BBC online - Freedom

I discovered that working to a theme is good for when you can't find the next story yet...It concentrates your mind...provided the theme is inspiring . "Freedom" was a response to an open submission call by the BBC, for a one-minute film. Time limits are also good - for helping you focus and edit down to the essentials of the story. In this film I was trying to combine black-and-white textured drawing with very bright, saturated colour like stained glass windows. Also to tell a story involving abstract concepts without any dialogue - just noises.

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

After an insanely long time, "The Bathroom Cabinet of Doctor Calamari" is finally completed.  A collaboration with Paul (voice of the shed) Baldwin, this short animation is about- amongst other things - nostril hair, bathroom plumbing and existentialist dread. Visually realistic but simultaneously surreal, it started as a coffee conversation, and a title, related to a silly story about plughole monsters that Paul used to tell his kids. This was a lively process of co-writing, and real collaboration (necessitating strict storyboarding). Paul composed and edited all the soundtrack; the limited voice-overs we needed were complicated by the fact that one had to be a child (and our fist choice child's voice broke before we had finished!) Great fun and the conversations generated many images and comic ideas...but ultimately a bit cumbersome and slow...I prefer working on my own and then letting someone add their music/interpretation afterwards!

Literal?

2014 gave me time for 8 new animations...and film 4 was "Growing" - a film about rewilding and inspired by the festival/ conference I attended - with Miki Z in Scotland "Carrying the Fire" .

I was hoping the Dark Mountain project- who run the festival - would be interested in the finished film, but apparently it was too literal. I've since changed the ending to make it more surreal... and shown it at the solar-powered sol cinema at the Festival of Thrift, Darlington. The characters here were quite realistic (in a way), but as the film was NOT in black/white it was interesting to think about race/ colour and how we do or don't use it in animation. Race is mostly irrelevant in the stories I'm animating, (this one for example is about life in built-up cities and our relationship with nature...which might have startling differences in different cultures, but globally, this is a very simple story)...but gender is often crucial... I also discovered I really prefer animating women, or characters who are quite over-the-top and abstracted.

Fresh Air

Another silent movie with strange noises...this one stars Maudie, unlikely hero of "The Meadows" Rest Home. making animations about older female characters makes you think of interesting questions like how do we distinguish male and female in animations, what are the signs that indicate female or old, how do we do this in a way that makes an individual character and not a stereotype?  I'm trying to use movement and expression and the behaviour of the character in relation to the story...referencing her memories and a sense of "nothing to lose"...
This film was selected for Sunderland Short Film festival 2015, where the critics were nice enough to say that the crude drawings (?!) were indeed a breath of fresh air. Not sure I was shooting for crude, but I'm happy with rough, or even wobbly. Animation should probably have movement!

Man Does Not Live by Animation Alone (apparently)

Need to get out more... some fresh-air sculpture at Gateshead Family Sculpture Day ... with (good friend and art colleague) Miki Z. Sculptures made of scrap wood and based on "art" (?). So this was loosely based an a Keith Hering print .

They hold this every year in my local park and it's always teaming with people making dens, giraffes and aeroplanes...seriously good fun.  Also its very liberating to work on an art project that has been classified as "play".

Grunting and Sniffling Noises

2013 saw the completion (FINALLY) of  Eeny Meeny Miney Malcolm, using a style of drawing inspired by memories of linocut (Brighton Printworks in the 80s, and BAA Corsham in the 70s) - a development of what I started in Box.  Malcolm was also an experiment in using split screen to show two simultaneous stories (Sliding Doors with cake)... but also in using non-dialogue people noises. Thanks to my patient colleagues and friends for wasting considerable time squealing, grunting, laughing and sniffling into microphones. And this is (only one of the reasons) why I love my job

Split-Screens & Flying Machines

Box was an experimental film in terms of the drawing style - loosely based on lino-cut and subtraction rather than addition as a drawing method. It also uses split screen/ changing screen size as part of the narrative... an idea I carried over from the PhD days and experiments with projected interactive works (Just don't! galleries won't touch them with a bargepole, and most of them don't even have a bargepole.)

Box was selected for both Wimbledon Short Film Festival, and Bradford Animation Festival. yay! and they give you a badge to prove it. One day I hope to combine visiting a film festival with showing at it and actually gauge some audience reaction to the work.

News - but not Documentary

Best news of 2013: Heat being selected for and then chosen as winner of the first Guardian Witness one-minute film competition. I made this film to fit a theme, which is often a good challenge for generating ideas. I also made it from scratch in two weeks to meet the deadline, which sounds like a long time for one minute but trust me...it was hard work getting all the images, and the foley recorded and mixed down. Time deadlines are also a good challenge (even if you do have to take the gigantic PC set-up to your Mum's when you visit so you can finish it off...)

Colin the Dog and his Travelling Blog

2013 was also the year Colin the dog went on his adventures North...in an animation created in response to a specific festival theme. They didn't want it, but ultimately Sheffield university did.  North was selected for Leamington Underground Cinema festival 2013 , and for " North:Mapping Cinematic Norths " conference, Sheffield May 2013 Working to a theme is always an interesting challenge...worth taking up even if  the individual festival you are aiming for is a longshot. Colin was inspired a little by Gromit, and by good friends Darry & Bob's incomparable beagle, Carter. (take inspiration from anywhere you can get it). This animation was an experiment in doing it - i.e. the narrative arc/ character development - by the book... and in limiting the colour palette (black white green)

Animated Documentary

A new experiment -  a linear documentary Life with Sheds based on the ideas collected for an interactive piece "The Worldwide Shed". I asked for a narrator who could do a cross between Sir David Attenborough and David Tenant's Doctor Who. I got the incomparable Ronan Paterson, who sounds like both, with a touch of Bunny Guinness.
This is a first attempt at animated documentary, which is an interesting genre. Lots of films I have seen use a narrator/ storyteller, which always makes the images seem less important...illustrations for a text rather than a text itself. So  I don't think its going to be my preferred method of working. Also, this is definitely my last attempt at lipsynching a boiled egg.