Community Spirit

"Down in front!"

I'm very pleased to report that the Skwigly/Encounters Showcase evening was, by all accounts, a resounding success. As it turned out demand exceeded supply as far as available seating went so a lot of folks had to prop themselves up at the bar, but to everyone's credit they stuck around and the films themselves got a brilliant response, which is the main thing. The venue was great, with screening facilities that really did the films justice and pint glasses of popcorn that seemingly appeared out of nowhere for the audience's nourishment.

Pic via @EncountersSFF on Twitter

As well as the amazing friends of mine who came by, some of the filmmakers themselves were also in attendance and it was great to chinwag with some new folks from the Bristol animation scene. Due to work and distance constraints myself and a couple of writers were the sole Skwigly-ites there, but the Looking Glass staff and Encounters Fringe Events organiser Steve Presence were very helpful. After the screenings wrapped I quickly devolved into a babbling, local-ale-fueled drunken degenerate as a reward to myself (putting on a facade of competent professionalism really takes it outta me) and had a brilliant evening overall.

 You can check out a full list of the evening's selection over at Skwigly. Thanks so much to Lee Daniels, Oli Putland, Linda McCarthy, Ant Blades, Špela Čadež, Will Adams, Emma Bell, Rumpus, Animade, Yonni Aroussi, Ben Genislaw, Paul Hill, Craig Knowles, David Ridges, Ross Butter, Isabel Peppard, Will Anderson, Sam Morrison, Darren Robbie, Jamie Smart, Jane Davies, Philippe Vaucher, Jon Dunleavy, Georgia Yorke, Barry Purves, Dan Ojari and Mikey Please for letting us screen their work!
The subsequent phone/email/social media feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and while there are no immediate plans to have these types of events be a regular Skwigly thing, as a trial run to cut our teeth I can't imagine it having gone better.
Now to catch up on a week's worth of snoozage. I am plumb-tuckered out.

Skwigly Showcase - Wednesday Flier

Our Skwigly Showcase event is tonight at the Looking Glass in Bristol! If you're free, come by around 7:30, say hello and watch some free toonage of an evenin'! More info on Facebook.

Skwigly Showcase - Tuesday Flier

Hopefully see some of you sexy folks there tomorrow!

Fringe Inducing

This year Skwigly's media partnership with the Bristol Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival is a little more involved and has extended to its Fringe Events programme. To that end I was approached a little while back to put together a screening of short films on behalf of the magazine, which was a lot of fun and made fine use of our recently-launched Skwigly Showcase.
If you're not aware of it, the showcase on the website is basically a means to get any animation work someone has already posted online to the Skwigly audience. It's gotten a lot of great feedback so far and been a wonderful insight into how talented our readership is. For the showcase evening we've picked some of our personal favourites and I've also reached out to a few filmmakers whose work, while not available to the general public as of yet, has really bowled me over.
I think it'll be a fun night, so if anyone's around Bristol this Wednesday (28th), swing by the Looking Glass just next to St. Nick's Market, around 7:30-8ish. You can find out more info on the event at Skwigly or on Facebook. It's also totally free, so don't say I never treat ya right!
Here's an e-flier to whet your whettable bits:

Miss Us?

You've probably all noticed that the sun is shining brighter and food is tasting sweeter today. That's of course because it's NEW PODCAST DAY!

Alright, alright. Contain yourselves.
After a not-especially-intentional summer break, we've come back with some pretty great guests on offer. Steve interviews Eric Goldberg and Lauren MacMullen from the Disney camp on their new Mickey Mouse short Get A Horse; Laura-Beth talks to Saschka Unseld, the director of the Pixar short Blue Umbrella that's been accompanying Monsters University; and swarthy Bieber-alike Tom chats to Teri Hatcher on her voiceover roles in Planes and Coraline. That's Teri Hatcher as in Lois & Clark and Desperate Housewives, which is pretty damn surreal. We also have a more Planes-centric video of the interview which should help explain the 'swarthy Bieber-alike' comment:


As well as all this we chat with director and fellow podcaster Aiden McAteer on the Annecy film selections and read out some listener stories of freelance nightmare commissions.
Good, wholesome content all round. As always you can listen below, subscribe on iTunes and/or direct download!

Bedfellows

Here's the cover art for the second book of the trilogised "Throat" series. The proposed title is "Manageable Unease".

As I mentioned here when Book 1 was released, the hope was for this to have come out back in February, but now it's looking more like October/November. I'm not even going to begin to speculate when Book 3 will be released - as they say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Except in this case replace 'God' with 'subsidiary distributor with own, inscrutable marketing agenda'.

"Coffee please, Doris..."

At the end of last week the fine folks at HuHa discreetly put up "Fantasy Office" episode 3, following on from episode 2 back in May. While I did the animation for both, this one features a few characters from episode 1 which was designed by another chap, so I've attempted to bring the two styles together.

This one was written by Joel Jessup (apparently the credits at the end are wrong) and got some nice feedback over the weekend. Personally I found it quite satisfying as lip-sync on a skeleton is a f***ing breeze. Here are a couple of new character sketches:

As always I was up against it so the backgrounds were a bit rushed, that being said I'm quite happy with the crypt one:

Okay, that'll do for now. Frankly I've spoiled you enough as it is.

Buon'anima

First off, respect where it's due. RIP Mr. James Gandolfini. I've been in the midst of a massive Sopranos DVD rewatch, boring everyone with how amazingly it still holds up, and truth be told I'm a little shellshocked with this whole business. I'm not an actor but his performances taught me a lot about the power of how to carry oneself, that it's possible to be suave and overweight at the same time; What little game I had in secondary school I owe to my blatant imitations of his onscreen persona. Not only that, he was fucking hilarious. To pick one Sopranos scene that epitomised what he brought to the table would frankly be daft, so instead here's a clip from my favourite of his feature roles opposite Peter Capaldi in Armando Ianucci's In The Loop:
In the spirit of sentiments voiced during the show's multitudinous funeral scenes: "Waddayagonnado?"
On the HuHa! front, here are some sketches for a quick skit that I managed to crowbar in before I left for Annecy:

There really was hardly any time to knock this one out, so the animation's possibly even more limited than usual. That being said, the script gave me a chance to have some fun with the designs and I'm pretty happy with the end result. The only thing I'd maybe have done differently had there been time would be making the 'imagination' backgrounds a little more crazy/detailed.
The full Wobble Box episode it's featured in (second-to-last skit, around 3'35" in) went up this afternoon. Overall I'd say it's one of my favourites:

Making Pests of Ourselves

I'm all a-quiver with girlish glee as I get prepped for my first jaunt to Annecy next week. It's one of the top five major fests on my wishlist I've yet to get a film in, along with Ottawa (the other three being Encounters, Clermont-Ferrand and Stuttgart, who all threw me a bone). Despite making it into Annecy Plus in 2011, my plan had been to make the jaunt when/if I got something into the main festival - but frankly that could take years, if it ever happens at all. Luckily I now have a fallback position: Journalistic scumbag.

"We don't need no stinkin' - well, they are quite nice..."

 Given the surge of positive Skwigly developments since myself, Steve and Aaron took it over, it's only logical to show my face at one of the industry's most important events. We're hoping to get some podcast and written content out of it, obviously, with maybe some video footage to boot. We're also aiming for some extra reach in general, so to that end we'll be pestering folks with fliers, badges and other tote-filling goodies. For our flier design I really wanted to pool resources and convey the community vibe Skwigly's cultivated over the years. I reached out to some of my favourite animators and illustrators for character designs I could group together in a big crowd shot. Here's how it came out:

Front

Back

I'm really pleased with it and feel happy to have so many talented friends and associates involved. Here's a breakdown of their contributions - click their names to see more of their work as they're all smashing pumpkins worth checking out.

Francesca Adams

Jamie Smart

David Hutchinson

Jane Davies

Joanna Hepworth

Kat Michaelides

Katie Steed

Matt Walker

Robyn Liebschner

Sam Morrison

Seb Burnett

Signe Baumane

Sophie Klevenow & Darren Walker

Steve Henderson

Tanya Scott

The remaining designs are from my own archive of characters I threw in to fill in some spaces. And because I'm an egomaniac.
Given how much fondness people have had for the Skwigly Podcast I've also produced an exclusive sampler CD of some of our personal favourite moments from our first year. It's borderline-impossible to group all of them and have it fit on an 80 minute disc but hopefully this selection does justice to all the amazing interviewees who've given us their time and insight. It's nice to have a little physical souvenir to show for an endeavour I had no clue would still be going strong after a year, especially in these last few days before the entire planet completely forgets what CDs are. Here's the sleeve design:

Front

Back

If you'll be at Annecy yourselves drop us a line at skwigly.com!

One For The Road

The latest podcast is a little delayed and goes by a smidge quicker than usual, but I was quite keen to get it out there as otherwise there'd be no time on my plate to get it done before July. For its brevity it's chock-full of all that good animationey shiznit - Steve talks to Brian Cosgrove some more and new Skwigly contributor Laura-Beth chats with Marc Roels, co-director of the breakaway festival hit "Oh Willy...". We also talk about Disney Princess dolls and other equally manly subjects. Download here, subscribe here or stream below:

Or do all three. Or none of the above, if you can live with the image of my doe-eyed disappointment.
Can you? Eh? Can you live with yourself?!

Of course not, I'm too adorable.

Also up on Skwigly now is a written interview with Warwick Burton and Isabel Peppard, producer and director respectively of the stop-motion Australian horror fairytale "Butterflies". It's a wonderful parable of the tragedy of letting one's creativity die out, something I've witnessed a fair amount in friends I've worked and studied with in the past who, for whatever reason, didn't stick it out. Isabel has also worked on the brilliant Adam Elliot film "Mary & Max" and certainly knows her stuff. The film's doing really well and knock wood I'll be able to catch up with them both in person next week at Annecy. You can read the interview over on Skwigly now:
"Butterflies" - Q&A with Warwick Burton and Isabel Peppard