The story follows Willy, a naïve and soft-hearted fellow dealing with the death of his Mother, coming to terms with a life fraught with confusion and unusual choices. Oh, and by the way, it’s all set in a nudist colony. This surreal journey has brought many a tear, chortle and raised eyebrow to audiences across the world.

The short has had the stop-motion community and animation festivals talking with its innovative use of materials and unashamedly bizarre narrative. Skwigly had the opportunity to talk to co-director Marc Roels at the recent Stuttgart festival.

Can you tell us a little about how you came up with the story for Oh Willy…?

My co-director Emma de Swaef has a background in documentary filming, so the initial idea came from her graduation film in which we were following an office worker called Willy. He turned out to be quite a tragic figure – we were just doing a documentary about the average bureaucrat in Belgium and we came across this guy. He seemed very interesting, kind of passive, gentle character who went though a lot of tragedy. During the documentary he lost his job and it had quite an effect on us. So we always referred back to him when we were writing scripts for the film. He was the initial spark for this film. We did her graduation film together – which is basically a cruder version of how this film is now – then further developed his character, so the chatter came from that. The rest of the film we pieced together through research we were doing for other projects, and we brought it all together and made a film out of it.

The use of felt is something that has really drawn people to the film, can you tell us why you decided to work using this material?

The film is all made out of felt, wool or a textile of some sort, there’s no other material; The base materials were obviously wood or whatever we found and was useful, but it was always covered in textiles. We created the forest sets using wool in this way and we came up with a look for the tress in the forest that worked really well, especially with the lights, so we just thought that was a really good look for the film. From then on, any other object we came up with couldn’t just be done in plasticine, we had to make sure the style was consistent – but it wasn’t something we preconceived from the beginning.

You mentioned there were problems with the material contracting and shrinking due to the heat from the lights?

Yes, wool is an organic substance so it reacts to temperature, it expands and contracts much more than a synthetic material would, so if we were doing a shot on the film we had to complete it within one day or as quick as possible as it would be changing constantly throughout the shot. As every shot had to be done in one day, it kind of restricted us in terms of story telling – we couldn’t use long deliberate shots, the animation had to be focused and quite small, we had to pull everything down to a very focused core – so the material really dictated how the story was told. All these ideas we had for these long, involved shots we had to pare down, in essence, to what we could control technically.

You also mentioned you got in contact with Mackinnon & Saunders for help?

We did and they were more than happy to help us. They had just come off working on the puppets for Fantastic Mr. Fox so they had a lot of material lying around. We didn’t do all the puppets there, we were just there to create a prototype for the model we would be using, so we made two puppets there and based on those two we made all the other characters in the film. Whilst we were there we learned a lot about all the things they’ve tried; They had also tried to make puppets with felt, but it didn’t turn out so well and they had to abandon it because it’s a very inflexible material to work with – the puppets don’t have a full range of motion, so either you scrap the puppets and you find a new material to work with, or you change your way of telling the story, which is what we did.

But Mackinnon and Saunders were great, we actually got a lot of materials from them, like the feet of the characters are actually feet that came of the characters in Corpse Bride. At one point in the film there are two little boys that beat up the main character when he’s a kid, one of them has ginger hair and that’s actually hair from Fantastic Mr Fox. So we gave him a George Clooney hair cut because he came from the character Clooney voiced.

That’s really great. How did you get funding for this film?

Well in Europe it’s a different system, so part of our funding came from Belgium – they have a very good grant system in place for independent films – and the other half came from France who subsidise films all the time. They really believed in us, I mean commercially the film wasn’t going to be big shaker, it’s more a cultural thing – they saw the importance in that and decided to give us a grant. Holland was also a producer of the film, which meant for the film’s production we had to travel around a lot. All the sets were constructed in France, then we hired a big truck and we shipped everything out to Belgium for the shoot. We then shot everything there, then when the film was done and edited everything had to go to Holland to do all the sound work. It was a pan-European effort!

So the film has quite a dark humour to it, is that more you or Emma?

I don’t know, we don’t really think too heavily about that. Emma and I have very similar tastes and we just did things we thought were funny or interesting in some way. Belgium does have this tradition of surrealist art so were obviously informed by that, but we are influenced by everything. The first part of the film we got from Diane Arbus’s photo series of nudists in America in the 50s and 60s, which is kind of humorous but also has a dark edge to it. We were really drawn to that. Someone else mentioned that we had references to Tintin – there is one book were he is abducted by a huge Yeti and that also kind of informed us about where the movie went. Nothing was really conscious, we just drew on stuff we admired, just piecing it together with no set trajectory for the story.

I understand it’s had quite a lot of different audience reactions?

It really depends. I was expecting a less vocal reaction in Germany but I was blown away, they reacted really well. It’s been different all over. We just finished our festival run in the states, Americans are really very inquisitive, there were a lot of questions and a lot of confusion but we won quite a few prizes there. There was a weird tension with people really not getting it, but then talking to them maybe they just weren’t used to a film like this. In France everyone was very nonplussed, there wasn’t much of a reaction strangely. I can’t put my finger on it why one audience reacts one way and another audience reacts another, were just pleased if it’s positive.

It’s been doing surprisingly well, the film has snowballed. We’ve seen other films that we think are just as good but sometimes one film just catches on and sort of has a life of its own and we were happy it was ours.

You mentioned that Willy came from a character from an earlier project. Are there any characters you feel particularly akin to?

Not really, in this film it’s really about the main character Willy, all the other characters are very much all there to give that character a direction to progress the narrative. Maybe the character of the yeti, he was this very violent, unpredictable character that we wanted in there – kind of anarchic, we just wanted a different energy to go against Willy who is very passive. If you go to most film schools or seminars they will tell you your character has to be pro-active, to make decisions, and has to go from A to B, but we wanted a character that was very passive, didn’t want to do anything except be left alone but was forced into situations. So Willy is always reacting to what he has to come up against, in a very passive way, so we decided we were really going to throw the works at him. In the end just being put together with this kind of violent, unpredictable kind of beast and how he would react to that was something we found interesting for the film.

So what are you working on now?

The next film will also be a short film, made in much the same technique. It’s going to be set in colonial Africa, between 1890-1910, when European countries were going into Africa and picking countries for themselves. We thought that was interesting subject matter, a very absurd part of European history that has been dealt with very seriously in the past, historically it’s very they-did-this-and-that, but from an animator’s point of view it’s extremely absurd. It’s almost cartoon-like, a megalomaniac grab for power, so we may do something like that narratively but we’re still very much developing it. We’ve just got the first portion of funding so it’s not going to be any time soon. Hopefully end of next year sometime, but who knows?

Marc James Roels and Emma de Swaef accepting their award at Stuttgart 2013

Subsequent to this interview Oh Willy… then went on to win the top prize in Stuttgart’s international program. This is a great film and is still doing the rounds in many festivals, if you can get to see it I strongly suggest it.

I want to invite all you sexy, intelligent and cultured Skwigly readers to put yourselves in my shoes. Seriously, go ahead. Slither right in.
There ya go.
You’re now a stocky man in his late-twenties, eminently strokable in the beardy regions, able to subsist on a diet of powdered soup, chicken skin and Aberlour for days on end.

Decadent, ain’t it?

Now, turn the clock back a decade or so. You’re reaching the end of your teens and vaguely resemble a giant potato with stubble. You’re trying to explain to your peers the appeal of a certain Cartoon Network show:

“It’s like…well, it’s for kids, but it’s not.”
“Like The Simpsons?”
“Well, no. It’s more like…an actual kids’ show…”
“But with grownup jokes?”
“Eh…not really, but…”
“What’s it about?”
“See, it’s three girls. And they fight monsters with their superpowers. They’re sisters.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“That doesn’t sound all that -”
“No no no, it’s really, really good. There’s, like, the sensible redhead one and the sort of feisty tomboy one and the ditzy blonde one…”
“Oh, I get it. So they’re hot.”
“Uh…not really. They all kinda look like Frank Sidebottom. And I think they’re meant to be about five years old.”
“I see.”
“Yep.”
“I’m finding this conversation very unsettling.”
“As well you should.”
“Please refrain from speaking to me in future.”
“I understand completely.”
Exit. Pursued by a bear.

Buttercup. The post-feminist Powerpuff. Possibly.

Such was the lament of all Powerpuff Girls fans who didn’t happen to be preadolescent and female. The world just didn’t understand, nor could they without giving it the hours of semi-drunken attention I’d had by that point.

See, when all my friends in secondary school were studying to become future world leaders, I was carving out more of a Worthless Piece of Human Garbage niche for myself by going out most nights to cackhandedly hit on townies, get hammered and come home to late-night animation (when they’d be repeated with that woman doing sign language in the corner of the screen – it always struck me as insult to injury that the poor deaf kids had to stay up til 2am just to watch cartoons) until I passed out. One show, the brainchild of CalArts graduate Craig McCracken, both freaked me out and grabbed my attention with its abrasive cuteness, something of an odd combination at the time. Nothing about Powerpuff Girls was, at first glance, something I should’ve been a fan of. The type of TV my brain was tuned into back then mainly centered around Martin Sheen’s idyllic presidential rule of The West Wing and James Gandolfini delivering hard-hitting sociopolitical statements via his fists in The Sopranos. Even the cartoons I’d moved onto were unambiguous in their intended adult audience; A promising new talent named Seth MacFarlane was charming the land with his fresh brand of edgy comedy that would doubtless prove inimitable and timeless (sorry, cheap shot). Against this backdrop, what possible appeal would a seemingly kitsch, Anime-informed show for – and about – infants have for such a classy – nay, damned classy – fellow as I?

I really feel I should settle down with a nice girl like Bubbles, but I always wind up with the Buttercups. And yes, I’m well aware of how creepy that looks written down.

I suppose we were the Bronies of our generation. After a few minutes you either got it or you didn’t – that alternately beneath or above the surface of innocuous kids’ fare there was something a lot more clever, sharp and self-aware going on. Little tells such as the passive-aggressive asides the show’s narrator (Tom Kenny) would make, or the blink-and-miss-them double entendres and obscene sleight-of-hand sight gags all cultivated a general sense that the folks behind what you were watching were up to something not nearly as innocent as the squeaky voices and bright colours would have you initially believe.

The show is essentially a retooled television offshoot of McCracken’s student short A Sticky Situation, which in itself goes some way to explaining the equivocal vibe of the show it’d eventually become. The story is of a lone professor who, for reasons that aren’t addressed but one assumes are innocent enough, attempts to create the perfect girls in his laboratory, absent-mindedly chucking in a ‘can of Whoopass’ (later changed to the more generic ‘Chemical X’) for good measure. The results are Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, three adorable freaks of nature with giant exophthalmia eyes and fingerless stumps for arms who go by the collective term ‘The Whoopass Girls’ and do battle with appropriately ludicrous villains ‘The Amoeba Boys’. Unfinished (and rather threadbare) Whoopass Stew story outlines intended to accompany A Sticky Situation exist in animatic form, though it wasn’t until McCracken’s involvement with the sometimes-inspired Cartoon Network What A Cartoon! showcase that the trio made it onto television, rechristened The Powerpuff Girls. Though the oft-confusing (over fifteen years later and people are still saying ‘powderpuff’) title change suggests a watering-down, the ass-whoopin’ component remains the main driving force of these shorts, as well as the series proper which mainly ran from 1998-2004.

Title card for ‘Whoopass Stew!’, the precursor to PPG.

The hyper-cutesiness serves as both a comically effective juxtaposition against said (at times, rather extreme) violence and as a network-placating façade to disguise the odd risqué aside that are too on-the-nose to be accidental. A lot of its charm and, possibly, success is down to the involvement of Dexter’s Lab creator Genndy Tartakovsky in various capacities – indeed, the show itself is something of a spiritual sibling to Dexter itself, both shows involving much of the same crew and a not-entirely-dissimilar aesthetic. The stripped down visuals combined with effective use of limited animation gave both endeavours a charming, budget-conscious retro vibe, something that prior shows such as Ren & Stimpy had paved the way for but not fully indulged themselves.

What kept me a fan beyond the initial curiosity was that, for any cynicism and dodgy moments, at its core was genuine joyfulness and thoughtful character work. The three heroines are as fallible as they are endearing, often misguided and self-involved in a way that stays true to them being little girls before superheroes. Probably the most laudable performance is Bubbles (Tara Strong), whose sweetness and light gives way wonderfully to moments of extreme brattiness and rage; it’s a sort of adorable schizophrenia anyone with kids would doubtless relate to. Buttercup (Elizabeth Daily, whose voice characterisation isn’t a million miles away from her prior role as Tommy in Rugrats) is the most relatable, especially as I grow older and the world incrementally grinds my soul to dust – as the obligatory tomboy she’s embittered, violent, pissy and, as such, incredibly likeable. The self-proclaimed leader is Blossom (Cathy Cavadini) whose main leadership trait is being grounded and, comparatively speaking, sort of forgettable. The accompanying populace are standard cartooney fare, the Mayor (Tom Kenny again) a suitably incompetent manchild, his assistant an empowered career woman with the standard-issue assets – we never see anything higher than her chest – and Professor Utonium (Tom Kane), the girls’ creator/father figure whose function is mainly to prod expository scenes along.

‘Him’. A cartoon villain Hall-of-Fame-er

Obviously it’s the villains of the show that steal it, and while it would be a piece in and of itself to list the virtues of all of them, a special nod should go to Him (Kane also), possibly one of the least explicable villains in cartoon history: A sort of Jim Flora-esque transgender lobster/devil figure with a penchant for cross-dressing, falsetto taunting and perversely licking his victims’ faces. McCracken has cited the Blue Meanies of Yellow Submarine as the main influence for the character, though frankly that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

All these elements mixed together with a long stretch of consistently bizarre and creative story ideas make the show sincerely compelling for several seasons, and even in the first handful of episodes where the show is finding its footing there’s a contemporary energy to it that holds up today, one that may have even been a bit before its time back when they originally aired.

Blossom. The sensible one. Yawn.

Inevitably there comes a point where the valleys become more evident than the peaks, hot on the heels of a particularly strong batch around the season 3 mark. The fourth season indulges a sudden tendency toward double-length episodes, which is a little jarring in its immediate shift of pacing; The frenetic energy of the show is replaced by protracted stories that come off as heavily padded. Used sparingly in its heyday, these moments are fair enough and sometimes a welcome relief from the relentlessness of the action, but when you reach the point where Bubbles is making cat noises for a solid minute it gets mildly insufferable.

Perhaps this was felt within the production itself, as they largely revert back to the eleven-minute episode standard as the season progresses. Noticeable at this stage is a not-entirely-seamless mid-season switch to digital production, which one wouldn’t think would affect the overall tone much. Yet the sudden crispness of the line work and colours, married with the increasingly angular design style start to give it a vaguely cold feel. There are still strong gags littered about the place, but the sly, self-aware undercurrent that roped its older audience in doesn’t seem to be as much of a presence. It becomes, at the end of the day, a show for kids – albeit a strong one – without that second layer of nudge-winkery.  As such there isn’t much of a sense that the show has outstayed it welcome when it finishes, nor is there any particular feeling of being left wanting more. It runs its course and taps out at pretty much the right time, which is a rarity in the world of merchandisable TV animation.

Accompanying the main series are a handful of one-off adventures. See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey is a banned-in-the-US (for utterly inconsequential reasons) rock opera pastiche that doesn’t quite gel; It’s fun musically but the banality of the lyrics and the story coupled with the absence of any real humour gives it a sort of missed-opportunity feel.

Yeah, there’s no need for that…

Though technically separate from the series itself, the 2002 Powerpuff Girls Movie is another strange aberration, a theatrically-released prequel story produced around the halfway mark of the show’s run. One assumes that its revamping of the overall design style is what led to the aforementioned shift in look of subsequent seasons, and it similarly detracts from the warmth of the characters and premise. Mainly it’s the writing that lets it down – the frightfully tepid jokes seem aimed toward a much younger audience, as does the sense that it’s actually taking itself seriously, which sort of undermines what made the show so endearing in the first place. It wins back points for its abundance of animated mutant monkeys, however.

On a more positive note, the 40 minute, McCracken-directed holiday special ‘Twas The Fight Before Christmas is a brilliantly written and executed celebration of what made the show strongest at its peak – densely packed with jokes and action alike. Some years later, in celebration of the show’s ten-year anniversary, McCracken also directed a celebratory ‘final’ episode, The Powerpuff Girls Rule! If the slower pacing of the latter seasons induced mild fatigue in the viewer, this special wakes you up with the impact of a violently administered hot coffee enema. Or ice-coffee enema – either way, you’re up and there’s no snooze button in sight.
At first glance it’s a step backwards animation-wise, having the overall look of a webtoon, though it quickly becomes apparent that it’s a purposeful return to the hyper-intense, freeform mania of the earliest episodes and McCracken’s original Whoopass Stew shorts (the storyline involving a ‘key to the world’ is a nod to one of the unproduced ‘Stew stories), then sped-up, amplified and repeatedly smashed into your face. Though in some respects the cartoon equivalent of waterboarding, it is perhaps the most gloriously undiluted version of the show. We’re barraged with a parade of what would be familiar characters, except they all seem to have been slipped PCP. While the batshit craziness of it all is, to me, rather delightful (the payoff gag when series villain Mojo Jojo finally attains world domination is so fantastically stupid I find myself giggling like the emotionally-stunted tool I am for three straight minutes) I can’t help but wonder if it proved overwhelming to fans of the mellower version of what the show had grown into.

I’m kinda hoping this isn’t actual concept art.

It’s understood that there’ll be another special aired later in the year, possibly CG animated and directed by occasional writer/artist on the original series David Smith. That there is some connection in that respect is a small comfort, but the apparent absence of McCracken, Tartakovsky or Chris Savino (who ably took the reins of later episodes once McCracken shifted his focus to Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends), coupled with some very fan-art looking concepts puts me in two minds about it. We will see, I suppose. I’m perhaps needlessly precious about the idea as, even though I rarely had much luck convincing the world of its value, I’ve come to realise in hindsight just how beloved it actually was by all ages, and that’s a far truer measure of worth than fond memories of drunkenly giggling at an indeterminate gang of ruffians with leprosy get their teeth knocked out. Clearly The Powerpuff Girls has its place in the collective mindset of all healthy young’uns who like a good punch-up and dirty joke. As I have no real conclusion to speak of, let’s end on that note:

FIVE VAGUELY ‘WTF?’ MOMENTS IN PPG HISTORY

1. 
   The supremely baffling archvillain Him has the girls’ creator Professor Utonium in a trance. So why not really rub it in by giving his face a nice sensual licking?
2. 
   “Don’t forget some of these!” Buttercup helps Professor Utonium get ready for a date. We don’t see what ‘these’ are exactly, so the healthy assumption would, of course, be prophylactics. She’s five.
3. 
   Playing dressup. “I’ll tell you when you can come!” Instructs Blossom. “No-one tells me when to come!” Asserts Buttercup. Attagirl!
4. 
   The Mayor rewards the girls’ efforts with candy. It’s their first time. Afterwards Bubbles reflects in tremendously unsettling post-coital tones “That…was amazing.” I think this episode may have been directed by Todd Solondz.
5. 
   The address of the Mayor’s headstrong assistant Ms. Bellum: 69 Yodelinda Valley. That ol’ chestnut. Oh, you boys and your shenanigans.

The Powerpuff Girls 10th Anniversary Collection is available to buy on DVD in the US. The Powerpuff Girls Movie is available on DVD in the UK.

Blu and Jewel are set to return in a sequel to the 2011 Blue Sky film about Blu a domesticated macaw who gets paired up with Jewel in order to save their species in Rio de Jeneiro. The new trailer does not give much away apart from the returning cast characters. Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, will.i.am and Jamie Foxx will reprise their roles in the film which will be directed by Carlos Saldanha who directed the first film. The film is set to be released in 2014.

The spooky short is set to be 30 minutes long with references to Aliens, Predator and Psycho. This will be the longest Toy Story short film and the original cast will return to voice their roles. Combat Carl, the name of one of the action figures destroyed by Sid in the first film will make return and will be voiced by Carl Weathers. The short will be directed by Angus MacLane who directed BURN-E based on Pixars WALL-E and Small Fry the second of the shorts that has been released since Toy Story 3. 

According to TV Guide, who spoke to producer Galyn Susman the plot will see the toys spend a night in a creepy motel.

Bonnie is on a road trip to go see grandma with her mom and the toys are in the trunk, mom gets a flat tire and they have to spend the night at a motel and all kinds of chaos ensues.

With the plot taking place inside a motel I wonder how involved Lee Unkrich has been with the production process? The Oscar winning Toy Story 3 director has often stated that The Shining is his favourite film and operates a website dedicated to Stanley Kubrick horror classic. Unkrich is currently working on a Pixar feature based on the day of the dead.

Toy Story of Terror will air on ABC this October, no news yet on any UK release.

]]> http://www.skwigly.co.uk/toy-story-of-terror/feed/ 2 http://www.skwigly.co.uk/we-can-be-ghosts-now-an-interview/ http://www.skwigly.co.uk/we-can-be-ghosts-now-an-interview/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 00:01:33 +0000 Thomas Coleman http://www.skwigly.co.uk/?p=7134 The visual depth of Hiatus – We Can Be Ghosts Now, featuring Shura, is its strongest feature. The stop-motion visual process makes the Song and Video stand out above many videos that have recently hit the web.

Directed by Tom Jobbins, the Animation is beautiful and simple. Blending music and abstract animation with a powerful plot and colourful chemistry, we decided to pick Tom Jobbins brain to see how his creative process worked so well, for such a lovely piece of Music Video splendor.

How did you come to make the video for Hiatus?

My brother (John Reynolds) and I wanted to make an animation together so we put out the feeler’s to friends of friends. Cyrus (Hiatus) was one of the one’s to get back to us. The track instantly struck a chord with me but I couldn’t tell why? I just felt it had something special about it.

What is the story about?

The song itself is based on two lovers caught in the world trade center during the 9/11 catastrophe. Hiatus wanted this to be the theme of the video but for me the event is too important and emotive to do justice to. I decided instead to concentrate on the doomed lover aspect and to tell the story using laser-cut triangles as the characters.

And how did the story impact your decision for the visual design?

The laser triangles seemed a perfect way to tell a story quickly with emotion but without showing horrific imagery. With these in place my brother designed the world, using simple colours and geometric forms. He did am amazing job, it looks great and the budget really wasn’t there. We worked together with cinematographer Matthias Pilz in a small studio shooting in between paying jobs.

What made you decide to use stop-motion over CGI?

Stop-motion takes a long time but I’m in love with it. I work fast, not minding indiscrepancies, because doing things perfect can drive you crazy if you haven’t got the time, and also I like the ‘boil’ aspect of replacement animation. I use computers to work everything out and would even go as far to say that I try and replicate a digital style in an ultra tactile way. It’s like the stop-motion aspect is my way of rendering something out. It takes a long time, but looks great.

How did you get into animation?

I got into animation after a twist of fate. I broke my collarbone and so spent the money I had saved up to go surfing on a digital camera. When I looked through the photos fast I had a personal discovery of animation. Soon after I worked at ArthurCox in Bristol where I was lucky enough to win a pitch to do an ident for Channel five. This was my first bit of directing and inspired me to take it further at the NFTS.

What is next for you?

I graduated last year with my film ‘My Face is in Space‘. The film has been shown at many festivals including Clermont Ferrand and Ottawa. I learnt a great deal at the school about animation and collaborating in teams. Being able to able to make an animated music video so soon after graduating was great as it confirmed my love for stop-frame animation. I am trying to get into commercials where I think my craft-based style will fit. I have another music video coming up and am developing an animated TV series. I am keeping busy but always on the look out for new animated adventures.

A music video for a sublime song. facebook.com/hiatusmusic
Buy on iTunes: bit.ly/11Xam3d Buy on Bandcamp: bit.ly/ZfNeL6
Director – Tom Jobbins – tomjobbins.com/
Production Design – John Reynolds johnjobereynolds.com/
Cinematographer – Matthias Pilz matthiaspilz.com/
Compositor – Jonathan Topf jonathantopf.com/
Colourist – Danny Atkinson
Editor – Robert Mila

HIATUS:
facebook.com/hiatusmusic
twitter.com/hiatusmusic
soundcloud.com/hiatus

1:  Tax Breaks, Tantrums and TIFFs

For some mysterious reason – most likely down to a conspiracy by secret cabals of alien lizards* – I was recently invited to the launch of the new UK tax breaks for animation, games and high-end TV.

Although the mood was understandably upbeat due to this rather amazing helping hand from the coalition government, having attended a seminar about the same subject two weeks before I got the feeling the positive vibe was noticeably tempered this time by two factors:

Firstly, word had got round that the Irish tax break, seemingly in reaction to the UK’s, had been raised enough by those cheeky Celtic chappies to make it significantly higher than our own incentive, which was of course introduced to “level the playing field”.

Secondly, the UK’s video games tax incentive – designed on exactly the same lines as those of animation and high-end TV – had been held up, pending investigation by the EEC.

Now if this was, as I suspect, another secret lizard conspiracy – this time to boost support for UKIP – then it certainly paid dividends in the local elections that followed. In fact a recent survey discovered that the entire turnout for these local elections, around 8.5 voters in each constituency, all comprised of game makers shuffling out of their pizza-strewn bunkers, blinking in the daylight to register an anti-EEC protest vote (and I’m allowed to say stuff like that about game creators because I sometimes am one).

The main reasons for this EEC hold up seemed to be for Brussels to investigate whether there was “no obvious market failure” in video games and if this incentive might lead to “a subsidy race”. The fact that this whole business of the introduction of UK tax incentives was sparked by the clear erosion of the world-beating UK games industry by such subsidies abroad would seem to indicate that there was some “market failure”. As for a “subsidy race”, I take it they mean actions like the recent Irish tax break increase, a move presumably ratified by the EEC itself.

In any case, thanks to the UK tax incentives (the animation version of which was the result of an impressive campaign led by animation’s Robin Hood, Oli Hyatt of Blue Zoo) the arguments for outsourcing are now considerably weakened. For a start, isn’t outsourcing to low-income economies morally questionable?

Animation production may not be as dangerous as heavy industry, but the recent fire at a factory in India – in which health and safety conditions were nonexistent – where they made clothes for the UK high street shows that by outsourcing you are very likely bypassing most of the rules developed to protect workers and give them proper conditions and rights. Or is that considered okay because they live outside of the UK?

Chancellor George Osborne speaking at BAFTA’s offices in London

And isn’t outsourcing ultimately unsustainable? If jobs and wealth are sucked out of the main target nations like the UK, USA and Western Europe, then who exactly is meant to buy the product you are creating when you’ve just rendered the target audience unemployed and poor?

On another moral note, we surely have an obligation where possible to support our kids, the ones that have been taught skills in the institutions that our taxes pay for, the fantastic art colleges that are the reason the UK has a creative sector in the first place.

Yes we have a tradition of lone suburban creators, artists, inventors and musicians in their garden sheds, bedrooms and garages, and the traditional UK animation industry has often been described as a cottage industry (or a cowshed in Oliver Postgate’s case), but the art colleges have always been the place these disparate characters can group together, find kindred spirits and learn how to present themselves and their ideas to the outside world in a useful way; To form bands called Multi Story Car Park, make films, get a portfolio and showreel together and smoke lots of roll-ups.

This is why we are recognized as one of the pop-culture centres of the world and have a creative sector that pulls in something like 36 billion a year, which is not far off what the bankers bring in. And although it might have caused boom and bust in the checked-shirt markets, unlike the bankers the creative sector didn’t break the economy and cause a world recession.

Ultimately if there are no jobs waiting for kids who come out of art schools to enable them pay off their £9000-a-year fees, then they will stop enrolling and the creative traditions start to die.

Don’t forget, these art school traditions of creativity are the reason that the UK has incomparable bands, TV, films, games and animation. This is how we have produced internationally recognized ‘brands’ like Peppa Pig, Wallace and Gromit, Bob the Builder and Lara Croft, not to mention James Bond, Harry Potter and bands like The Beatles, The Clash, The Stone Roses, Radiohead and…er…Coldplay (although the college that produced them should perhaps have a rethink). Despite being so heavily subsidized, I don’t think Canada can produce a list like that. So can we now perhaps try and reward our own economy for this success?

*Maybe I’m an alien lizard without even knowing it?

This column is written anonymously by animation director Stephen Cavalier, whose twenty-year career can be measured as a slow professional and moral decline from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Modern Toss.

Stephen is also the author of The World History of Animation, available in all good bookshops (as they say).

100animatedshorts.co.uk
facebook.com/pages/100-Greatest-Animated-Shorts

The event covers the funding, making, distributing and consuming of content for children, which includes not just animation, but also apps, literature, games, toys, films, television, magazines and just about anything else. It may only be a three day event, but there is enough information and advice being passed throughout those three days to make it utterly invaluable to the delegates; which includes broadcasters, co-producers, scriptwriters, musicians and investors.

The fantastic selections of guests and speakers that they have been able to boast for the last ten years shows no sign of diminishing with the line up for 2013 including:

• Frank Cottrell Boyce (author of the Olympic opening ceremony)
• Andrew Beecham (Sprout)
• Francesca Dow (Penguin)
• Joe Godwin (BBC)
• Amelia Johnson (Bin Weevils)
• Jeff ‘Swampy’ Marsh (Disney)
• Tina McCann (Nickelodeon)
• Jamila Metran (CITV)
• Sander Schwartz (Fremantle)
• Cheryl Taylor (CBBC)

In addition to this, the CMC is hosting a series of networking opportunities, including ‘The International Exchange’, which aims to assist those looking for international partnership and funding opportunities, as well as information on the new tax reliefs and the challenges and opportunities of international co-productions. There’s also a series of parties designed to foster relationships and strengthen partnerships, as well as the always popular Pizza Express evening.

There will be numerous talks and speakers looking at the subject of the newly revealed Tax Breaks, both from a business and a creative perspective. How will these tax breaks work? How can we best take advantage? What are the restrictions and how can we make sure we don’t accidentally cross them? All these questions and more will be addressed over the three days, so we recommend taking a pencil and taking notes!

Meet the Commissioners is a genuinely invaluable opportunity to chat one-on-one with broadcasters and decision makers about your ideas, and to hear their honest feedback. In the real world, these meetings can take months to organise, but at CMC they happen in 10 minute slots.

Strategic sessions cover topics such as entertaining education (or edutainment if we ever let the Americans have their way), games, tricky topics, apps, comedy,branding, the future of radio and more.

Research and Development companies will be there to hi-light their recent findings and share insights in to the current and future trends regarding content for kids. Is the future all about iPads over television? How are animation, games, comedy and music changing, and do we need to change with them?

There are numerous Workshops, including Polish and Pitch, Mapping Your Characters, Monetising Digital Content and  Co-pro Clinic to help you develop your ideas with insight from experts in each field.

One of last year’s most popular session, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, will be held again this year. This Dragon’s Den style pitching competition allows content developers to pitch projects to producers and IP acquirers who will make the decision on the spot whether or not to invest.

In short, if you are involved with the developing, producing or distributing of content for children, there are not going to be many better places you could be between the 3rd and 5th July. With over 50 conference sessions and masterclasses, international speakers and decision makers, plus a night out at Pizza Express, Sheffield is clearly the only place to be.

To register for the conference or find out more, head over to http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com

On first impression many would believe the hyper realistic film was a combination of live footage and composting techniques, but no, in true Pixar tradition everything from the mailbox to rain itself is completed imagined and created by the talented powerhouse of the creative team at the California based animation studio.

The animation uses new techniques in photorealistic shooting, composting and shading, improving the breadth of knowledge of this pioneering studio.

Directed and conceived by Saschka Unseld who has worked in cinematography and staging on films such as Brave and Toy Story 3. Skwigly was able to catch up with him at the recent Stuttgart international film festival, and took the opportunity to discuss his new film as well as his relationship with animation.

Pixar director Saschka Unseld

Can you explain how you came up with the idea for Blue Umbrella?

I found the idea on the streets, I was living in San Francisco and it was a rainy day and I was walking through the city and suddenly I saw something lying on the side of the street, it was an umbrella it was a completely broken umbrella that someone had thrown away and it was lying there completely depressed and broken. I stopped because it looked unbelievably sad and no one cared, people were just walking by and I realised I was feeling deeply sad for this umbrella that was just an object, but there was an emotional attachment there and that’s just something I remembered this emotional connection to this umbrella that was by himself, all alone and that lead me to the idea of telling the story of what happened to this umbrella and maybe there could be a way of getting to a happy ending.

The film is quite hyper realistic can you tell us why you chose to create the film in this way?

At one point when I worked on this story I had the idea that not only the umbrellas would come to life when it rained but the whole city. When I rained everything would come alive and be happy about the rain, and I had done a test where I thought it would be nice to have a music video were all these faces you see in the city would sing and so I shot a test on my iphone and pitched the idea to the people at PIXAR and showed them that test.  I had literally shot a couple of things on my phone and animated the faces and so it was photo real as it was just easy to do and when I showed them the footage I realised that everyone got excited when these things come to life, these things that you know from walking around everyday suddenly become magical and that was the magic of it that you didn’t expect it. If they were cartoony and came to life you’d expect that, but not if a real city as you know it came to life then that’s magic. I wanted to keep that feeling, so that’s why we decided to keep it realistic.

How did the narrative develop over production?

There were a lot of changes, adjustments, improvements and small moments just to keep us emotionally with the umbrellas and so we would follow the story through, so we can empathise with the character. The biggest change we made was initially the city was just watching them, being happy and sad about them, depending on what happened to them, but at one point we realised they were probably friends, as they all come out when ever it rains, so they know each other and care about each other and if they care about each other the city would try and help blue, especially when blue falls into the traffic, and its really dangerous, they should try and help get him out of harms way and we came up with that idea during the production process, when we had some footage and looked through it we realised this doesn’t feel right, so that was probably the biggest change we added.

You mentioned before that city was meant to sing; can you explain why that changed?

Yeah, part of my pitch was that the city would become part of a Greek chorus in the beginning they would sing a song to celebrate the rain and as the umbrellas met, the song would change into a love song, and when the umbrella is lying in the side of the street it would change to a mourning song, with the Greek chorus in the background, which vocalises are feelings. Most of the way through production we thought this would work out, and at one point we finally had animation lip synced to the singing and we watched it together with John Lasseter and we realised that the city singing was such a astonishing thing it completely stole the show away from the main narrative, which was the love story between two umbrellas, every time you saw the umbrellas you wanted to see the city again. The core of the animation is the love story, so we had to tone down the city a bit, and that meant removing the city actually singing, we still have the same vocals really, its just it come out more metaphorical and not actually physically from the citys mouth.

How did you come into working in animation?

It was a sliding thing, in Germany when you graduate form normal high school you already have to pick two majors and two minors and I didn’t know what to do at the time, so I just picked whatever I liked, so my majors were math and art and my minors were computer science and philosophy, and I had no idea what to do with that it was just what I liked. Then I heard about the film academy here in Stuttgart which was well known for visual effects, so I thought that was a combination of arts and computer science and then I started studying there and I found out about animation, when Toy Story came out I thought this is even more amazing and so I followed what my heart told me would make me happy, so I started to discover I enjoyed creating animation, story telling and directing, it was a slow process over ten years but I just always followed what made me happy.

So what are you working on now?

Well now it’s a lot of going to conferences and showing The Blue Umbrella to people and answering their questions and talking about the production process, which is very exciting. I like talking to people and showing them the film, but I’m also working on a couple of ideas, helping out on a few films in the camera staging department, which I normally do on a day to day basis.

The Blue Umbrella will be screened before PIXARS new feature length Monsters University released on July 12, 2013

The official line from Disney

From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes “Big Hero 6,” an action comedy adventure about brilliant robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, who finds himself in the grips of a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. With the help of his closest companion—a robot named Baymax—Hiro joins forces with a reluctant team of first-time crime fighters on a mission to save their city. Inspired by the Marvel comics of the same name, and featuring comic-book style action and all the heart and humor audiences expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios, the CG-animated “Big Hero 6” hits US theaters in 3D on November 7, 2014.

BRIDGE TO SAN FRANSOKYO – Concept art showcases an iconic bridge and treasured landmark of the high-tech, fast-paced city of San Fransokyo, the setting for Walt Disney Animation Studios’ action comedy adventure “Big Hero 6”

SAN FRANSOKYO AT NIGHT – Pictured in concept art, the high-tech city of San Fransokyo is home to brilliant robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada and his team of first-time crime fighters in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ action comedy adventure “Big Hero 6”

The film looks to be based on the Marvel comic property of the same name.

Do you like the sound of this? Let us know in the comments section below!

This violent thriller explores the idea of justice through the burgeoning moral compasses of its young protagonists. In addition to showing the long-term effects of bullying, the film is a righteous attack on strict hierarchies, highlighting the emotional damage to those on the bottom. One particular scene sees Chul, his sense of justice rooted firmly in an unstable home life, concluding the only way to beat the ‘dogs’ is to “become more evil than them.”

Animation-wise there’s a visceral edge to the most of action. Students shake with fear, clench teeth in frustration, and wail with existential dread. Fights are brutal, usually short, with one classmate continuing the assault long after victory is assured, while cuts and bruises swell and stay long after fights come to an end.

Overall, King of Pigs is an engaging drama with plenty of themes to mull over long after its conclusion. Its a remarkably assured first feature from director Yeun Sang-ho and a great sign for both the future of Korean animation, and adult feature animation in general.

Some of the most memorable adverts from people’s childhoods will have been animated by young professionals who went on to great things. If you have ever watched a VHS you recorded years ago, it’s always the adverts in-between the film or show you taped that bring back the strongest feelings of nostalgia.

We at Skwigly wanted to look back at the partnership of these two mediums and see how it has developed by selecting a few examples from the history of animated advertising

Back in the early 1930’s, adverts were mainly live theatrical broadcasts that consisted of someone telling you to buy a product. Animation was mostly reserved for comic strips or short skits in the Nickel Odeon’s (movie theatres).

It wasn’t until the 1940’s that someone realized the amazing potential of art and animation within the advertising world.

‘What is the first animated advert?’ is a much debated subject. One of the oldest recorded animated adverts is a stop motion short advertising for donations to send matches to troops. It is named Matches an Appeal and was created by Arthur Melbourne-Copper. It utilized stop motion to illustrate a matchstick man spelling out the companies’ name. Not only is it considered the earliest advertisement, but perhaps even the earliest example of a fully animated film.

“Matches An Appeal” By Arthur Melbourne Cooper

It is crude by today’s standards but surprised and entertained audiences. No-one knows the exact date it was created but it dates somewhere around 1899. This advert was a rarity at the time. Animation was expensive and seen as impractical, so it unfortunately didn’t become a common thing.

Despite animation not having a big presence before the 1930’s, art had an extremely big influence on the advertising world.

The incredible illustration work being done by companies such as Coca Cola, who hired illustrator and artist Norman Rockwell to paint their ads between 1925 and 1939, are still to this day seen as pieces of modern art, with a predicted sale price of $500,000 if they were to go to auction .

Norman Rockwell made Coca Cola the icon it is today

Back in the 30’s, these beautiful adverts sold Coke’s product very effectively and showed that pictures could encourage a whole generation of teenagers to buy products. The advertisers could specify scenery and looks without paying a lot of money to change ideas. This also created the first forms of touch ups. While models would be hired to pose for the artist, illustrations allowed the artist to paint models with slightly longer legs, brighter eyes or even completely changing their hair colour.

Animation in advertising held the same potential. With the invention of television people were viewing advertising in a completely new way. The adverts were being shown in their homes and they were accessible to the whole family.

This new form of audience excited advertisers, and companies were more willing to spend money or take time to make their adverts stand out.

An important aspect of animation was that it could be done in so many different ways. Companies could create their own look and use their own medium.

Stop motion allowed advertisers to use the item they were selling to be the walking, talking or even dancing star of the show. This gave the product a personality of its own such as in the 1960’s stop motion advertisement for Nyquil.

Stop motion also allowed you to cheaply recreate and mock famous films or television of the time. A prijme example is the 1976 Chewit’s advert made by French Gold Abbott and created by John Clive and Ian Whapshot. The advert shows a Godzilla type creature rampaging through cities and eating famous landmarks. It was such a success that the sequel was delayed to give the advert a cult status. The advert allowed the confectionery company to cheaply and effectively satirize the work being done by Ray Harryhausen in cinemas.

Other famous animators that started in advertising include such greats as the 2D animator Eric Goldberg. After entering the animation world as an animator for Richard Williams, Goldberg decided to move to London and start his own London-based studio, Pizazz Pictures, with the intention of producing television commercials.

The mid 80’s Rolo advert that shows a person manipulating a hand drawn character was reminiscent of the 1953 Loony Tunes short Duck Amuck in which the animator annoys its character.

As animation became more and more popular there was a distinct shift in the way advertisers and animators worked together towards the end of the 90’s. Popular characters such as The Flintstones had been featured in adverts since the 1950’s when the modern stone-age family enjoyed a modern stone age cigarette in an age before anti smoking groups highlighted the health risks of smoking. Looking back at that time almost seems like the stone age, but animators were starting to be asked to create work in their style for companies. Advertisers would approach animators as they would approach certain actors asking them to create work specifically for them.

Even Fred Flintstone could be accused of having an old fashioned approach to advertising

This was the case for Nick Park who was approached by a UK electricity company after releasing Aardman’s animated short Creature Comforts in 1989. The popularity of the short led to toys, posters and even a television series over 10 years later.

Bill Plympton’s memorable Nik Naks advert, created in 1991, was commissioned after the company saw and liked his animated short Push comes to shove, which shows a violent ‘one up-manship’ between two men. This was a popular advert that led to t-shirts and computer games. The influence of animation on adverts had already started to change. Animation was now seen as a medium in its own right.

Advertising had not only kick-started many animator’s careers, it had also provided the building blocks for many studios we know today, the most notable of which being Pixar. As avid animation fans, I am sure many people reading this have already seen the work created by Pixar, but less people have seen the work created in 1992 for companies such as Listerine and Life Savers. This advertising work came to the company while they were trying to fund their own projects and allowed John Lasseter and his team to harness their skills and, most importantly, hire more people. Pete Doctor and Andrew Stanton were only hired as there was too much advertising work for John Lasseter to finish on his own. If it wasn’t for the advertising work that Pixar did the company may not have been able to complete the shorts such as Red’s Game that helped them on the way to fame.

As well as Pixar there are many other studios that supplemented their own work with advertising. Large companies such as The Mill, Framestore and Double Negative all started off creating adverts. These adverts were seen as leaps in technology and are impressive to watch even today. In the 1990’s, The Mill opened its doors to create adverts. It created many critically acclaimed advertisements such as the Levi’s Swimming advert in 1992.

These days, advertisement is still a big business. People have access to a huge range of multimedia in many formats. The companies that were chasing advertising contracts years ago are now being hunted down to create work. Advertising is such a big business that film directors and actors are also being commissioned to take part. The recent Coca Cola advert, which was co-produced by Tony and Ridley Scott, co-directed by Kung Fu Panda’s John Stevenson and created by Australian animation company Animal Logic, was a six minute story telling the origins of the Coca Cola polar bears. The scale of the work shows that advertising is no longer just a quick, cheap way to send a message.

Animation in advertising has become a thoughtful and interesting way to approach an idea. It allows companies to create the environment they want to portray for their product, even if those environments are purely fictitious.

Advertising and animation have now gone full circle. The surge in popularity for animation means that the films themselves are becoming vehicles to sell products. Product placement has infiltrated the animated world.

The 2006 DreamWorks animation ‘Over The Hedge’ was filled with references to products that people know and use today such as the ‘THX’ sound system, ‘Pringles’ and many more.

Over the Hedge

Animation and advertising definitely go hand in hand. One seems to pull the other to the next level. Both have become more integrated and less defined. It will be interesting to see where animation in advertising will lead and whether advertising will become an even bigger part of the computer games world. Games such Grand Theft Auto already incorporate adverts that update to the users individual tastes.

Perhaps it will provide a forum for unknown animators. With social media platforms such as Vimeo and Youtube, unknown animators can get their work seen much easier. If you get enough ‘likes’ and recognition then maybe people will catch the eye of advertisers.

Many companies such as Doritos and ‘Red Bull’ have already held ‘YouTube’ animation competitions to find their next advert.

If we look back through the adverts created since the early 30’s, it’s safe to say that animation techniques have been pushed further due to advertisers needs for inventive and creative work that stands out. Hopefully this will continue.

Fingers crossed, advertising will continue to get more ‘bums on seats’ in companies as well as create a lot more adverts that will both entertain and, of course, annoy us in equal measure (crazy frog, we are looking at you!).

When considering its place in the history of art, animation is very much in its infancy. A little over 113 years old, what once was a simple camera trick has become one of the dominating forces in entertainment today. Of course with it being such a relatively recent innovation its history can almost be traced through living memory, a handful of generations separate us from the first people to get behind a camera and make things move. It was the generation after those early animators that realised the potential of animation and translated its capability into pure wonder on the big screen. So it is with particular sadness that the news the passing of Ray Harryhausen, one of the greatest of these pioneers reached Skwigly.

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen was born in L.A on the 29^th June 1920. His celebrated career began when he saw King Kong at the age of 13 and soon after began making home movies, masks and all manner of creative things. He would work alongside Willis O’Brien the man who made King Kong move in 1949 on Mighty Joe Young. Between 1949 and his retirement from film making in 1981 he imagined, crafted and brought to life creatures from the dawn of time, ancient myth and from the furthest reaches of space. That spark of creative genius that he was first exposed to on his 13^th birthday is alive in all his own works as he took his inspiration from stop-motion and effects pioneers like O’Brien and advanced the field of visual effects and animation to what it has become today. Calling the man who made his own sets, models and rigs before animating whole scenes a pioneer is both fair and accurate.

His filmography comprises of some of the greatest special effects films ever created as well as some of the most memorable creatures (he never called them monsters, they were just misunderstood) from the Allosaurus in One Million Years B.C the terrifying stare of Medusa in Clash of the Titans and the army of Skeletons that battled both Jason in Jason and the Argonauts and Sinbad in The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad the fantasy the films of Harryhausen placed the audience in their own world of fantasy and inspired subsequent generations of film makers. Steven Speilberg, Nick Park, John Landis, Peter Jackson, James Cameron and many more all cite the Oscar winner as crucial to their own development as artists.

Although his work may be seen as dated by a few the appeal of his work can still be clearly seen today and the work of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation works towards preserving that appeal and protecting and restoring over 80 years worth of material. It is a struggle think of people who have advanced an art form quite so much as Ray Harryhausen, its easy to think of people who developed a new technique or film but to think of someone who took something that was still in its infancy and developed it to what we recognise today is extremely rare. In a 2005 interview he said of his own films;

“They were considered B pictures because they were made on a tight budget. But we outlived many of the A pictures made at the same time”

One hopes that the influence of Ray Harryhausen will continue to weave its inspirational magic and outlive us all.

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen. Born 29th June 1920, died 7th May 2013

Thank you for talking to Skwigly, First of could you tell us a little about your background? Have you always enjoyed animation?
For the most part of my life I have enjoyed and loved animation as a spectator, I became involved with film at 14 when I had the chance to work on a short film in my school, after which I became obsessed with film making and I ended up dropping out of ninth grade to start working as a grip here in Colombia. This took me on an amazing journey, learning whilst making films, as things started progressing I began to plan what would become 1881, the thing is animation never crossed my mind at that time.

What inspired the scenario of the film? Why red lights?

Originally we set out to do a short film called ¨Hamelin¨ which is currently in production and planed to release it in the second half of this year, this was the first project the University (our main investors) began supporting but down the road we saw the chance to take a project J.M had been working on since 2009 with co-director M.R. Horhager. The project was ready for production and we needed very little to make it happen so we took the project to CineColombia the biggest theatre chain in the country and sold it to them (in Colombia theatre chains are required by law to buy and show Colombian produced short films before movies) and half way down the road we also presented the project to the University and they loved it. All of this made the short possible.

The scenario and idea came from J.M. when he was living in Toronto several years ago he was late for a meeting and as usual he came across all the red lights up to a point where he imagined the light having a face and a personality so he could yell at them. This lead to a more complex idea about the things that tend to slow or stop you in life and how they have a reason to be there, he began to draw and ended up with Fred and the Red Light. Soon after M.R. came in and took the idea and all of the artwork J.M. had developed and wrote the script.

The live action “Disneyesque” parody is a nice addition to the film and really helped place it, is this why you decided to add it alongside the animation?

We love the intro and we were thrilled to be able to make that tribute to Walt Disney and Walter Lantz, and why we created it is actually a really cool story. Originally we never intended for that intro sequence but after we sold the short to CineColombia we found out it had to be at least 7 minutes long, at that time the film was only 5 minutes long.

We were too far ahead to back out and we didn’t want to, so we began thinking on how we could extend the short. Animation was not an option because of the budget and deadline, after a couple of days M.R. remembered something he once told J.M. while they were in Toronto, He said: ¨Maybe one day you will be like the Latin American Walt Disney¨ and he came up with this idea of making a live action intro just like the ones Disney used to make. At first it sounded a little crazy but then we saw the perfect opportunity to experiment with live action. I was able to go back to my live action days and directed that segment, we worked for almost two months to find the perfect location, the props and the clothes, we worked with an amazing cinematographer Luis Otero who was able to nail the look and feel and we shot the whole thing in a 35MM 1970′s Arri BL4 which made the whole thing look legit and the final result was amazing. Sometimes when we show the short and J.M. is in the room people don’t recognize him and some times people think we took the footage from an old industrial film or even a Disney movie and we love that because it means we did it right.

Co-director JM. Walter stars in the films opening.

The use of a 1950′s UPA style of animation is something you have all used in you previous works- what is it about this look you find so compelling?

We are suckers for this vintage look, and J.M. has a very strong connection with everything Retro in general, so the ideas based in that era and the artwork come very natural to him. We also believe that the strength of a movie doesn’t come from its technology or complexity but from its story and this is something we want to emphasize by doing projects where we can show the format (2D, 3D, STOP MOTION) works only when you have the right story .It´s not about the technology but how compelling you can make the final film.

Model sheet for Fred, the star of the short.

What equipment/software was used to create this animation?

Our animators did the whole thing in Photoshop and the final composition was done in After Effects, so you could say Photoshop is our pen and paper and After Effects our Multi Plane Camera. Even though we use technology as much as we can we have tried to keep the process as traditionally as possible so we can keep that beautiful animation look and feel. Our main goal is to make interesting stories regardless of the tools, we believe this is what matters the most so as long as you have a great story you will always find the best way and style to tell it.

How did the use of timing in order to create comedic effect factor into the overall production and narrative of the film?

This was the work of co-director M.R. Horhager who also wrote the script, he was very careful about timing he never went over the top with the jokes and was able to spread them perfectly trough the whole thing always improving the story, and this came in as great help for the production, he did an amazing animatic and we were able to do a very detailed breakdown of the whole thing which allowed us to optimize the production on every department.

A sample of the films storyboard.

The score and sound was another great feature in this film, Manuel Borda did a great job. How do you feel picking that tempo and type of sound helped define the mood of the animation?

This was a great part of the project, since all of the preproduction was done very early, the animatic had stock music, which worked well but it just wasn’t good enough, we wanted to be unique. So we came to Manuel who is an amazing composer and he started creating something that took the whole thing to another level it really completed the short. What we heard at that point was only a rough MIDI so we decided to make it even better and we put together a Big Band and recorded the whole thing live, we did it in tape so that it had that 50′s feel and this helped a huge amount in achieve that genuine 1950′s sound and more importantly it amplified the humour as the music was in perfect sync with the comedic timing.

This is the first animation from 1881 animation, can you tell us a little more about how the company was formed?

After 7 years working mostly in the Advertising industry a opportunity arouse, the local university The Corporacion Universitaria Republicana came to me for advice on creating a film school and we agreed the best way to do it was by producing high quality shorts to have a strong foundation. The thing was they wanted the shorts to be animated and this was completely unknown to me at the time and this is where my friend and partner J.M. Walter came in, he was one of the most creative and talented artist I knew and he would become my guide and mentor in the animation industry, we became a great team where he handles the creative spirit of the company and I handle all the business aspects.

And just over a year later the business couldn’t be better. ¨Red light¨ is our first project and it was a great experience we learned a lot and it has helped us shape the company in to what it is now.

IHYRL has been screened at Omaha film festival as well as Spokane and won the Canadian international film festival. How influential have you fund the festival circuit for this film and yourself(s)?

Very! It all started with the first screening we did in L.A. to qualify the short for the Academy Awards. We only made it to the long list but this helped spread the word around and we began to receive a lot of e-mails from several festivals and as we got in to more festivals we were getting more e-mails just a couple of days ago we were accepted at TAAFI witch means a lot to us because of our co-director Mathias and SOLIS our partner studio both based in Toronto, the festival circuit is a great opportunity to grow, and it has given us the opportunity to meet amazing people who are joining the company and our project to help us move forward. It also allows us to gain recognition and reputation, things you always need when you are first starting.

What’s next for 1881? More animation?

Certainly! Our plan from the start was to build an all format animation studio and we are on the right track. We are working on our second short: “Hamelin”, which will be released in September and we just finished the pilot of our first animated series “Don Quijote de la Lactea” a co-production with Mr.Valdemar (a Colombian content studio). Things are going great we are working on several developments and we have been in talks with a lot of possible partners worldwide to make them happen, our first partner SOLIS has been amazing and we love the co-production approach so we expect to keep building those kind of relationships with more people and studios, its a great way to make each project better. We will be making some announcements in the next few months that will showcase our roadmap for the next couple of years.

Since the release of Adobe CS6, the company has invested it’s energy into the cloud server system which other leading software giants, (Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Steam) see as the future. However, Whilst CS6 bridged the gap, offering much of the same in the physical disc bundles and continuing the CS line (with obvious major updates to its software). It would seem as of June 25^th, Adobe plans to push its Creative Cloud Service from an option, to a must have.  Creative Cloud will be updated to Creative Cloud (2) and Creative Suite will finish at 6. Some of Adobes language suggests the continuation of disc bundles; however, Adobe has not released information regarding physical copies of the next generation; CS7 will be replaced with Creative Cloud.

Creative Cloud will operate much like it does currently, a monthly subscription plan catering to your needs as well connecting the subscriber to the online community (which Adobe has bolstered), automatic updates and 100GB CC storage for your files. Creative cloud will still have desktop applications, however this next generation will rely more on networking, making it easier to back up your work, update and share online, with the added bonus which strengthens Adobes security.

Some of the desktop applications

The Adobe range is growing, however what does this specifically means for animators? Adobe has promised the next generation will enable online collaborations of projects, which must appeal to animators and freelancers providing whom you work with also has subscriptions to the Creative Cloud. New advanced ways to publish work, creating online portfolios (Behance ProSite), codeless integrated Websites (Adobe Edge) and even digital magazines for iPad using Digital Publishing Suite (DPS).

The updated Adobe Premiere Pro CC includes new editing features, customizations and improvements to workflow; Powerful colour systems, with the addition of the Lumetri™ Deep Color Engine, to easily apply rich colour grading looks to your sequences.

After Effects light

Adobe After Effects CC features a faster render time and some exciting new features for motion graphics and visual effects artists. With an added 3D Pipeline collaboration with Maxon Cinema4D! This new AE CC will be bundled with Cinema 4D light, and working much like the current ‘Mocha’ in the effects panel you can open the Cinema 4D light application to create simple 3D objects, which you can then import into AE. Your imported Cinema 4Dlite objects can be edited in AE after importing, by changing its settings in the effects bar once the Cinema 4Dlite effects has been mounted. If you are have a full copy of Cinema 4D, AE will open that instead of the light version.

As for the flagship Photoshop CC, the current announcements cater to photographers with new sharpening technologies and designer workflow upgrades. The updated Illustrator CC feels more appealing to the needs of digital artists with a new way of editing ‘type and vector’ designed for mouse, stylis and multi-touch hardware. A new feature also allows painting with a brush made from a photo! Art and Scatter brushes can contain imported raster images, so Designer can create complex organic designs quickly, with simple brush strokes.

Flash. A-aaaaa!

It’s still early days for the MAX conference and the new Adobe Creative Cloud. However the details are shaping up to be very exciting, opening a new wave of possibilities on the platform for Visual Artists and Animators. This could even open the doors, to online Animation studios. Animators will soon find out if every cloud has a silver lining

Micro Mayhem is utter hilarity, combined with an over-the-top story, all created in Stop-motion. The short, simple narrative, combined with toy cars, explosions, plasticine gore and a quaint hand-made touch revives how simple, appealing and effective stop-motion can be. What I enjoyed most about Micro Mayhem was the use of what looks like a custom rig to shoot the film on. Getting up-close to the wheels of the toy car, not only adds to the certain comedy of the film but really bought the film to life. It completely spoofs ridiculous action film car chases however with the use of toy cars adds a certain naïvety to it all. In all,  Micro Mayhem is a fantastic, hilarious and imaginative short film.

As well as Micro Mayhem, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios have been working hard and secretly to create a Stop-Motion Simpson’s couch gag which will be aired on May 12 on Fox. More information can be found on their blog

As you walk down the wide metropolitan streets of this industrial city you are quickly made aware of the ITF’s presence in the city – the bloated savannah animals that have been created by local animators from the Stuttgart academy of film were displayed on every building, sign and open space.

The festival prides itself on bringing something new and improved to its audience each year. The tricks for kids program was hosted mainly at the Mercedes Benz museum, featuring screenings and workshops aimed at introducing animation to children, explaining it and inspiring a new generation of fans. Even our good friend Shaun das schaf (that’s Shaun the sheep to you and me) made an appearance.

The event is centered around the open-air screen in the central platz of the city, which screens animation from morning till night. Recent feature length films are screened for free in the evening, including Tim Burtons Frankenweenie and Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians. It proved a great way to reach a mass audience, bringing animation out of the dark for everyone’s enjoyment.

The three main master classes this year were given by David Silverman (Director of episodes of The Simpsons and The Simpson movie), Bill Plympton (Cheatin’, Idiots and Angels) and Barry Purves (Tchaikovsky, Plume) all of which offered a unique insight into their working practices. Each led their presentation with their own quirky way of welcoming the crowd; Silverman played his tuba (as he did for the majority of the evenings at the festival). Plympton drew live, presented the new animation he’s developing, Tiffany The Whale: Death On The Run Way as well as showing a section of his new film Cheatin’ – even offering a free drawing to each member of the audience. Purves’s talk, titled ‘The Naked Animator’, offered an insight into his theories on art, animation and life – all discussed whilst wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Well, we Brits are known to be a bit eccentric!

As well as these informal master classes their other festival duties including the judging of various competition strands. Silverman talked and presented at the Animated Com Award, Plympton discussed his recent success with Kickstarter as part of a panel on crowdfunding, whereas Purves put together multiple screenings of his favorite stop-motion animation, which highlighted the historical focus of this year’s festival. The latter event included documentary screenings on the work of Joop Geesink (the Disney of Duivendrecht) and Ladislav Starewitch. In reaction to the recent success of stop motion at the Oscars there was also a section in the creepy midnight screening of horror/bizarre devoted to stop-motion films.

Another branch to the festival was the Crazy house competition; four teams of two from Denmark, Poland, Spain and Great Britain were given 48 hours to create an animation using the festival mascot Trixi – a multi-coloured wild horse. The teams could use any method of animation to create their films, which could be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Many competitors worked late into the night to create their films. The English team from Staffordshire created a stop-motion animation with puppets created before arriving in Stuttgart (nothing like being prepared). The finished animations were screened in the second cinema on the final day of the festival. The Best-of-Crazy-Horse-Session award went to the Spanish team of Antonio Jesus Busto Algarin and Martin Martinez Garcia.

This year the festival focused on the animated films of India, Africa and the Arab community, with specialist screenings from each.

Another great turnout was for studio talks of Blue Sky (Ice Age, Rio) which showcased the wonderful cinematography, layout and camera work of the soon to be released film Epic, demonstrating to a student-heavy community the principles of movement and how this area of production comes together. It was the talk of Stephen Neary (Dr. Breakfast), however, that really got the crowd going. He revealed his new short created at Blue Sky Umbrellacorn, a “loser unicorn” that finally finds his place in the world. The short was premiered here in Stuttgart, after which Neary went through in some detail the process of pitching within a company and THEN presented the film in all stages, all the time making clear he was working on this alongside the feature length production.

Pixar’s Blue Umbrella was also presented to a full audience; Saschika Unseld (originally form Germany, having studied at the film academy in Stuttgart) screened the beautiful new short, taking us through the process of its creation and development.

Further talks were given by leading experts and professionals in script writing, stereoscopic technology and digital puppetry, all aimed at expanding the knowledge of the basic principles and future of animation production.

As always the focus of these events are the screenings, none more so than the international program that opened the festiva and which continued throughout, demonstrating the breadth of talent throughout the global animation community.

The international program screened a huge variety of animation, starting with Head Over Heels (Tim Reckart). Other highlights from the international program were Oh Sheep, a student film from local animator Gottfried Mentor. The film appealed to the crowd’s dark humor, with multiple screenings over the six days. It shows two sheep herders that try to split their flock, with a funny but oddly gory outcome. Ussinuumaja or The Maggot Feeder (Priit Tender) was a mixed technique piece based on an ancient Chukchi folk tale. This was a visually exciting piece with an equally odd but captivating narrative. The 2D characters with photo pixelated, painted faces work through the twisted narrative and the boundary between real and characterized creatures is broken. Sleight of Hand (Michael Cusack) was another film that captured the imagination of the audience, clearly demonstrating the connection between the animator and his model. This premise strikes a chord with animators and enthusiasts alike, resonating with the common feeling that nothing is truly in our control. Other highlights from the various screenings were Slug Invasion (Morten Helgeland, Denmark), Stupid Monkey (Marlyn Spaaij, Netherlands) and Night of the Loving Dead (Anna Humphries, Great Britain) all extremely funny – twisted, dark humor seems to do very well here.

But it was Oh Willy (Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels) which won the audience over, screening multiple times during the festival and taking home the international prize. This moving stop motion piece is doing incredibly well on the festival circuit and rightly so.

Stuttgart truly offers a totally immersive animation world. This being my first big festival, and from talking to other young animators, it was clear that the festival staff made everyone very welcome and comfortable. The city itself was exciting and offered so much to see and do. This festival is really pushing itself to become one of the best in Europe.

Full list of Awards of the 20th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film

International Competition Grand Prix
15.000 Euro, sponsored by the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the City of Stuttgart
“OH WILLY…“
Belgium, France, The Netherlands 2011
Directors: Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels

Lotte Reiniger Promotion Award for Animated Film
10.000 Euro, sponsored by MFG Film Funding Baden-Wuerttemberg
“KARA NO TAMAGO” (A Wind Egg)
Japan 2012
Director: Ryo Okawara

SWR Audience Award
6.000 Euro
“JUNKYARD”
The Netherlands 2012
Director: Hisko Hulsing

Young Animation Award for the best student film
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Landesanstalt für Kommunikation Baden-Wuerttemberg (LfK) and MFG Film Funding Baden-Wuerttemberg
“EINE MURUL” (Breakfast on the Grass)
Estonia 2011
Directors: Erik Alunurm, Mari Pakkas, Mari Liis Rebane, Mihkel Reha

AniMovie Award for the best animated feature film
2.500 Euro, sponsored by RTL DISNEY Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG, SUPER RTL
“ERNEST & CÉLESTINE”
France, Belgium, Luxembourg 2012
Directors: Benjamin Renner, Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar

Tricks for Kids Award for the best children’s animated film
4.000 Euro, supported by Studio 100 Media GmbH
“SCHRECKEN OHNE ENDE” (Nearest and Dearest)
Germany 2012
Directors: Michael Sieber, Max Stöhr

Tricks for Kids Award for the best animated series for children
“ROY: FOOT FAT FIT“
Ireland 2012
Director: Alan Shannon

Cartoons for Teens Award for the best animated series, animes and cut scenes from computer games for youths
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Nippon Art GmbH and AV Visionen GmbH
“DER NOTFALL” (Déjà-moo)
Germany 2012
Directors: Stefan Müller

German Screenplay Award
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Telepool GmbH
“MOLLY MONSTER – DER FILM“
By John Chambers

Animated Fashion Award
2.000 Euro, sponsored by E. Breuninger GmbH
“FREITAG X-MAS MOVIES”
Switzerland 2012
Claudia Röthlin, Yves Gutjahr

German Voice Actor Award
2.500 Euro
RICK KAVANIAN, “Knight Rusty – Yesterday’s Hero Recycled“ (Knight Rusty)
Universum Film GmbH, Germany 2012

Animated Com Award – Awards for the best-applied animation in the fields of advertising, technology and spatial communication
Sponsored by Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Animation Media Cluster Region Stuttgart, Daimler AG, U.I. Lapp GmbH

Main prize
“THE REAL BEARS“
USA 2012
Director: Lucas Zanotto

Category Advertising
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Mackevision Medien Design GmbH
“MTV EMA 2012 OPENER“
Germany 2012
Director: Mate Steinforth,
Commissioner: VIMN MTV World Design Studios

Category Technology
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Animation Media Cluster Region Stuttgart
“MASS EFFECT 3 – TAKE EARTH BACK”
Hungary 2012
Director: Istvan Zorkoczy,
Commissioner: Electronic Arts/Bioware

Category Spatial Communication
“SWISS PAVILION EXPO YEOUSU: THE SOURCE – IT’S IN YOUR HANDS”
Switzerland 2012
Director: Marc Tamschick,
Commissioner: Präsenz Schweiz

Special Prize Mercedes-Benz Classic: Silver Arrows
2.500 Euro, sponsored by Daimler AG
“A RACERS SCETCHBOOK”
Germany 2013
Director: Falk Schuster

Special Prize Lapp Connected Award
2.500 Euro, sponsored by U.I. Lapp GmbH
“PINBALL“
Croatia 2012
Director: Darko Vidackovic

48h Animation Jam – Crazy Horse Session
“TRIXI’S CURIOSITY“
Antonio Jesús Busto Algarin, Martin Martínez Garcia (Spain)
In co-operation with M.A.R.K. 13, Landesanstalt für Kommunikation (LFK) and MFG Film Funding Baden-Wuerttemberg

Project Competition Animation Co-Production Forum Arab World (the countries of the Arab League) and the Caucasus region 2013 in cooperation with the Robert Bosch Stiftung
Nominated for the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung for International Cooperation
“WANDERLAND”
Lebanon/Germany
Sarah Kaskas and Michael Schwertel

“LI.LE”
Georgia
Natia Nikolashvili

A Boy and His Atom is the world smallest film. How small? Well it is created using atoms, those little blurring ball bearing-type things you see are the building blocks of everything around us. To give you an idea of scale, the secondary character the “ball” is made up of one single atom, while you or I are made up of roughly 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms (well, I might weigh one or two more than you, I’ve been getting fat recently). So you can see what an extraordinary achievement this is for science as well as for animation as every atom had to be moved individually to position itself for each frame.

The film itself puts you in mind of something by James Stewart Blackton or an 8 bit movie, as the character movement and the design is relatively simple. Obviously such a thing is quite forgivable considering the scale of the material! The film is made by IBM researchers as part of a wider initiative to create microscopic technology in an effort to reverse Moore’s law, building technology on an atomic scale and working up. A truly remarkable achievement brought to you by the wonder of science and the marvel of animation!

The making of

Find out more at IBM

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Presenting the twelfth episode of the Skwigly podcast! If you wish to get involved or have any topic you wish us to address in the next podcast then please get in touch with us on either Facebook or Twitter or by email at podcast [@] skwigly.co.uk or leave a comment below.
This episode features:

• Brian Cosgrove, co-founder of Cosgrove Hall (now Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick), the legendary studio responsible for such UK animation hits as Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and The Wind In The Willows.
• Kevin Shreck, director of The Persistence of Vision, a documentary of the oft-discussed Richard Williams passion project The Thief and The Cobbler.
• Thad Komorowski, animation archivist and author of Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorised Ren & Stimpy Story.
• Daniel Greaves of Tandem Films, Oscar-winning director of Manipulation, Flatworld and Little Things on the success of his recent Kickstarter campaign for Mr. Plastimime.

Plus musings on creativity, show cancellations, strange Disney developments and the glory days of the now-defunct LucasArts.

To be in with a chance to win The Art of Short Films 1 head on over to our Facebook page and get sharing!

For more information on our guests and their projects, click the links below:

•Brian Cosgrove

•Kevin Shreck

•Thad Komorowski

•Daniel Greaves

Presented by Steve Henderson and Ben Mitchell
Music by Wesley Allard and Ben Mitchell
Edited and produced by Ben Mitchell

Shaun first appeared in A Close Shave in 1995 before debuting his own series in 2007 developed by creator Nick Park with Richard Starzak and Oscar winners Alison Snowden and David Fine, Timmy Time featuring the series youngest cast member followed that and the slapstick antics of both the series have been popular throughout the world. STUDIOCANAL will co-produce the film alongside Aardman who will create the film in stop motion.

Not much has been released about the plot yet but this is what we have so far.

When Shaun’s mischief inadvertently leads to the Farmer being taken away from the farm, Shaun, Bitzer and the flock have to go into the big city to rescue him, setting the stage for an epic adventure.

Aardman animations and Durrell have joined forces to highlight the preservation of endangered species. The Lonely Dodo, a four minute short about a solitary Dodo who travels the world in search of love only to find his kind no longer around. The short is animated by Matt Walker and featuring the vocal talents of Stephen Fry and Alistair McGowan.

Discussing the project Aardman director Matthew Walker said: “It was a truly wonderful experience working with Durrell to create The Lonely Dodo. They gave us the freedom to produce what we hope is a funny and informative film, which is significantly enhanced by the exceptional vocal talents of Stephen Fry and Alistair McGowan. We really hope that it reaches the global audience it deserves!”

The Hispaniolan Solenodon, Pied Tamarin, Mountain Chicken Frog, Ploughshare Tortoise, Floreana Mockingbird and Pink Pigeon are presented as just a few of the other animals that Durrell aim to preserve. Since its formation over fifty years ago by author and naturalist Gerald Durrell, Durrell has developed a worldwide reputation for its pioneering conservation techniques.

Commenting on his involvement, actor and comedian Stephen Fry said: “We know that currently there are more species either in the process of becoming extinct or in grave danger of doing so, than ever before in the history of man. Stemming this otherwise inevitable flow towards the loss of nature and all that it provides requires engaging the next generation, I wholeheartedly support the work of Durrell as they aim to inspire young hearts and minds to empathise with, and thus care, for the plight of endangered species.”

Find out more on the Lonely Dodo website

So far the film has one both Ottawa’s Media Award and Grand Walt Disney award, Encounters Best British animation award and Montreal Best academic animation Award to name just a few. But this film is only just beginning to gain momentum with another 10 screenings due in April 2013.

Ainslie follows on from a long list of successful graduates from ECA. As well as his own success he also won a BAFTA with fellow ECA graduate Will Anderson for his work on The Making of Longbird.

Skwigly took the opportunity to sit down with Ainslie Henderson and discuss his film, his influences and his future.

Thank you for talking to Skwigly. Your most recent film I am Tom Moody has been very well received so far, you have had screenings all around the world including Ottawa What do you think it is about your film that has captivated both audiences and critics?

I think people like the honesty in the films I make, I came to being an animator by a very strange route, I was originally a songwriter before. I came to making animated films with a similar kind of sensibility that I had with songs, when I hear a good song it always has to have someone in it saying something about their life, that I really believe and is convincing, so I came to making films in a similar way. I don’t want to be impressed or existed or exhilarating but the most import things is that there is someone inside saying something about them elves.

I am Tom Moody appears to be a very intimate film, dealing with very personal issues. How important was telling this story for you?

I’m quite up and down as a person and I feel things very strongly. I have periods of being melancholic and then other times of feeling so excitedly happy, its hard to get things done when your up and down so much. There are definitely feelings in my head that are conflicting. I wanted a way of bringing all those things together and unifying them together in a film and a character- I wanted to cartoon those voices into Tom moody. So there is definitely bits of me in Tom.

I noticed Mackenzie Crook was the voice of Tom and Crook’s son Jude was used for young Tom, how did you get them involved?

I’ve know Mackenzie for around ten years or so, not terribly well just kind of being a friend and in touch, I’ve always admired him as an actor and found him very funny. I just like who he is and what he’s about. When I was writing this character of Tom I knew I needed someone that could play, parts of Tom that are deeply insecure and stuttering and awkward and then at the same time be really aggressive and domineering and have those two parts played really well. I’ve seen Mackenzie do both of those things, he has this character, he hasn’t done it for years, a geography teacher called Mr. Bagshot and the whole act is for him to stand in front of an audience in a stand up situation and basically be a shouting teacher, yelling at a class. It was just brilliant, that aggressive father part of Tom it was that performance of his that made me think that I would love him to voice Tom.

When I went to record it with him, I knew I still didn’t have anyone to be the son and I kind of sheepishly suggested, because I felt bad asking Jude to do it, and I didn’t know if he could do it, as I hadn’t seen Jude in a few years. But we got there and we just decided to do it. Jude absolutely amazed me so natural, Innocent but intense. The voice recording bit was done in Mackenzie’s spare room, because I didn’t want to take Jude to a recording studio as I thought that make him uncomfortable, so we just did it in the room in his house, and we made this little recording booth out of mattresses and duvets, like a den and we crawled inside with this one microphone and the two of them crowded around it and whispered into it. They recorded maybe three times, and each take was just lovely and as soon as I heard that recording I though we’ve captured that scene. That was one bit of the film I knew would work.

You studied at Edinburgh College of Art; what did you learn, and how have you applied it to I am Tom Moody?

Edinburgh is an odd school because they never give you “classes” in animation there was I few little classes in walk cycle or something like that, most of the time your left to figure out things by yourself and you lean off other students as much as you learn anything from the tutors. I learned to be self-reliant and to have my own motivation, they really let you do what you want to do, and you really have to figure out what you want to do. They don’t hold your hands. So I guess I’ve carried that on after leaving.

As you mentioned before you were originally a singer and songwriter; what made you become an animator, and how does your background in music influence your films?

I use to live in this mad commune, that had a pottery in the bottom of it and I got into making things out of clay. Then I got into making sculpture and I just adored sculpting characters, in my house I’ve got theses mad little ceramic creatures all dotted around. I saw a friend’s film called Solo Duets by Joseph Feltus it Is such a beautiful piece of work. I saw that and that is when I realised that Edinburgh College of Art had a good reputation for stop-motion animation and somewhere in my mind I always had this knowing that I was going to go and do a degree in stop-motion animation at some point in my life. And I think things came together, I turned 30, I loved making sculptures I saw this film by Joseph I knew I was going to do it somehow and it all just came together. I put a portfolio together, was accepted I went straight into second year, I didn’t do the first foundation year because I knew really clearly that I wanted to do animation and I wanted to do stop-motion.

And with music, the film was about music, but it’s interesting to me that there isn’t very much sound design. It’s kind of like the voice is the music of the film, I recorded all those voices first and edited them all before I started animating so I suppose that, when I’m animating the sound design is always in my head, often that leads me before the visual stuff arrives. And I suppose being a musician influence me in that way.

The making of film that accompanies ‘I am Tom Moody’ is fantastic, showing the highs and lows of a lengthy production, what was it like to create?

I didn’t really think about it at all. What you see in the making of is a tiny fraction of what I actually shot. When your in a little dark room for months and months it gets a pretty lonely, recording I’d just open photo both and just talk as a way of almost having a friend in there with me. So it was comforting, you start to form a funny relationship with the puppet it forms a personality I called on my friend Will Anderson, we do a lot of things together. I shot tons of stuff and kind of gave it all to Will to edit. To his credit he edited out all the stuff I thought was important; I went into loads of detail about the technical process I was doing and how it was shot and all of that stuff and he just threw all that away and focused on my mad emotional turmoil.

Can you give us some incite into the development of ideas, and following that into production?

I didn’t do a lot of story boarding for Tom, that’s something I’m learning now. With Tom I took a voice recorder, I walked around in the woods a lot, and I have streams of audio of me just ranting at this tape recorder being the two parts of his mind and playing. A lot of it came about in that way. I built the puppet early on. I was voicing these characters and I knew the way they looked, and so my storyboards were appalling and really embarrassing, and the animatic was so poor. On reflection, the film could have been better if I had focused on that a little bit more, when I watch it back I think it could be edited a little, be a little tighter.

I’ve started a new film, and we have been so pro-active in storyboarding and animatic- we’ve built the most beautiful animatic. It so slick and tight, it shows every shot really clearly, I think its something worth doing, and I’d have saved myself a bit of time.

As well as your success with your own film, you recently won a BAFTA award with your partner Will Anderson for The Making of Longbird. What was it like to work on that animation?

That was great he was in the year before me, he was in 4th year when I was in 3rd. In 3rd year I didn’t have much pressure on me I was kind of having fun and Will had all the pressure, and that’s how we met and got to know each other. He was making Longbird and I was just really taken with the idea and his spirit and energy, he’s a very bright funny guy, so just being around him is a pleasure. And he’s kind of contagious, you get caught up in what he does and I think he finds my ideas contagious as well, so if one of us has a good idea the other one muscles in on it. He was making Longbird and I was so taken with it, there was no real agreement, no ‘so you’ll do this’, we just talked about it. So we had a lot of conversation about Longbird, I helped in any way I could and Will very generously put me on as writer on the end. Which I was very grateful he did.

Ainslie Henderson (Left) and Will Anderson (Right) collect their BAFTA’s for The Making of Longbird

Can you tell us what’s next for you and your work?

Its stop-motion animation with live action spliced into it. It’s based on a real life psychologist called Harry Harlow who did a serious of experiments in the 50’s and 60’s called Monkey Love experiments. I’m interest in psychology so that’s why I know this guy, and he’s an incredible figure. He did his experiments, which were equally cruel and bizarre, but he profoundly changed the way we think about our connections with our parents and the ways we learn to love. So it’s set in Harry’s world, though Harry isn’t really a big part of it. Its focused on a monkey called Gandhi and it’s set in the time of the space landing. So it’s on the run up to this space launch mission, and Gandhi manages to convince himself that he is a monkey that is destined for space travel, when actually he is a monkey in Harry Harlow’s lab.

So that’s the story for Monkey Love Experiment, It’s kind of bizarre, because Tom is such a personal film, and I wanted to make something that was bit more universal. I wanted to make something about love, I knew that, and I wanted to explore what love is and what it means to people and how we learn to love and why we learn to love, and I thought by putting it in a monkey it makes it less particular to one individual and we can think of it more as a concept.

I’m working on this with Will and this is the first film that we have embarked on that we’ve both said were going to make this. I’m directing and animating it, Will is art direction and composting, we both wrote it so it’s a real collaboration on this one.

It will be a stop-motion monkey composted in a live set. It has to be finished by end of June, so it’s a tight deadline and we haven’t built the Monkey yet. It’s also our first funded film. We’ve been able to hire in puppet makers and such, suddenly there’s a sound engineer. And it’s a great learning curve.

Learning to allocate jobs is a different kind of stress, but I’m lucky because I’m working with really great people

I am Tom Moody has just been selected for the official Graduation film selection at this years Annecy festival. Lets see if Ainslie can follow in partner Will Anderson footsteps who won the same prize last year.

Scott works primarily with After Effects, Photoshop and Flash and his work has been screened internationally at festivals such as Pictoplasma and Annecy. You can find out more about Scott Bensons collaborative project, The Late Night Work Club here

Although the animated short film may not be acknowledged by the general public as much as it is by the animation and arts world, smaller films are becoming more successful through word of mouth, the internet and crowd funding. Even major television channels such as Channel Four still occasionally air short animated films. The Art of Short Films 1 is in itself a small project, the editor Morten Enevoldsen producing the book by gathering art and documentation of the films from the filmmakers themselves. He allows each artist to write their own chapters, describing in detail the process of making their films with artwork, background designs and storyboard contributions. Essentially it is a condensed directory of The Art of… books, for 31 short films.

Such books are mostly produced for larger animation companies like Disney, Dreamworks, Laika, Pixar and Studio Ghibli. The magic of seeing the professional work by these well-known companies is always exciting for any artist or animator. The smaller animators, however, are often untouched by publishers, with work posted to the internet having become the major source of animation art from larger and smaller productions which can sometimes remain completely unseen until the film is released.

The Art of Short Films 1 not only acknowledges the hard work and perseverance of the smaller underfunded animators, it allows the readers to explore a whole new dimension to the ‘making-of’ side of the film. As well as shedding light on the various stages and processes that animated short films go through, it also explores the extensive design and illustration work behind them; From production sketches to full renders of characters and backgrounds, all of which are fully inspiring to view.

As well as fantastic artwork, each film is packed with design notes, colour scripts et al, along with small introductions and notes about the process and how the film started, developed and bloomed into the final product from the animators and directors. The book also examines how – given these are smaller companies – they achieved what they did on the budgets they had, with means of funding ranging from animation film schools to festivals and government bodies.

The book remains unbiased between 2D, Stop-Motion, Hand-Drawn, 3D and Digital, promoting a colourful variety of wonderful short films. It is highly recommended to anyone venturing into the world of animation, makers of short indie films or even those working on high-end features who might be seeking something a little bit different from mainstream short films.

To find out more, visit the projects website theartofshortfilms.com or buy the book here.

Monday, 8th April, 2013: Former Managing Director of Chapman Entertainment and
Founder of Adrenalynn Entertainment, London, Greg Lynn (Fifi and the Flowertots, Roary
the Racing Car, Raa Raa the Noisy Little Lion) debuts at MIPTV his latest property, Airside
Andy – Lynn’s first preschool show since leaving Chapman.

Airside Andy is a brand new (52 x 10’) multi-platform preschool series that follows a lively
team of ground-based airport vehicles and their enthusiastic leader Andy. Featuring a mix
of stop frame and CGI animation, Airside Andy is being co-developed by Adrenalynn and
Technicolor Digital Productions. Adrenalynn is producing the stop frame in the UK, while
Technicolor is managing production design and CGI elements. The multi-platform property is
set to debut digitally this summer initially with a content-rich 2D gaming app, an eBook and
website promoted through a network of marketing partnerships.

Says Executive Producer Greg Lynn: “Over the last ten years I have produced four hugely
successful shows and built brands which have entertained children all over the world. I am
incredibly excited about Airside Andy, which is going to introduce children to the wonder
and excitement of travel through striking visuals, fantastic characters and great storytelling.”
He adds, “The idea is truly international, and I believe this will be my most successful show
yet.”

“Greg has a legacy of producing high quality, successful animated properties; and we are
thrilled to collaborate with him to bring his vision of Airside Andy to life,” comments Steven
Wendland, Vice President of Animation at Technicolor. “This property has a global appeal
that will resonate with kids everywhere, offering pure entertainment and fun, as well as a
solid educational foundation.”

Airside Andy is an action-packed dash behind-the-scenes at the airport or airside, revealing
the secret world and celebrating the characters who work together to keep the passengers
moving and the planes in the air. Andy, the Controller of Intercity Airport, is living out
his childhood dream, helped by his trusty sidekick Tilly and a team of busy little vehicles
including Trunk the tow truck, Cyclone the ground control vehicle and Stella the motorised
steps. Together they ensure that every day at the airport runs smoothly.

The property has an educational foundation firmly rooted in the STEM curriculum – Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. In particular the airport presents a context
to promote early mathematical concepts like being behind or ahead of time, sequences,
measuring and force.

Airside Andy was created by Robert Cooper and Peter Le Masurier. The series is executive
produced by Greg Lynn, directed by Tim Harper, and Davey Moore is lead writer. The
educational consultant is Brian Neish (Mr Maker, Waybuloo).

www.airsideandy.com

Mere moments before the HMV empire began crumbling to dust, I found myself idly twiddling with one of their in-store 3D GameBoy demos (DS, schmee-S – if it’s a Nintendo you hold, it’s a goddamn GameBoy). The game loaded up was New Super Mario Bros 2, which, like all Mario games, is the most fun a kid can have playing with a middle-aged mustachioed man without requiring therapy in their adulthood. The appeal of these games isn’t that hard to dissect, being fundamentally the same going back to those blocky NES years that were already dated by the early 90s childhood of an old piece of sh*t like me. While the majority of Mario titles that have been churned out over the last 30 years have maintained an inherent, addictive playability throughout, we as kids would occasionally get shafted with bizarre crossover games and, unforgivably, educational titles where it would gradually dawn on our poor brains that a game we were assured was a Mario-centric time-travel escapade was in fact a thinly-veiled attempt to teach us history. Really all it taught us was the concept of betrayal, which I suppose is just as important.

Strangely, some of these not-quite-Mario games work in their own right. To this day old Gameboy chestnuts such as Dr. Mario and Mario Golf can keep me occupied for all but the most troublesome of bowel movements. Naturally though, Mario works best when he’s going down pipes, flying about the place and stomping turtles, all to serve his deep-rooted messiah complex/fixation toward a dippy princess who, once rescued for the billionth time, gives him a peck on the cheek for his troubles. Then presumably hooks up with her tall, thin boyfriend who she conveniently chose to not bring up until the final lizard monster was slain. In that respect, Mario’s a terrible role model for the youth – he’s the face of every poor schmuck trapped in the ‘friend zone’. Here’s a free power up in the form of some advice, mate – neediness is a turn-off.

While the established Mario universe and current state of video game graphics make it not too hard to envision a Mario movie or TV show, back when I was a youngster it was all a lot more vague (“Are Toadstool, Peach and Daisy all meant to be the same princess? Who cares! We’re eight!”). Any attempts to put on screen a non-playable narrative Mario adventure were, to the best of my knowledge, firmly demolished by Super Mario Bros. The Movie, a not-quite-anything headf*ck where Mario is Eddie Valiant and King Koopa is a less-rapey, PG-13 Frank Booth. My take on this film is of the ambivalent nostalgia variety; I adore it, yet acknowledge it could be the worst film ever made. Although I’d maintain that Bob Hoskins was a perfect live-action Mario, albeit in much the same way John Goodman was a perfect live-action Fred Flintstone – it doesn’t matter when the movies crafted around them make no effort whatsoever.

The look of a man who just realised what film he’s in

Similarly, the larger-than-life wrestler Captain Lou Albano seemed a pretty close fit in the preceding, more successful TV series The Super Mario Bros. Super Show that began in 1989. Both performers nailed a quality of Mario we all just assumed but evaporated the moment he began to speak in the video games – I’m sorry, but Charles Martinet’s cartooney, effete Sicilian whine never did it for me. As far as I’m concerned, Mario’s an Italian in the Tony Soprano sense. Brooklyn, born and raised, knows the best place to get a calzone, good guy to know but get on his bad side and, oof, Madonn’, you wind up with a wrench in the teeth. The kind of Mario who gets the princess in the end, or at the very least gets a crack at her less-photogenic friend when the bar closes. When I compare that image of the man to today’s “Let’s-ah go!” nonsense I get acid reflux.

This needlessly labored, meandering lead-in could very well run away from me further, so I’ll knock it on the head now and get on with the point of the piece, that being the series itself. It’s a peculiar beast, somewhat shambolic but in a far more forgivable sense than the eventual movie. Each show is comprised of two stories, an animated episode bookended by live-action segments. More on those later.

The cartoon portions are probably the stronger – they aren’t side-splittingly funny, nor are they especially horrendous. In fact, they’re so atypically conceived that it’s kind of hard to categorise them. The binding premise is a sort of fusion of the original NES game combined with the non-Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2 (y’know, the one where you throw vegetables at everything), the main quality of the latter having the four leads be Mario, Luigi (his brother), Toad (the indeterminate mushroom thing) and the princess, who largely manages to abstain from getting herself kidnapped. Peripheral characters largely draw on game villains from both, the main antihero being King Koopa (Bowser in the games). So with an ensemble in place, how does one adapt a video game that essentially boils down to jumping on things, climbing vines and snuffling down ‘shrooms to episodic storytelling?

The answer: You acknowledge it’s impossible and don’t bother. Instead the main thrust of each episode relies on parodying existing movies, TV shows and fables. While this seems lazy written down, it’s worth noting that this show came well before the common practice of doing so that The Simpsons, The Critic, South Park, Family Guy et al made so prevalent. What you wind up with is a largely watchable collection of silly mini-adventures whose worst crime is occasionally succumbing to tedium. “Oh, okay. Mario’s Crocodile Dundee in this one. Righty-ho.”

The live-action segments operate on an entirely different wavelength – they are utterly goddamn baffling, seeing Mario and Luigi (played by their cartoon voiceover actors, the aforementioned Albano and Danny Wells respectively) in what may or may not be their ‘retirement’ years, with no reference to the video game adventures. Instead they embark on surreal, variety-show type skits, interactions with Young Ones-style puppets and ushering in guest stars who are forced, glassy-eyed, to yell “DO THE MARIO!” at the end of each episode as though facing a firing squad. The cherry on top is a laugh track that rears its head at completely random moments, cultivating a vaguely sinister atmosphere not a million miles away from David Lynch’s Rabbits.

“Why, Nicole?”

In truth I have far greater respect for the guests who sportingly get into the lunacy of it all, though there are moments where you feel like a kid who walked downstairs to find your parents doing something you weren’t supposed to see. The first episode, for example, begins with special guest Nicole Eggert (I don’t know either) suffering mishap after mishap and winding up looking a stained, disheveled mess for the party she’s en-route to. The resolution, it turns out, is that it’s a “Sloppy party” and the worse she looks, the better! Hurrah! Naturally, the episode ends with Mario and Luigi smearing food all over her to prepare her further while she writhes in gleeful ecstasy.

Much as that sounds like a Cocodamol-induced fever dream, I swear it’s exactly what happens. It’s ON the DVD.

“Mum, what’s a ‘sloppy party’?”
“Go to your room, Ben.”

This is the largely-unchanging format of volumes 1 and 2. Then follows a significant reworking of the show, changing the title to The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 and basing the premise entirely on that game and its characters. From this point on each episode consists of two animated stories, eliminating the live-action segments and, with them, Albano and Wells. I’m not sure who replaces them but Mario starts to sound vaguely like Vic Mackey from The Shield. I start to feel anxious that he’ll bring up horrendously inappropriate comparisons to sweet butter.

This version of the show has a lot less charm, which is unfortunate as the game on which it’s based is a landmark in videogame history. At this point there is more of a concerted effort to derive the stories and the action from specific elements of the game, glued together with terrible dialogue I recall cringing at even in my youth and musical numbers that make my teeth itch. Though the presences of Tara Strong and Harvey Atkin are welcome, the remaining voice cast have pretty much been directed to be as shrill and obnoxious as possible. I’m too old for that now, I can’t deal.

There was a further development of the show, this time based on the first SNES offering Super Mario World paired up with another Nintendo-based series Captain N, but my memories of this venture haven’t seen me rush out to track down the set. What I mainly recall is how the addition of Yoshi, while a boon to the games, was an utter death-knell to the series.

While there’s little-to-nil point in critiquing a show that was probably developed to boost sales of games whose sales didn’t need boosting in the first place, I’m somewhat fascinated from a development perspective. The most intriguing inclusions in these sets are the series bibles that do a far better job of laying out the show and its intent than the end product actually achieves.

I’ll probably always be a Mario fan, squeaky-voice or no. The strangely hypnotic repetition of it, the puzzles that are easy to solve but make one feel smart anyway, the satisfying squelch of a Goomba underfoot – they all put me in a good place. It would just be nice if they made a game where the princess throws the poor bastard a mercy one – think of the children, for chrissakes. At least the Bob Hoskins Mario had himself a nice Brooklyn cumare who was more in his league. But then, he didn’t have the awesome dance moves of Captain Lou. On a closing note, everyone see if you can keep up with this iconic demonstration of “The Mario”. The “take one step” part is easy, but the “then again” bit may throw ya:

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show Volumes 1 & 2 and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 are available on DVD in the US through Shout! Factory