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Man in a Cat picked out by Sight & Sound magazine

Posted on January 12, 2012 by in Animation, Man In A Cat

sight-and-sound-logo

It’s been a busy old news week, hasn’t it? So busy that we forgot to mention that All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat) had been picked out by Sight & Sound magazine in it’s top-nine films at the London Short Film Festival, which is more than nice of them.

Here’s what Sight & Sound‘s Dylan Cave had to say about the film:

The festival opens with this weird hand-drawn animation about a tiny man who lives inside a stray cat. The cat is given shelter by a lonely young woman and the little man inside immediately falls in love with her, making plans to leave his feline home. An original, cheeky, and surprisingly coherent piece.

That’s right, “surprisingly coherent”. Louis says he wants that on his gravestone and I may hold him to it. And just so you know they’re not any old jokers:

Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today.

So there.

We’re going to be at the London Short Film Festival awards ceremony on Sunday 15th Jan so if you’re going to be there too say hello!

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Shortlisted for Best Comedy Short at London Short Film Festival

Posted on January 10, 2012 by in Animation, Man In A Cat

In more awards news All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat) has been shortlisted for the LoCo Award for Best Comedy Short at the 9th London Short Film Festival. We’re in the top three alongside Tequila (dir Jon Drever) and Tumult (dir Johnny Barrington).

The winning film will screen as LoCo’s Discovery Short, highlighting the best new talent at the London Comedy Film Festival, at the BFI Southbank in January 2012. The winning filmmaker will also receive a free place on their LoCollege course ‘Kickstart Your Comedy Career’, worth £100. Thanks to LoCo.

Here’s hoping, eh? We’ll be at the awards do on Sunday 15th Jan at the ICA so if you’re going along say hello! We’re @Ravonski and @Louishudson on the Twitters.

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Shortlisted for the British Animation Awards

Posted on January 9, 2012 by in Animation, Man In A Cat

man in a cat british animation awards shortlist

All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat) has been shortlisted in the Best Short Film category at the British Animation Awards. Woo!

The British Animation Awards is a totally unique event: the only one that brings together all the key players, and emerging and established talent, from the many and varied sectors of the UK animation scene, for an evening that is very different – and we think rather more fun! – than most Awards events.

The BAA shortlisted entries will be seen by the main jury in mid-January, who will decide on three finalists and a winner and it’s very exciting to be in the mix.

The film is also in programme three of the BAA Public Choice awards

The Public Choice Programme offers you – the audience – the chance to select your favourite films from a fantastic range of animation films made over the past two years.Three programmes containing a mix of animated shorts, music videos and commercials are screening at 21 venues across the UK.

So if you see the film out and about give us a vote! You can see the venues and screening dates for the Public Choice awards here.

Wish us luck!

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Merry Christmas From Them

Posted on December 29, 2011 by in Animation

December got silly busy very quickly, so we didn’t have a chance to make you a jolly Christmas greeting. Instead, here’s a new Christmas card I designed and animated for Danish company, Go’Proces. They provided the script, which I’m not sure even makes sense in Danish.

In other news I’ve been busy directing/animating a nice little video for Oxfam with Matt & Vince and Infinite Wisdom over the last few weeks. More to come on that soon.

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Bob Mortimer vs Charlie Higson

Posted on November 30, 2011 by in Mucking About

Bob Mortimer had a no-holds-barred, prison-style fight with Charlie Higson on Twitter. Here’s how it went down…

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Best of ABP 2011 L.A. Screening

Posted on November 27, 2011 by in Events, Man In A Cat

Man In A Cat has its first Los Angeles showing at around 1.30pm, Sunday 4th December at The Silent Movie Theatre. It’ll be screening just before ABP’s L.A. Draw: Los Angeles Animators Panel and Brunch which is at 2pm.

The event is part of Cinefamily’s Animation Breakdown 2011 Festival which is being co-hosted by Animation Block Party and Cartoon Brew. Man In A Cat is there as part of ABP’s ’Best Of…’ selection.

The screening looks like loads of fun, being a showcase of exciting LA-based animators and including a panel discussion with animators from Adventure Time and The Life And Times Of Tim. I really like that Man In A Cat has a chance to stand out on its own before such a great show, rather than being hidden in the main Best of ABP screening. Normal festival screenings are great, but every one we’re at gets overshadowed by festival sweepers Eagleman Stag and/or A Morning Stroll.

The whole of Animation Breakdown looks great. There’s an overall Polish theme, a personal appearance from Don Hertzfeldt to complete his “Bill” Trilogy, and a host of lost Walt Disney silent Laugh-O-Grams compiled by Jerry Beck.

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Man In A Cat’s First Award

Posted on November 18, 2011 by in Awards, Man In A Cat

Hoorah! Man In A Cat won ‘Best Story’ at Multivision. It’s encouraging to see a festival recognising the importance of story and listing it directly below the Grand Prix winner, particularly in light of this article by James Moran pointing out how writers are sidelined in awards such as the BAFTAs.

It was especially pleasing as I found out about the prize on my way back from the Alcine Film Festival where I had presented the film. It was only until after winning the award that I realised I had talked as much about the story as much as I had about the technique.

Here’s our prize:

*Update*… and here’s the certificate.

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Things in a Thing

Posted on November 12, 2011 by in Man In A Cat

Here’s some of my points of reference when thinking about little people inside things for Man In A Cat. People always seem thrown by the premise but we had to avoid loads of cliches. Maybe we actually succeeded and that’s why people still think it’s weird.

Here’s the music video for Baddest Ruffest by Backyard Dog, directed by Dawn Shadforth:

The Numskulls were one of my favourite Beano strips behind Calamity James. I like the complex bungled logic of explaining the mechanics of everyday things.

We went to pains to avoid any Borrowers comparisons, which means it influenced us as much as the opposite. Ian Holmes was even one of the voices I imagined for Yorkie. That wouldn’t have drawn comparisons AT ALL. Actually that would have been an interesting pitch. “Remember your character? Well he never crawled out a bum hole did he?”

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Fun With Subtitles

Posted on November 10, 2011 by in Mucking About

I tried out YouTube’s ‘transcribe audio’ feature on Touching Bum and was pleasantly surprised to find out the sketch is actually a political thriller entitled Touching Phone which explores surrealism at the centre of the clash between social decay and globalisation.




 

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Merry Spookmas

Posted on October 31, 2011 by in Drawings, Mucking About

Here’s Dracula forgetting he’s got a garlic allergy.

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