Xmas Podding

Got a double-whammy of seasonally-seasoned Skwigly Animation Podcasts to help stave off the inevitable anxiety that comes from being around your kinfolk this time o' year.
In episode 95 we hear from Sergio Pablos, whose film Klaus has been the talk of the industry since it premiered on Netflix a few weeks ago. Rightly so, as it really does push the envelope as far as what we can do with 2D animation these days.

In episode 96 we welcome back Robin Shaw of Lupus Films. I first chatted with Robin way back in 2012 for his work on The Snowman and The Snowdog and the studio have been cranking out hits ever since, including We're Going On A Bear Hunt and Ethel and Ernest.
Also discussed in these episodes: MAF highlights, dubious dubbing, Playstation plagiarism, the inevitable shitness of Disney's 'live-action' remakes, animation-themed (sort of) honeymoons, as well as a look at the animated shorts in the running for 2020 Oscar and BAFTA nominations, including work by previous Skwigly interviewees/pals Regina Pessoa, Theodore Ushev, Lauren Orme, Floor Adams, Ross Hogg, Bruno Collet and Naaman Azhari.
Give 'em a listen below or download for laters here (episode 95) and here (episode 96).
Remember how nearly I decade ago I made a film about Xmas? And how I didn't shut up about it for ages? Weren't those great times? Well, I'm bringin' 'em back with a cheeky look at how it came together. I know, I know, I shouldn't have, but sometimes the holiday spirit just oozes out of me uncontrollably. Enjoy!

Carnage

Following up on my first post of the month I can confirm that Sunscapades will indeed be getting itself another German screening at the wonderful International Short Film Festival Detmold before May is through. It'll sneak in on the 31st as part of their International Mixed Short Films block which kicks off 10pm at the Culture & Art gallery.

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A post shared by Ben Mitchell (@benlmitchell) on May 23, 2019 at 2:23am PDT

I also hinted at hitting a bit of a milestone in my last post and, having double-checked all my documentation, can confirm that with the film's subsequent inclusion in the Sydney Film Festival's Animation After Dark programme on June 6th I will have officially cleared 200 international festival inclusions!
Granted this is spread over ten years and five films, but I’ll allow myself a wee nugget of pride having operated without representation, distributors or sales agents all this time.
So much love and gratitude to all the festivals and touring programmes, whether still kicking around or not, who took a punt on my weird shit over the years.

Snowed In

Evenin' all!
So from what I gather the entire country has ground to a halt due to the onslaught of what may turn out to be literally centimeters of snow. Crikey, let's just do our best to keep it together, gang.
As a Canadian who has known the joy of icicles on my eyeballs I find it quite adorbs (but, y'know, stay safe on the roads and all). Hopefully you're all bundled up somewhere warm with someone you enjoy being warmly bundled up with. While you're a-bundlin' you can take a look at the new 1080p HD version of my 2010 film The Naughty List.

This was on my to-do list for a little while (the most highly-defined it's been in the past is 720p) so what with today being a snow-day I figured I may as well knock it on the head. With nearly eight years' distance between then and now all I can see is the high-definition of some extremely questionable line-work. That being said, there are some moments in it I'm still proud of.
Also worth mentioning that today is World Book Day, so why not bow to the pressure of the arbitrary assignment of a time of year to the concept of literature by picking up one of those delightful tomes you can see to the right of the page. You have to switch to web mode if you're reading this on your phone to know what I'm talking about.
I know, it's a lot of work. Fine, forget I brought it up.
You people.

Up The River

Our seafarin' scamp Klementhro still has a few festivals left on his journey it seems. Rather fittingly this September the film will be included in the KROK International Animated Films Festival that takes place on a Russian river cruiser. From September 13th through to the 21st the festival will be making its way through Moscow, Uglich, Goritsy, Petrozavodsk, Mandrogi, Valaam Island and Saint Petersburg. I already have a fondness for this festival as back in 2011 they included The Naughty List and it's always a nice feeling to have new work presented at a familiar event. If you happen to be in that nook of the world it looks like a rather fun way to spend a week so check out their Facebook page for more info as it comes.

Wait, what year is it again?

While this month is a quiet one for Klementhro, I'm very happy to say that my preceding 2010 film The Naughty List will be getting a festival screening this holiday season (appropriately enough). The film is pretty long-in-the-tooth, so big screen outings are a rare affair - the last one was in 2013 - but it's proved a fit for Berlin's Weihnachts Filmfestival, a Christmas festival "for those who want to escape the Christmas rush or do not have their loved ones around - and of course, passionate cinephiles". I'm assuming if you do have your loved ones around you won't be turned away at the door.
I'm reliably informed my film will be part of the 6:30pm screening Snowflake Shorts on Christmas Eve at the Kino Moviemento. Get your holiday spirit on, meine Freunde!

What happened, Billy?

Hey-hey-hey!
So more good news for June, to follow on from Monday's post I just got the memo that Klementhro is also playing at Porto 7 - Oporto International Short Film Festival tomorrow, June 9th. It's in the festival's Competition 4 screening that kicks off at 11:30pm. Full venue and programme info can be found at the festival website.
As well as being the film's Portuguese debut this inclusion also marks the third film of mine to be shown at this festival, with Ground Running and The Naughty List both getting an airing back in 2012. So obrigado to the Porto 7 team, I'm stoked to be involved again!
Looking forward, here's another GIF character preview for my next film Sunscapades. Meet Billy, the non-IP-infringing friendly ghost!

You had me at "I'd like to peel your skin off"

Today's reason to be rock-back-and-forth-giggling-and-crying happy comes in the form of Faith No More's latest album Sol Invictus being available to stream a week ahead of its physical release. I've been fighting the urge to listen to badly-compressed leaked versions of the album and as such it feels like I'm literally the only FNM fan in the world who hadn't heard it until today. But by Christ it was worth the wait. Every molecule of doubt that it wouldn't be up to their previous standard was jettisoned the moment I heard the first chorus of the opening title track. It'll need a few hundred listens for me to get a proper sense of it as right now listening to it is more of an emotional experience (I have emotions! Who knew?) than anything else, but in the meantime why not join me and treat yourselves?
It feels a bit limp and embarrassing to bring up my own music on the heels of such excellence, but in anticipation of the digital release of my latest Struwwelpeter album The Birdcage I've put up another new song, one that's fairly representative of the strangely upbeat, folksy/poppy feel of the LP as a whole. I imagine if I played this to myself as a teenager he'd screw his fat face up in confusion.

Also want to say thanks again to James of CineMe for having me on his show Short Cuts, talking animation, UWE, Bristol, Skwigly and my now-very-old short The Naughty List. The episode aired at the exact time last week's exit polls were causing the nation to collectively scream into a pillow so if you missed the broadcast you can watch it online here.

Addendum

Quickie update to amend the info in the last post, the episode of Short Cuts I'll be appearing on will now air this Thursday at 10pm, not tomorrow. All the channel info remains the same to the best of my knowledge. A few frames of The Naughty List also seems to have made it into the opening credits. Take a gander:

Upcomings & Outgoings

I've made the somewhat douchey decision to self-set the release date of The Birdcage, my first LP in a good while, as the week of May 18th. I say 'douchey' because this is also the week both Faith No More's new album Sol Invictus and Clive Barker's Hellraiser swansong The Scarlet Gospels - two projects I've been hotly anticipating to say the least - both come out. There's no real connection, it just generally helps to have a deadline to work to when I'm in the last stretch of anything, plus I reckon my album's pretty much cooked at this point. I have to say I like how it's turned out - it's the quiet, folksy death rattle of a would-be-rocker-turned-production-music-scribe giving in to a secret, guilty urge to be melodic and quaint rather than edgy or avant garde. I expect I'll release it digitally on Bandcamp to begin with and then see what new options there now are for a physical release in the 4.5 years since my last LP.

This will pave the way for another upcoming release, the final installment of my lingering graphic novel series Throat. I'm still finalising the bonus content but the proposed release date is August 3rd. As with Book 1 and Book 2 it should be available to buy in US retailers and on Amazon for the UK and elsewhere.

On the Skwigly pile this week, the Lightbox series I've been producing has resumed with a video interview from mine and Laura-Beth's encounter with the talented and dapper Luc Chamberland, whose OIAF-winning NFB documentary Seth's Dominion (an exploration of the life and work of Canadian comic artist Seth) is playing at Toronto's Hot Docs at the moment.

Also on the site I chat once again to auld acquaintances Seb and Joe from Rumpus, whose game The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle is now available on PC via Steam as well as it's original App Store release for iOS. This interview is the first in a series of Skwigly profiles on South West-based studios/artists in association with the South West Animation Network, an organisation put together by Becalelis Brodskis and Susannah Shaw. Keep an eye out for more Skwigly/SWANraderie and if you're a South Westerner yourself check them out at swanimationnetwork.co.uk

Bringing it back to my own ephemeral output, as is my egomaniacal wont, I'll be appearing on the TV show Short Cuts hosted by James Ewen of CineMe, who's been a much-appreciated supporter of my work in the past. I'm not sure what'll get included in the final edit but I expect the focus will be on my old seasonal short The Naughty List. It'll be broadcast on Made In Bristol (Freeview 8/Sky 117/Virgin Media 159) May 5th at 8:30pm, so tune in if your receivers are suitably receptive.

Adventageous

As with last year we at Skwigly have been implementing our online advent calendar where we showcase a particularly impressive animator/illustrator each day in the lead up to the 25th. They're all smashing so head on over to the front page of the site and check them out. Here are a smattering of what's gone up so far to whet your whettable bits:

Will Anderson

Jurate Gecaite

Bianca Ansems

Can't Be Bothered Man

Brothers McLeod

Leah-Ellen Heming

We've also joined forces with Corrie Francis Parks who's brought her own Advent Animation Showcase to Skwigly this year, shining a spotlight on a different seasonal short each day (and having the good manners to pimp my own holiday short so I don't have to a fourth year in a row...oh wait, I guess I just did).

Interestingly enough, this year has seen a surge in similar online advent ventures, one of which being Jonti Picking (aka Weebl)'s calendar which I've done a couple of mini-animations for:

These were knocked out in roughly a day each, so as with the HuHa shorts the animation was super-simple and a lot of fun to design. Although the kid in the second one is doubtless plagued by the ennui of being designed by a grown man who's watched way too much Powerpuff Girls and South Park:

Squeezing All The Goodness In

It's been many moons since I last updated my showreel, being distracted by the very employment it led to. Deep, eh?
I may have also been distracted by Breaking Bad a little bit. And, far more alarmingly, Catfish. But I'm all out of episodes for both, so unless I overcome my violent aversion to the voice of the narrator and fall into a destructive spiral of Come Dine With Me reruns, my time has freed up a bit.
The last few years I've updated the same reel by swapping old, ropey footage for new, swanky footage, keeping the main structure intact. Having been assured by many previous and prospective employers alike that it was overlong by at least a minute, this time around I redid the entire reel from scratch to get a concentrated 90 seconds of my absolute favourite shots:

Consequently I had to be pretty ruthless, and a lot of the earlier films of mine - House Guest, Ground Running, The Naughty List and my ode to Opie & Anthony Chicken Chokes You - have been whittled down to a few seconds of footage each - ol' zombie duck barely gets a look-in nowadays. After a hideous commission that started the year off (represented above only with a fleeting, modified shot of a cat running - nothing else from that doomed project need ever see the light of day) I've had a pretty good year of short commercial projects as well as the ongoing HuHa webisodes which, coupled with my love affair with Toon Boom, have been a great shot in the arm and give the reel a lot more stylistic range. Other projects thrown in the mix include work for Channel 4, Slurpy Studios, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and New Impulse Media. I'm still holding back on the Bullies footage as, even though it's all animated and awaiting a distribution plan of action, for the time being I want to keep it under wraps until the final version's been seen in full at least a couple of times. Some HuHa clips represent the same animation style so it'd be somewhat superfluous anyway.
I also wrote the music specifically for the reel, I wanted something quite punchy with a simple enough 4/4 to make effectively editing the clips a bit easier. At the moment the piece is merely titled "Hire Me Already" and features some nods to a certain band I may have professed to admiring once or twice.
For no other reason than I have a YouTube channel, it's also up on my YouTube channel. So if, for whatever reason, your machine or device or doodad doesn't like Vimeo you can watch it there instead:

Toonstruck

It's another frightfully busy period o'time for me at the mo so here are a couple of quick updates. Firstly episode 3 of the Channel Flip/HuHa! series "Wobble Box" went up recently if you'd like to show it some love. I may put up some production materials for the bits I did later on down the line but in the meantime see if you can guess which ones they are.

In the physical world, there's another upcoming CineMe event in Bristol this coming Monday (the 22nd). Amongst the fine films being showcased are my patchy little shorts "Ground Running" and "The Naughty List". The screening will be at The Birdcage, one of my preferred new-ish local venues, so that's a nice plus. Come along, why doncha!

Freakin' windy out today, ain't it?

As I mentioned last month, the Frenchtastic folks over at the Roanne Animation Festival have informed me that my film "The Naughty List" will be part of their pre-festival 'Best Of' screenings, having been part of last year's line-up. I just had a look on their website and it seems like said screenings will take place this week at the Jacques Perrin à Tarare cinema on the 13th and the Le Méliès à Saint-Etienne cinema on the 14th, both at 9pm. Très bon, innit?
This year's official selection includes many personal favourites such as Michaela Pavlátová, PES, Francesca Adams, Tim Reckart, Bill Plympton and Rumpus, so if you're one of the 7% of people reading this from France I'd say you'd be a goshdarned fool to not check it out. Pardon my harsh language, there.

I just finished reading/reviewing a superb book on the legendarily troubled production of "Ren & Stimpy", inarguably one of my earliest and strongest influences. Unlike many, I retained a sincere affection for the post-Spumco era of the show and was hoping this book would give the Games era and its crew of talents like Bob Camp, Bill Wray, Chris Reccardi and Lynne Naylor (amongst many others) a fair shake. It does, in spades and with a lot of insightful input from all sides. You can read my full review of "Sick Little Monkeys" by Thad Komorowski over at Skwigly.
There's a new episode of "Wobble Box" over on HuHa!, for which I put together the Dr. Jekyll skit animation (about 2'15" in). The turnaround and budget don't allow for much full animation though I had some fun with the transformation sequence:

As with "Assassin Babies", this is the perfect type of fun, daft project I relish working on, especially as it came on the heels of a particularly wretched and staggeringly unprofessional debacle of a commission which will never be spoken of on here. But hey, getting the odd duff gig is part and parcel of being a freelancer. At the end of the day it makes you appreciate the jobs that go well all the more.

Success Stories

Quick catchup post as I find that if I don't use the small slivers of time that present themselves to get stuff up on here I tend to just not bother - and none of you deserve that level of deprivation.
Firstly a massive congrats to Bill Plympton and Signe Baumane who we chatted to in the last podcast, both of whom were successful in their fundraising campaigns and knock wood will have their features out in the coming months. I'm certain they both would've made it without Skwigly's coverage as they're both hugely respected and well-known, but from the feedback we've gotten recently I get the impression we made a little bit of a difference which is still a nice feeling.

Tim Reckart, director of "Head Over Heels"

On the subject of Skwigly, back in December I was able to chat to a very talented NFTS graduate Tim Reckart, whose film "Head Over Heels" is a brilliant and deservedly lauded piece of stop-motion ingenuity. Since our conversation it's received an Annie award and Oscar nomination which is obviously huge. I'm not sure if we'll be able to incorporate the interview in a future podcast (though that would be ideal) as the Skype line was a little dodgy for some reason, but the written piece went up this week. I'd really recommend it as a read for his insight into the conception and process of the film. Also you can watch the whole film for a short period of time, so check that out while you can.

A Conversation With Tim Reckart

Lastly, I'm very happy to say that my short film "The Naughty List" will be getting another screening in France next month at Ciné-Court Animé in Roanne. It was part of their competition screenings during last year's edition and will be included this year in their 'Best Of' section which is mighty sweet of them. Not sure of the time/date specifics yet but as ever I'll post them when I get them.
Oh look, the sun just came out in reflection of my good mood. Pardon me while I go out and frolic!

Before I Submerge Fully...

Here's a brief overview of how the next few weeks of my adorable li'l life are looking set to pan out:
WORK WORK WORK WORK bit of Christmas holiday WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK and so forth. Best case scenario is that the world may end on Friday and grant me some respite.

Needless to say things may be quiet on the blog front, so here's one last pre-season entry before I'm submerged in deadlines and yuletide alcoholism. We have our last Skwigly Podcast of 2012 and, eschewing the variety of religious holidays that are active around this time of year, we've opted for the atheist favourite and made it a Christmas Special. Or Xmas Special, as I think I'm supposed to spell it.
Makes perfect listening for the long voyages home, hours of painstaking food preparation or to drown out unbearable acrimonious squabbling. Steve interviews Tim Searle from Baby Cow Animation who have two seasonal specials lined up, as well as Michael Rose of Magic Light Pictures whose not-especially-Christmassey-but-looks-pretty-good kids' short "Room on The Broom" will be shown on the 25th. There's also the second part of my interviews with the folks from Lupus Films following on from last episode, this time chatting with assistant director Robin Shaw and co-writer/director Hilary Audus about the hugely anticipated "The Snowman and The Snowdog", a follow-up to "The Snowman" which, along with Channel 4 itself, will see its thirtieth anniversary this year. All this and some needless trivia, cartooney Christmas nostalgia and I even wrote a little radio play. That's right, ya bestids. With sound effects and everything.
Stream it below, download it and/or subscribe on iTunes!
Elsewhere, the wonderful people over at Toon Boom (the Montreal-based animation software company) has picked my ol' Christmas toon "The Naughty List" for their showcase today. What lovely Quebecians they are! Granted, at the time the version of Toon Boom I used was incredibly basic and mainly just helped out with the clean-up, but I've since become rather enamoured of Toon Boom Animate. In fact, I'll probably be using it exclusively for the job I'm currently working on, so I may have become a full convert a few months from now. Now that I finally have a post-Intel Mac that can run it. Yep, I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the year 2006.

Lastly, today is most likely the last shopping day to get "Throat" in time for Christmas, so if you're still struggling to find the right gift for the indie graphic novel snob in your life - or if you just want to treat yourself - head on over to Amazon (US and now, for the convenience of my Brit compadres, UK) and grab one!

Naughty Listings

Quickie update regarding some upcoming screenings for my long-in-the-tooth Christmas short “The Naughty List”.

For those Spaniards amongst you who’ve yet to catch one of its TV airings on Canal+ Xtra, it’ll be on this Tuesday (27th) at 2:40pm. I suspect this will be one of its last TV showings – if not, the last – on that particular network, so do give it a pre-siesta watch if you’re so inclined. All told the channel’s been very good to me and my li’l film over the past year, screening it pretty regularly despite it being so season-specific, so gracias to the Canal+ folks for the exposure (and the extra chunk of change didn’t hurt none either).

Mere days before the film sees its third Christmas since completion - mother of God, time goes by fast – it will be screened on December 22nd at the West Side Cinema in support of “Rare Exports”, a Finnish Christmas film that passed me by but I’m tempted to check out as it seems to be quite highly regarded. Unfortunately I can’t make it to that one as it’s in Orkney which is pretty much as far away from me as possible without leaving the UK altogether.

Earlier in the month and closer to home, the film will be screened on December 6th at Bath Road Studios here in Bristol for CineMe Showcase 2012, a networking evening that will also include some of their previously screened films (“Naughty List” and a few others of mine were included at one of their events back in April). I’m aiming to be there to scope out the premises and hopefully not bomb. So if any of you readers decide that’s the night you want to start stalking me, I’m pretty much handing you my exact whereabouts on a platter. Spectacularly nearsighted of me, I’m sure I’ll come to realise.

Boo etc.

Happy day-of-heightened-spooky-confection-sales, everybody!
We’ve been hard at work over at Skwigly central (a place that doesn’t actually exist outside of this sentence) to spread some cartooney godlessness about the interwebs. We now have episode six of the Skwigly Podcast up and, fittingly, it’s rather Halloween-centric. Courtesy of Steve there are some fantastic interview gets, such as “ParaNorman” directors Sam Fell and Chris Butler as well as Peter Saunders, one half (guess which one) of MacKinnon & Saunders, the amazing puppet-making team behind “Corpse Bride” and, more recently, “Frankenweenie”. Steve also managed to chat with “Hotel Transylvania” director Genndy Tartakovsky, an animation TV legend whose legacy includes “Dexter’s Lab”, “Powerpuff Girls” and “Samurai Jack”, three shows that, though I didn’t discover them until I was in my later teens, were the shiznit. I think all told this is one of the best episodes we’ve done and I’m pretty excited with the direction things are going. Listen below and don’t forget the subscribe on iTunes!
Skwigly Podcast 06 (Halloween 2012) - Genndy Tartakovsky, Peter Saunders, Chris Butler & Sam Fell by Skwigly Animation Podcast

If you’re still in the Halloween mood but are also itching for some Christmas spirit, you might want to head on over to the Arnos Vale Cemetary in Bristol - 8pm November 2nd - where “The Naughty List” will be showing. It's part of a program put together by CineFeatures, a new initiative for screening indie films that will feature it as a cartoon before the main film “Electric Man”. Just like in the old days!

For the benefit of those of you who paint Spain a light shade of green on this blog’s stat map, “Naughty List” is back on TV again in the graveyard (keeping with the theme I suppose) slot of 3am this coming Monday (12th) on Canal+ Xtra. Better than a kick in the baubles.

It's Always Sunny in Belo Horizonte

Given that we’ve been mired in a state of perpetual winter for the last twelve months, it’s perhaps fitting that I can still find cause to pimp my seasonal short “The Naughty List” from time to time. I know it was finished over two years ago but little reminders that it ended up doing pretty well and still gets out there occasionally is a helpful assurance that yes, these projects do get done eventually as the ever-marinating “Bullies” still has a long way to go before the end’s even in sight.

So this month my pantsless Santa flick rears its head three times at the 10th MUMIA Festival in Belo Horizonte, Brazil as part of their ‘Internacional 4’ screening. Dates/times/venues are:

Tuesday 9th October, 6:30pm
Cine Humberto Mauro 

Tuesday 16th October, 7pm
Instituto Undió

Thursday 25th October, 7pm
Cineclube Joaquim Pedro de Andrade

All times BRT, which I imagine doesn’t need clarifying. So if the very small section of Brazilian readers (that region of my statistics map is a fairly light shade of green, I’ll admit) fancy popping over there I’m sure you’ll have a grand time. As ever my film’s amongst some pretty good company, including the likes of Grant Orchard, Juan Pablo Zaramella and Dmitry Geller.

Complete change of subject: "Red Dwarf X"…didn’t suck.
In fact, after an admittedly shaky first five minutes I’ll be damned if I didn’t even laugh out loud a fair few times. And I pretty much never laugh out loud at TV; I’m a cold, soulless fellow after all.
So fair play, chaps. Here’s to an unexpectedly strong comeback. Yes, I know this isn’t the type of thing I usually put up here, and it’s probably the first time I’ve even mentioned being aware of the show at all (li’l prepubescent me was quite enamoured of it) so that aside might be a bit confusing.
Meh, such is the spice of life. You guys should just be grateful I don’t post naked pictures of myself up here every day.

Old Hat

I figured the expiry date on my first two films has been up for awhile and it’s a bit daft that I don’t have official full versions of them online. Especially as my third has been up for nearly a year. Granted, that was the only one that had any real demand I suppose, but I don’t want it to get lonely, resent me and not take care of me in my old age. That’s just too meta and weird.

Sooo anyway, you can now watch my first film “House Guest” (2008) in full HD (although the first-season-of-“Beavis-and-Butt-Head”-quality-linework is treated far kinder by these little SD blog windows):

House Guest (HD) from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.
 

Strange to think that this blog started as part of the UWE MA the film was made for. Four years on I’m still inexplicably not heralded as the Winsor McCay of the 21^st century. Wuddup wi’dat, yo’s?

My second film was “Ground Running” (2009), most of the animation for which was done very shortly after “House Guest”, then it pottered around a couple fests in pencil-test format for a year or so before I added some bits and coloured it in the following year. I never really pushed this film because by the time it was finally done it didn’t really line-up with my artistic direction (if that’s what you can call it). Both these films are pretty rough for me to watch but there’s the odd moment here and there I’m quite proud of.

"Ground Running" from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.  

And what the hell, just as a reminder here’s film #3, “The Naughty List” (2010):

The Naughty List (HD) from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.  

Quick TV plug - if for some reason Vimeo is acting up in Spain and you simply can’t last a week without seeing it, the next broadcast by those lovely people at Canal+ Xtra HD will be this coming Sunday 7^th at 6am. So either get up extra early or stay up extra late.

Finally, while 2011 was pretty much work/“Throat”-centric, I did manage to whip up this mini-short out of my love for O&A. This one’s also been up for a while but at this point I may as well just make this entry a retrospective.

'Opie & Anthony' Animation - 'Chicken Chokes You' from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.
 

All being well, 2012 will indeed be the year I finally finish production on “Bullies”. Then the whole torturous quest for validation may begin once more.
Ah, it's all good. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it so much.

JOY.

First, let’s get the self-appreciation horseshit out of the way: “The Naughty List” will be on TV again next week (12:15pm Wednesday, August 8^th) on Canal+ Xtra. I suspect the high degree of Catholicism in Spain may account for their showing of my Christmassy whimsy all the year round. I’m all for it.