New look...

...Sort of. Actually the layout's exactly the same, I've just switched up the colour scheme and brought in a new design motif. The ol' pre-"Throat" concept sketch of me on the pishadoo was starting to seem a little out of place now the book's out and the character's technically not supposed to be me.

Adios, old friend...

One of the eighty billion current projects I have on the boil right now is another website redesign that'll hopefully make the accrued creative projects I've put out over the years a little more navigatable and less scattershot. It occurred to me that about half of them have vectorised logos for the purposes of EPKs and similar such promotion, so I've been designing some more for the remaining half. This way each film, album, book or whatever will have its own associated image. A bit like OS application icons or, as a friend pointed out the other night, video game achievements. It's just one of those staples of web design that I never really embraced so figured it'd be worth a shot. No idea when said website will actually manifest itself though, but I expect it'll be far less of an undertaking than my last site overhaul which got a bit out of hand; though fun to do, the pages were so densely packed they each took like a minute to load.
Will keep you posted. It's what I do.

Back in the real world - Bosnia & Herzegovina, to narrow it down a little bit - I'm very chuffed to say that "Ground Running" has been included in the line-up for this year's edition of the Banja Luka International Animated Film Festival. The 2009 edition of the festival threw in my first film "House Guest", and much like I was back then I'm amongst some pretty superb company this year. Other films being screened include "Oh Willy..." (Emma de Swaef & Marc James Roels), "Kuhina" (Joni Männistö), "Luminaris" (Juan Pablo Zaramella) and "Bendito Machine IV" (Jossie Malis), all of which I'm a big fan of. My screening is Competitive Program 1 which will be at 10pm tomorrow, repeated on the 24th at 2pm, both at the Dječije pozorište Children's Theatre. Apologies for the short notice for those of you who are too far away and may have been interested, I didn't get the memo and only just now found out about it by chance. Just in case you're a Bosnian or Herzegovinian (or both, I'm not sure how it works) and fancy giving it a look there's more info here.

Launch!

Come one, come all...

While the real me is behind an exhibitor table awkwardly explaining to Steampunk enthusiasts why an introspective, cod-philosophical graphic novel about the social and internal ramifications of throat cancer would be right up their alley, the automated-blog me is here to let you know that the website for "Throat" is now live at throatbook.com! Such is the beauty of prescheduled posting...

In truth this is something of a pre-website, what with all the expo prep and podcasting I've had on the go, but it sets things up well for the future. Essentially it's a placeholder EPK with all the essential info, buying links and previewable material gathered together. G'wan'n'give'er a peruse...

"Throat" - A Graphic Novel by Ben Mitchell 

"Something terrible is already happening..."

Well, I've been floating on roughly four hours of sleep a night for the last week, but it's finally over. "Throat", my very first original, non-adapted graphic novel, is finished. Only one day passed the deadline, too! Such is the beauty of print-on-demand distribution, the book can be bought online immediately and in two formats. First there's the standard edition with black and white interior artwork for a measly tenner, then there's the deluxe, full-colour edition for a less-measly twenty-five squids. I know, I know, it's pretty steep but it has to be to cover the production costs (at 230 pages it's a fairly chunky comic).
These versions are currently being distributed by Lulu, my P.O.D. go-to, but I'll be pushing hard to get wider distribution and an Amazon listing, which I've had some luck with in the past. While I wait, the plan is to be as proactive as possible so far as pushing it at expos and such. As per, this blog will be the place for the info along with throatbook.com which has been updated to include purchase links, although it's still pretty much a teaser page until the 12th.

I'm a little too emotionally exhausted (aaw, ain't I pretty?) to get into the details of the whole process just yet, but I do want to take the time to thank those of the various people who I reached out to for feedback that got back to me. In the last couple months I managed to fine-tune the story and character development, which has made a huge difference in terms of clarity and keeping the whole thing engaging throughout. So sincere thanks go out to Sam Morrisson, Alison Eire, Karin Saari, Jane Davies, Luca Kiss and Michelle Cioccoloni, as well as special shout-outs to my old schoolmate Toby Shipway for his medical insight, Jo Hepworth for her general awesomeness and support and Nusha Amini for keeping me motivated since I started the earliest development work on the project nearly two years ago. Even for a side-project, that seems like a long-ass time to work on a book, and even though things didn't kick off properly before last August, it felt like a lot longer.
Oh well. Break's over. What next?

"Something terrible is about to happen..."

I know, it's been deathly quiet around here this month. The last few weeks have been devoted to finishing off "Throat" and getting the final product as polished as possible, so there hasn't been much of my bloggery. However, within the week it will be out in the world, after which time you won't be able to shut me up about it. Meanwhile I've gone and secured a domain name for it, so add throatbook.com to your bookmarks, folks! It's just a teaser page for the time being, but a proper site with lots of juicy bits should be up for the 12th.

Videous

I'm on a bit of a video upload binge at the moment. In the last couple days I've added a whole heap of crap to my Vimeo account, mainly so that my new site can link to past video and animation work. I'll probably upload a lot of the same content to different hosting sites for the sake of increased exposure, but as my YouTube account has been recently hijacked by my own newly-developed habit of uploading "Opie & Anthony" show highlights (RAMONE! This dullard needs a life!!) I figured I'd start afresh to begin with.
I've tweaked and cleaned-up some old music videos, re-exporting them at 16:9 and ditching the odd shots that don't work to make them a little nicer to look at. Have a li'l look-see:

'Laughing At A Wall' by Struwwelpeter from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.

'Let Slip (Remix)' by Struwwelpeter from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.

'On A Limb' by Struwwelpeter from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.

'Cashback' by Struwwelpeter from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.

I also put up the old documentary "Countdown To The Agnosticaust" which I made for the "Agnosticaust" bonus DVD. It's a pretty detailed look at how the 2006 album came together but I can barely look at it as I'm about 150lbs heavier than I am now. It's like watching Kevin Smith speak in my voice without the redemptive elements of his wit or charm.

'Countdown To The Agnosticaust' from Ben Mitchell on Vimeo.

The next step will be a little more relevant to what I'm up to these days. I'm planning on isolating several short'n'sexy clips from "House Guest" for website/promotional purposes. Which leads me to another excuse to gripe as I've begun work on a "House Guest" mini-site to go alongside my newly-revamped personal site. Yet again, I'm using Flash CS4 - my white whale; I love it, but I must kill it. Most people who are into self-harm just buy a cutting tool of some kind. I choose to instead immerse myself in Actionscript and let it chew through my brain like an army of hungry earwigs.
Actually this site's a lot more fun to do as I've established most of the "don't"s as far as the software is concerned, and there won't be any more scraps of paper to slow things down. Plus most of the content is more or less lifted from the film's EPK. It should be done soon, here are some in-progress pictures:

Alright then, what next?

The endless ocean of mediocrity that is the internet has been added to by yet another self-described 'creative': the cuddly, strokable, sweet-smelling rapscallion that is me. Massive pulsating yayness!
Intents and purposes, my new site is as done as it can be for now, save for some teensy-weensy kinks that need to be ironed out. These mainly concern links to external sites and video content which will be uploaded and amended shortly. In general though, the functionality of the site seems to be on track. For now I've opted to go without sound but I may throw some little bits in here and there at a later date.
While this blog is still probably going to remain the most reliable and candid news source, I feel the two sites work well alongside one another. Also, there's a bunch of extra info on stuff I did pre-'House Guest' that I rarely - if ever - bring up here.
Go visit me already!

Asset Mismanagement

My continuing battle with Flash CS4 is getting to be significantly less stressful through the trial and error of putting this new website of mine together. Fortunately, I'm the kind of person who rarely fucks the same thing up twice (except in the case of relationships, friendships, eating habits, drunk dialing, sexual practices, professional conduct, bill-paying, general spillage and the ever-terrifying sitting-on-one's-own-balls).The main issue, now that I've sorted out most of the coding problems, is the visual motif I'm going with, having all the information - such as popups, buttons, headers etc - printed out on torn scraps of paper that either crinkle, unfurl or boil depending on how the mouse interacts with them. The torn paper look is something that I've always been fond of aesthetically and it's appeared in several previous projects, such as my short film 'Narcissus', the 'Agnosticaust' album artwork and the 'House Guest' graphic novel to name a few.To make it authentic I'm designing the assets, printing them out and scanning them back in, several times in some instances depending on what kind of animation is required. The process is tedium incarnate, but it does look pretty good once it's done. The popups themselves consist of six books, fourteen music projects, seven short films and seven music videos, along with bio information and several other elements that have no function other than being ornamental.The site has five sections, the main page which incorporates some personal info, links and news updates; Music; Film/Animation; Design/Illustration; and Books/Comics. Each of these has a different backdrop, a collage of visuals tailored to each section (eg. the 'Books' section features imagery from various comics and graphic novels, 'Music' features album artwork and so on). The sub-sections have the same opening animation to help stick with the theme, a reverse paper-scrunch that quickly smooths out.I'm liking the way it's coming together although I'm a little concerned that, with all the visual elements, the loading times for each page may frustrate visitors. Gonna file that one under 'bridge to cross once gotten to'.

Code Red

When I previously brought up redesigning my website, I referred to it as 'starting small' when compared to all the other shit I need to sort out with my life. As it turns out, losing 50lbs, developing a personality not predicated on passive-aggression and beating (whoopsie daisy...not yet, my boy, not yet...) are a fucking cakewalk in comparison, as none of these in any way involve Actionscript.Ah, Actionscript. Or, as I like to call it, 'c**tcode'. I pray that whoever developed it outlives their only child. Or at the very least they lose both testes (or ovaries - I don't discriminate) to a particularly nasty battle with a rabid pine weasel. Just when I get to grips with it I find that there are several variations on it that don't function at all while running alongside one another, resulting in an entirely new language I've developed for use when exasperated. It's predominantly comprised of grunts, rhythmic projectile spitting, fiendishly-modified racial epithets and self-mutilation.I suppose it makes the taste of victory that little bit sweeter when I finally get the f***ing sh***ing tw***ing c***ing thing to do what I f***ing sh***ing tw***ing c***ing want it to. Betraying my natural instinct to immediately give up on anything that's hard to begin with, I'm progressing it ever-so-incrementally and, in most respects, it's coming along quite well. Look at some purty screen grabs while I go back to it and choke back tears of vexation.

Webshite

As seasons turn and hairlines recede, the need for change has become ever more apparent. While my life, health and fitness level could all do with a complete overhaul, I'll start small by redesigning my website.

Layout for my old site's menu page, from back in 2002. I think I kept this around until 2005.

It's actually been a while since I had a personal site. My previous one was a sprawling mess of rollover images with a needless wealth of self-important information on pretty much every personal project I'd ever attempted to make marketable. When the hosting site disappeared I never bothered to relocate the site and have since relied on this blog and MySpace (trust me, it was relevant in 2006) as my main web presences. With my attentions more on "House Guest" and its reception, the blog is updated a fair amount while the other sites have died a cruel death at the hands of public disinterest. Now that "House Guest" is close to running its course on the festival circuit and I'm nearing the end of production for several projects (including the agonisingly slow-to-gestate- fourth Struwwelpeter album) I've outlined a plan to best represent myself as a professional freelancer, while showcasing the development of ongoing work:

•A main site to serve as a hub that brings everything I do together. Chiefly this would link to all music, film and book stuff I've produced while also giving an overview of my ability and freelance experience.
•A redesigned Struwwelpeter site to help promote CDs and "The Book of Women" when it is released.
•Archival mini-sites for certain projects ("Mitchells In England", "House Guest", selected CD releases etc.) that I feel are ready to have a line drawn under them.

Putting these all together, the scrawled site map is huge and a little intimidating, especially as I've resolved to use it as an excuse to get up to speed with CS4.
This is a proposed layout for the main site's menu page.It was designed last August to go with the look of my current DVD showreel. The plan then was to get the site redesign done by the end of the year, but something shiny caught my eye and suddenly six months had gone by. I think I'm in a more suitable frame of mind - specifically a horribly ill one that sees me mostly housebound - to kick things into gear now.