Hallo.
In the midst of my sleep last night Raj phoned me! Woke me up and preceded to blabber on to me about his wonderous life in Dubai, whilst he drove home. I can't even remember what we talked about. Twas lovely to hear his happy voice though.

News is: the animation festival was really inspiring! (Although I missed quite alot as I was feeling poorly.) Will write some festival thoughts on the weekend.
Truly ruly I am busy. I wants to write a little about some animated Crabs, Windyness, and... Priit. (Wants??? Thats a bit Gollum: me wants it!)
Today I finished animating some convicts at Stowaways... it has been most pleasing - nope they're not perfect...they have virtually no bodily manouvres, just some teethy lipsync that almost syncs. I threw in a couple of "mad-eye" expressions that seemed to add to the whole convicitty feel.
I am finishing off a comic right now...um... just waiting 'till the room has warmed up a little more before I get stuck into it.
Also news, I received a package from the Style File yesterday. They returned the selection of work I sent to them in April. Lo and Behold they are keen to include 4 of my illustrations on their "whos-cool-in-illustration" website. This could be a good thing...I think.
Brrr what a chilly day.
Goodbye.

look at the little bloke go!


Moomintrolls




by Tove Jansson




Elephant Gingham by
Geoffrey Ricardo

fix

More Superhero animation today, if I have time. I saw a bunch at ACMI on Saturday afternoon. Quite an eclectic mix of animations all pertaining to the Superhero theme, including a few moody/reflective pieces. There were some lovely hand drawn animations, one was (Japanese) called Superman. This superhero was a little too filled with hana misu for my liking.




(
something new



How I need to redesign my site....tch tch. Fix is more like it.

Around the corner is the Melbourne International Animation Festival.

They are screening Nibbles by Chris Hinton, and also Steven Woloshen's latest, Snip!
Nibbles has a fabulous skeleton-dance at the end, which I no doubt raved about in one of my earlier blog entries. Cameras Take Five an animation by Woloshen, screened in the MIAF festival last year, featured heavily in my research project " Improvisation in Animation". Woloshen's work houses an honest time-based expression of the relationship between mark-making and sound. I am passionate about his work as I sense a real affinity between his work and the ideas and processes that I have worked with in many of my paintings and etchings. It'll be interesting to see his latest. On that note I'm also curious about the VJ aspect of the MIAF festival Remains to be seen.


One was reading an article on Garth Paine in Realtime (mag) the other morning whilst shoveling eggs down one's gob, and lo and behold.. "Garth Paine is also concentrating on live performance, experimenting with using a Wacom Graphics tablet as a musical interface." . MM interesting.

Sadly no Evert de Beijer, no Dumala, nor is there any Daniel Guyonnet!
Perhaps I have missed previous years screening of these animator's work?? Yes...I think We are immortal by Guyonnet was screened in 2000...sigh




Piotr Dumala
Perhaps they'll do a Paul Driessen special instead of Bill Plympton's Hair High...which has been pulled from the festival. (?)



I have seen a snippet of Priit Parn's animation Karl and Marilyn...and can't wait.

by Priit Parn


It is so nice to see animation which houses the idea in the mark (of the pencil) as well as in the whole (story,style,script,etc). 2D or not 2D by Paul Driessen is one that comes to mind. There's a certain authenticity which whispers secretly from the drawn line out to the audience/viewer. Perhaps unheard. Experienced nonetheless.

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother you should be stayin' alive, stayin' alive...

New animation extravaganza on Al MacInnes site