Animation Forum WM have teamed up with Dice Productions and Flip Festival to bring three separate programmes of screenings of the best UK animated films of 2010 and 2011 to Birmingham. The shorts will be screened on Thursday 9th, Friday 10th, and Saturday 11th February from 7pm each night at The Custard Factory Theatre and you can vote to help determine the Public Choice winners.

Buy tickets and get more information on the Animation Forum WM website.

This is Voices of Digbeth by a few people who have modestly decided not to put their full names to it:

And this is Wasted Digbeth by Keanu Jones (I liked his Attack of the Dinozilla too):

The film was commissioned by THSH, with the support of the DMC McDonald Foundation, and was created by animator Chris Randall at Second Home Studios to a poem by Symphony Hall’s poet-in-residence Julie Boden.

The Mechanical Musical Marvel is currently being shown on Birmingham’s BBC Big Screen in Victoria Square, and has already been selected for the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival which runs 21 – 30 October.

The event is taking place tomorrow, 1 March, at The Studio, and is being presented bu Niel Bushnell, who runs award-winning Newcastle-based animation and VFX studio Qurios.

Niel will be sharing his experiences of establishing an animation business with practical tips on how to set up an animation studio from scratch.

There’ll be opportunity to ask questions at the end of the talk, plus the chance to chat with fellow animators in the fantastic surroundings of the The Studio’s city centre bar and restaurant.Directions to the venue can be found here.

For more information, take a look at the Facebook event page, or sign up via Eventbrite – it’s also free to attend, open to animators and designers of all levels, or anyone interested in establishing a studio-based business, and includes free drinks.

The event takes place on 13 January 2011 from 7.00pm at The Studio, Birmingham, and is the first in a series of joint events with BSeen aiming to help student and graduate animators find their way into the industry.

Open to animators of all levels, this event is free and includes refreshments and a Q&A with Curtis Jobling. For more information, take a look at the Facebook event page.

Sky Attack from crstokes83 on Vimeo.

Chris Stokes is a video artist in Birmingham, and has made this animation using a Sky Attack game, with music supplied by Creeping Jaw Society, consisting of manipulated sounds taken from samples of the game. Pretty cool.

Tate Movie Project will be stopping over at the Ikon on 2 & 3 December, joined by Wallace and Gromit creators, Aardman Animations, who’ll be giving pupils from Birmingham schools the chance to create an animation film by and for children to be broadcast on Blue Peter.

Pupils from St John’s CE Primary, St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary, St George’s CE Primary and Woodview Primary, will have the opportunity to take part in the workshops, inspired by Ikon’s current Len Lye exhibition.

The results will be available to view on www.tatemovie.co.uk, where 5-13 year olds will be free to explore animation, scripting, editing and sound effects.

Take a look at his winning animation ‘The History of Denim’, created to retell the origin of denim for designer LUKE, which originated from the West Midlands.

THE HISTORY OF DENIM – LUKE 1977 from Drew Roper on Vimeo.

Last week BBC Comedy asked me to animate to a rap by the very clever Dan Bull to commemorate John Lennon’s 70th Birthday and a blue plaque unveiling. After working out how to avoid some massive copyright litigation parties, I smashed it out in about 3 days..

It’s very good and it seems Yoko’s a fan too: