Recently I had fun animating laser eyes and compositing exploding melons for BBC Three’s second series of Big Field. The latest series chops up dialogue from TV programmes and interprets them in a silly way with actors in a big field. The series is created by Darren Dutton and Jonny Roberts.
The sketch I worked on blends up Judge Rinder into a laser shooting, moron hating, tap pervert. You can watch the rest of the sketches on YouTube or check them out on the BBC iPlayer.
After finishing DuckManBoy, and other projects we can’t chat about yet, we thought it was time to finally make a showreel. It’s also been about 5 years since starting production on Man In A Cat. Since then we’ve created stuff for Channel 4, Nickelodeon, BBC Comedy and Oxfam, and worked with some amazing people in the process.
That was fun. Everything is with Italian 60’s Pop.
It’s also been 6 years since my last freelance reel, so it’s nice finally showing off what I’ve done for other people between our Dice work. More Italian 60’s Pop:
We’ve also got a new website design and silly Dice ident to suit us better. We’ve always had an awkward relationship with the formality of ‘Dice Productions’. It’s like an embarrassing band name that’s too late to shake off. So, instead of starting again we’re styling it out with a silly rubbery neck, yellow paint, and a slide whistle.
We live in Birmingham. So the good people at Birmingham Living Magazine asked to interview us about us and our films. Ian spilled the beans here.
This is a nice quote from it too:
They draw from a fine tradition of British comedy, from the Two Ronnies and Monty Python through to alternative stand-up and in your face toilet humour like Bottom.
Nice. You can read the full interview at Birmingham Living.
We had a great time at the London Comedy Film Festival. LOCO’s only just finished its second year but it has the slickness of an established veteran festival. As well having a packed programme there’s a friendly buzz about the entire time, making it a pleasure to mingle and chat to anybody.
We had the honour of judging and presenting the LOCO Discovery Short Award. Our agenda was based on how strong the entries were as “films” as well as how funny they were. That’s an almost impossible balance to strike so we had a huge amount of respect for everyone who made the shortlist. In the end Tooty’s Wedding was the winner.
Here’s us on stage with Ben Thompson (Executive Producer), LOCO’s Denise Hicks, Ben Willbond (Producer/Writer/Actor), Fred Casella (Producer/Director), and a plate.
Here’s the trailer for Tooty’s Wedding:
Earlier on in the week I also went along to a preview screening and Q&A of A Liar’s Autobiography. The film is a sweet animated tribute to Graham Chapman, voiced by the late-parrot himself, along with most of the Python crew. As far as I know it is the biggest animation collaboration of its kind for a feature film.
There’s more details about the making of at ProjectChapman3D.com. We’ve also managed to help organise a Liar’s Autobiography event as part of the Flatpack Festival. More details this way.
We had a great year in 2012, so we thought it would be a good idea to look back on some of the things that happened for us at Dice Productions but also to look forward and provide a preview of things to come from us this year. Let’s kick things of with the best of 2012 in our world of comedy, film, writing and animation…
Our short animated comedy All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat) starring Kevin Eldon, Josie Long and Isabel Fay came into its own this year and did wonders on the festival circuit. It screened at over 40 festivals worldwide, winning prizes and accolades including:
Man in a Cat was also finalist at the British Animation Awards for the Best Short Film and Public Choice awards, finalist in Shooting People’s Film of the Month competition, and got a prestigious Staff Pick from Vimeo. The film also gained two distribution deals, through Magnet Film and Future Shorts, and was picked up by MTV’s Liquid Television in the US.
The exciting piece of news of 2012 was that we were commissioned by Channel 4’s Random Acts to make a new short film called Don’t Fear Death for the telly. It’s an animated comedy about the benefits of death. It’s a little twisted. We’re currently preparing and are just confirming our voice talent (which is incredibly exciting), so hopefully we’ll be adding some production notes to the blog soon.
We worked on some great projects with some cool people including:
We also made a couple of things to amuse ourselves including this sketch called Lady Mail Man:
2013 is looking set to be an exciting year as production mode for Don’t Fear Death, our first solo TV commission, is already winding up. The film is due to air on Channel 4 later in the year before landing online, so we’ll keep you posted.
We’re judging the London Comedy Film Festival shorts competition in January and sometime after that we’ll be watching Anna & Katy on Channel 4, not just for the small, animated segments we made for it, but because it’s hilarious. We’ve seen the first two episodes and it’s smashing.
As well as working on several new animation projects and hopefully more TV, we’ll be making more short and snappy animations and sketches for our YouTube Channel and our own amusement (something we didn’t do enough of last year).
We’ve also got quite a few scripts up our sleeves too (it’s where we keep them) which we’ll be looking to get either produced or developed this year. We’ve got a sitcom, a live-action short, an animated series or two, and lots of sketches and new ideas to bring to life, so the backlog is certainly very healthy. If you want to talk to us about any or all of them, get in touch!
Finally, we’re on the look-out for representation, so if you’re an agent, or can recommend a good one for writing and/or directing, again, get in touch.
Remember, you can follow @DiceProductions on Twitter, like Dice on Facebook, and subscribe to our videos on YouTube and Vimeo.
Have a wonderful new year from Dice Productions, from Louis and Ian.
Having been super excited to be nominated, it’s with even more excitement that we can announce that All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat) took home the LoCo award for Best Comedy Short at the 9th London Short Film Festival! The film will now screen as LoCo Film Festival’s Discovery Short before its Discovery feature film at the BFI. Here’s me, Louis, and Denise from the London Comedy Film Festival with the shiny prize:
It was a lovely surprise to have won and it really justifies the hard work of everyone involved in getting the film made, especially Louis who put more into Man in a Cat than anyone. Obvious thanks go to the festival for selecting the film, and LoCo Film Festival for selecting us as winner in our category. We couldn’t have done it without the backing of UK Film Council, Screen WM, and producer Jon Petrie who helped to secure our awesome voice cast of Kevin Eldon, Josie Long, and Isabel Fay.
It’s great that LSFF even had a comedy award in the programme. Most festivals don’t so it’s brilliant to be recognised for making a funny film when that is what we set out to do. Now we need to decide what to do next, so that’ll be fun. You can see all the shortlisted films and winners on the LSFF website.
Man In A Cat is keeping itself busy over the next couple of months. It’s also had early confirmation that it’ll be competing in the British Animation Awards!
I was also informed that we would have got into BFI’s London Film Festival if it had been a London premiere. OH WELL. Here’s the upcoming festival list as it stands:
Foyle Film Festival – Derry, N. Ireland – 23-27/11/2011 (BAFTA accr.)
Bristol Encounters – Bristol, UK – 16 & 20/11/2011 (BAFTA, EFA, Oscar accr.)
Interfilm Berlin – Berlin, Germany – 15-20/11/2011
Alcine – Alcine, Spain – 12-18/11/2011
Kerry Film Festival – Tralee, Ireland – 29/10-5/11/2011
Flip Festival – Wolverhampton, UK – 29/10/2011
Curta Cinema – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 28/10-6/11/2011
Banjaluka – Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina – 23-28/10/2011
IFF Molodist – Kyiv, Ukraine – 22-30/10/2011
La Boca Del Lobo – Madrid, Spain – 19-30/10/2011
Belo Horizonte Int. Short Film Festival – Belo Horizonte, Brazil – 14-23/10/2011
Vilnius Film Shorts – Vilnius, Lithuania – 13-16/10/2011
As for festivals that I’ll be attending, I’ll be flying over to Alcine, near Madrid, which should be a treat.
In the same week Ian and I will be heading down to Bristol for Animated Encounters for a mingle and the awards ceremony. It’s a particular pleasure to be part of Encounters as it is BAFTA, EFA and Oscar accredited! That’s what I call accredited.
In a couple of weeks we’ll also be bigging it up in Wolverhampton for FLIP Festival, which will be featuring the incredible Oscar winning indy animator, Bill Plympton.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that we made an appearance at Vilnius Film Shorts‘ opening night. Keep an eye out for the bear. The bear’s amazing.
We ran Popcorn Comedy at Leeds and Reading this year and it was a blast. Carly Smallman and Jonni Music (aka Thomas Nelstrop) were our acts, with Carly doing an incredible job as compere.
We were a bit apprehensive at first about our slots of 12pm and 11.30am, but they turned out to be the perfect times. Hungover festival goers had enough time to stumble over to the tent and we were early enough not to be competing against the noise of the other tents. The relatively pleasant weather meant everyone who came to the tent were really positive about being there, rather than just to shelter from the rain. We’re still pumped from Buttery Biscuit Bass.
We’re not 100% sure when our next Birmingham Popcorn will be but check out the Facebook group for future notice. Meanwhile, here’s some snaps:
Great crowd in Leeds
Worst seat in the house.
Vin Deisel having the worst day ever.
We’ve been selected to be in competition at the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, and it’s BAFTA accredited! It’s extra nice as they are the first festival to reply, so fingers crossed this 100% trend carries through (it won’t).
See the full Animation line up here: http://sohoshorts.wordpress.com/rssf-2011-official-selection-2/
We’re up against the big kids too, with BAFTA winning Eagleman Stag, Aardman, Baby Cow, BBC, Studio AKA, and Scottish BAFTA nominated Fixing Luka all being in the mix. Two of those were on the same UKFC funding scheme as Man In A Cat, so HIGH FIVES! It’s also pretty cool that we’re the featured image for the category.
Here’s the details of the screenings:
Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Saturday, 23 July 15.30 ICA – Cinema 1
Tuesday, 26 July 17.30 ICA – Cinema 2
Here’s the program for the Animation Category:
Joseph Gammie from Skwigly did a pretty comprehensive interview with me about Man In A Cat. Read it HERE.
Skwigly’s pretty new on the block, and they do some really nice scratching-below-the-surface animation articles. Definitely worth a read.