. So if it seems like I’m not posting much on here, that’ll be why. I don’t anticipate many (if any) new festival screenings or film updates in that time, but if anything comes in I’ll put it up here while attempting to reign in my usual shitheaded editorialising.Before making myself disappear completely I may as well plug the first TV broadcast of 2012 for “The Naughty List”, which will be shown this Sunday 8th at 8:52pm on Canal+ Comedia in Spain. If you miss it, you can keep checking back on their channel page for upcoming broadcasts (there is, of course, the highly-defined online option available to y’all as well).Another piece of happy, non-animation news is that my most recent album “The Book of Women” is now available to buy through Amazon, either as a traditional CD (for us nostalgic old-timers) or as a digital download for the youthful hipsters out there. Check it out here, there are clips and everything! FANCY!

Struwwelpeter - "The Book of Women" on Amazon

Right, back to the cave and my faithful bogman companion. Little post-John K R&S reference there for ya.
Yup.

Have a highly-defined Christmas, everybody!

While I imagine the expiry date on being allowed to pimp my seasonal animated short "The Naughty List" will be up by this time next year, I'm giving it one last gasp. From now on (either until the new year or possibly forever, depending on how well it goes down) the complete, unedited version of the film is available to watch in full 1080p HD. "Ooh" and, I'll hasten to add, "Aah".
Rather apt as the HD thing kind of plays a part in the story, also in consideration of my peers you can now see all the inconsistencies in the line work that SD went some way toward covering up.

Please watch it/share it/'like' it etc as you all see fit. Plus if you're a Vimeo member you can download the full-res file and keep it forever and ever! It's a not-entirely-selfless act of holiday benevolence on my part.
Goodwill to all!

Reprazentin'! (...sorry)

It's that time of year when I take stock of where I am and where I'm going with this cartoon malarkey. This year was pretty strong, work-wise as well as for personal projects, but my hopes that this may have been indicative of an industry upswing have been dashed for their childlike foolishness by an increasingly bleak forecast. Work out there in 2012 seems sparse and if it weren't for "Bullies" keeping me occupied for the next couple months I'm not sure what I'd be doing with my time. Come January I could be up the proverbial creek, scrabbling about for the proverbial paddle.
So, in true 'keep calm and carry on' tradition of head-in-sand denial this nation is so famous for, I'll plod along and do all I can do. To that end I've revised my showreel:

There isn't a whole bunch of replacement footage as I want to keep what "Bullies" animation I've done under wraps until I start promoting it. I've also brought my animation CV up to date with various work commissions since the summer, as well as developments with my films and an additional screening history section.

Ben Mitchell - Animation CV (.pdf, 3.3mb)

To supplement all this is a mini-portfolio I'd put together not that long ago to showcase my graphic design, character design and illustration work in brief:

Ben Mitchell - Design/Illustration Portfolio (.pdf, 5.3mb)

So there you go. That's me and the brass tacks of what I've been up to. Help a fella out, folks.

Springtime Santa

As the Stuttgart Animation Festival draws incrementally closer and my excitement manifests itself as a series of unsettling girlish squeals, flights are booked, screening copies are delivered and I now know "The Naughty List" will be shown on Friday May 6th as part of the International Panorama at 11pm. Venue details to follow.Meanwhile the film is continuing to garner screenings and friendly feedback across the globe, with another US airing tomorrow (19th) afternoon as part of the Charleston Film Festival in South Carolina.Heading further North in April it'll be shown at Canada's Dawson City International Short Film Festival. Yukon ho! It is nice to get some Canuck exposure, here's hoping it'll contribute to me someday getting a screening in Montreal.Some particularly splendid news is that the film will be part of Salento Finibus Terrae in Apulia, Italy. This is the second consecutive year a film of mine has been part of the festival after "House Guest" was featured in their 2010 edition. This will happen sometime in the second half of July, as always the specifics will be posted when I know them.
May your weekend be grand and gluttonous!

As the feathers settle

A week after going up, "Chicken Chokes You" has amassed 1000+ views across YouTube and Vimeo. In the world of online video that's obviously a mere drop in the ocean but for me it represents a big leap forward. While it's admittedly riding the coattails of Yimmy and the b-b-boys, the feedback regarding the animation itself has been really encouraging. Many thanks again to everyone who passed it on, yellow treats for all!
To karmically balance out the universe following a week of vainglorious self-promotion, here are a bunch of other O&A animations from a while back that stand out to me. I'd say it's a safe bet that very few of these are safe for work:

There, that dirty feeling's starting to abate now...

Frrrrrrunkis!

The completed Opie & Anthony short "Chicken Chokes You" is now online and downloadable at Vimeo. Yay pudding!

The Vimeo version has a couple bits edited out to keep it 'general audience' and not alienate potential employers and clients. But for the thick-skinned there is also an unedited Youtube version which has already garnered a bunch of views and kind words.
If you enjoy it please be a dear and Tweet/share/like/comment/endorse liberally.
So endeth the tale of my Li'l Yimmy cartoon. Coincidentally I learned today that he has a new standup album 'Despicable' coming out on the 8th, there's no way it won't be good so I'd advise you check it out:

Final Stretch

Here's the last batch of stills from "Chicken Chokes You" before the finished film goes up (knock wood it'll be done in the next day or so). I'm in the last-stretch, sleep-as-little-as-possible stage of production, which will inevitably lead to a crippling anticlimax depression once I'm finished. Nature of the beast, but this has been a real blast the last few weeks.

Studio Time

More stills from "Chicken Chokes You", the O&A animation I'm barreling through these days:




The action alternates between Jim Norton (with Opie and Anthony) in studio, and the story he's telling in which he, as a farmer, is thwarted by poultry. It's like a very condensed "Chicken Run". The main visual references for putting together the studio assets and backgrounds come from Opie's Youtube channel where he posts segments and appearances he films himself. This one, in which Jimmy presents his idol (and mine) Ozzy Osbourne with 18lbs worth of birthday gifts is possibly the greatest thing that's ever happened ever, in the history of ever. Enjoy!

Render Farm

I'm aiming to have my O&A animation done by the beginning of March and things are looking good, schedule-wise. Unexpectedly, given that I started it as kind of a goof, looking at the finished shots as they come in I'm happy to say this has some of the best animation I've ever done. I know I'm still in the adolescence of my career but there are shots here and there that really seem to be a tremendous leap forward visually. It's a good sign for the feasibility of my next planned traditional animation short 'Everything Esther', which is a long way from even beginning production but this experience has rendered it considerably less daunting. Here are some stills:

Li'l Jimmy

Everyone who's familiar with Jim Norton knows he's just adorable. He's the only person on Earth who can pick up trannies or engage in watersports and make said activities seem cute and endearing. He's also known for projecting a dysmorphic self-image that makes my own seem buff and masculine by comparison (which is no mean feat). So the Yimmy character design is more a visualisation of this grotesquerie than an actual caricature of the man himself. Anyway, here's the lovable scamp in action.
The last couple of shots are a nod to Chris Reccardi, one of the more visually daring post-John K "Ren & Stimpy" directors.
That's all you get for today. I'm sure you'll find the emotional resources to muddle through.

Chicken Licked (AKA how the hell did my scanner get so dirty?)

Here are some line tests for "Norton & Friends", my O&A animation. As with my three prior shorts I'm going the longer route of pencils-on-paper rather than tablets. I just prefer the process and I don't have to compromise my style this way, plus I don't really have a deadline so fuggit.Here are a batch of atypical walk cycles. Right now it kinda looks like they're skating but it'll hopefully make sense in the final composited shot.Again, out of context this one's a little hard to fathom but it's strangely hypnotic.
Some quick cutaways:

The last one I'm really happy with, especially given that I have no idea how chickens move and I can't dance for shit. I rarely animate on 'ones' (25 frames-per-second as opposed to 12.5) but in this case I reckon the fluidity of movement suits the pacing of the short.
More, less chicken-ey, more Jimmy-ey tests next.

Woah. Happy new year to me...

The latest festival to inform me it's screening "The Naughty List" is a biggie, and in all honesty I'm kind of out-of-my-mind ecstatic to be a part of it. It's the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, one of the more coveted animation festivals out there and definitely in the top five of my fest wishlist. It's kind of like asking out the hottest girl in school because you figure there's nothing to lose, and despite all odds she actually says 'yes' (particularly welcome news as a couple of her younger, less glamorous/popular sisters had recently told me to piss off...okay, I'm bad with analogies).Another major benefit is, unlike most of the other higher-end festivals that have been a little too far away to feasibly attend (or the timing didn't pan out) the comparative locality of Germany hopefully means I'll get to be there in person. One of these years I was always going to head over there to check it out whether anything of mine was screened or not, so you can appreciate why I'm doubly-stoked to have the excuse.
A billion thanks for the inclusion and another round of gratitude for everyone who helped me get the fillum done. This has been a pretty great start to what'll hopefully be a pretty great year.

"No more singing a cappella..."

I'm really pleased to say that recently I had the privilege of being involved in a very nifty mass collaboration for Plymptoons. As I'm a huge Bill Plympton fan you can appreciate that this was something of a dream opportunity and a great excuse to familiarise myself with lots of incredibly talented animators.The project is "Guard Dog Global Jam", a multi-animator shot-by-shot re-imagining of one of Plympton's best shorts, the Oscar-nominated "Guard Dog". Of the chosen applicants, each animator was assigned a shot to reproduce. Mine was a quick cutaway of a mouth gearing up to sneeze.

Concept still

As it was only two seconds I decided to do it on ones (24 frames-per-second as opposed to 12, which is what I usually stick with). The fluidity of movement is really appealing, almost to the point where I'm considering having my next film be an entirely on-ones affair. Composition-wise, the shot combines full animation (the lips) with tweened animation (the teeth), the throat being the background. Here's a quick vid of the various stages, beginning with the original shot as animated by Plympton, then the line test, coloured mouth animation, teeth animation and finally the fully composited shot:

I was also able to jump on board Mike Schneider's incredibly ambitious flicker-frame concept in which a different illustrator tackles each individual frame of his allocated shot.Mine simply resorted to the fabric-texture-with-relief-shadow look I've been pulling out a lot lately, most notably with the Channel 4 project last spring. It's kind of practice for the ever-growing Struwwelpeter music video I'm still working on. Here are some other, more visually adventurous takes on it by some of the other illustrators:

From top-left: Grant Fuhst, Sameul Guin, Steven Archer & Christopher Panzner

The choking mouth of the first shot is coincidentally apt when considering my ongoing graphic novel project "Throat", the next progress update for which I'll save another entry, however for similarities sake I thought I'd throw up the finalised cover design:
The main artwork has been posted before, but the added bandage/subtitle came from smearing an Ace bandage with hot chocolate mix, blending/warping/blurring the typography to match it and then tweaking the colour to make it look like blood (trust me, it's a far more distressing visual when it's smeared brown). Hopefully it represents the story well, sort of a mix of goofy and grim.

Back to "Guard Dog", I'll leave you with an animatic (consisting of concepts and the odd finished shot) that was recently uploaded to give a preview of the wide range of styles used:

Chavettes

Another one of the SuperMe animations I produced for Channel 4/Somethin Else is now online, this one was visually a lot simpler and came together under a pretty tight deadline. It deals with the fairly relatable topic of teenage girls talking nonsense.

I really enjoyed doing the character designs on this one, it's a huge departure from my usual style and it was a lot of fun brainstorming.

Fine tuning during the concept art stage.

Here are some of the original sketches the two girls were picked from: