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.
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.
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 River project is a collaborative animated film based on a bespoke piece of contemporary dance, which has been created to represent and reflect the wider and diverse communities in Birmingham. The participants will consist of five groups of around forty people from different ages ranging from 8-78 years old all working collaboratively with lead-artist and director Babis Alexiadis to create the film.
Here’s a bit more blurb:
The project aims to engage with people from diverse communities in Birmingham; each community represents a river of creative energy; each river embraces its own shape, characteristics, colour and surroundings. As nature commands, the small rivers stream into a bigger river; this culturally and characteristically integrated river is Birmingham.
The project’s completed its first stage of research and development and presented the pilot at the West Midlands Cultural Olympiad launch on 24th July 2009.
The next Animation Forum WM event will be Shorts on Walls as part of Flatpack Festival. The event starts at 6.30pm, Saturday 14th March 2009 at The Victoria pub.
As with previous ‘…on Walls’ events this will be your chance to screen your animated shorts and chat with fellow animators. Entry to the event is free, and all Animation Forum WM members are encouraged to make submissions. To attend simply RSVP by email to info@animationforumwm.co.uk.
To submit work email Dave Allen on the above email who will give you all the details.
All talks last from 6.30 to 8pm with nibbles until 9pm. They’re all free too but places are limited to you’ll need to book – call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk for that.
Digitoons Masterclasses
In addition to the talks:
The Brothers McLeod, will give six budding animators the opportunity to take part in five masterclasses to enable them to create their own one-minute animations. The finished product will be screened alongside renowned industry professionals at Millenium Point, as part of Hello Digital.
The classes will take place weekly between 16 Sept and 7 Oct 2008. To apply for that call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk.
For more info on the talks and masterclasses see the DigiToons eflyer.
The Flip Animation Festival is on from 6-8 November (Thurs to Sat) at the Light House in Wolverhampton.
This year the festival will feature the C-Games Conference, a Drawing in the Digital Age symposium, an afternoon of animated Doctor Who and various screenings, talks and so on.
The website’s just coming together but the peeps at the Light House are running The Flip Blog and have put up a few quite charming items already.
For the animators out there, the last date for submissions is 8 August, so get your skates on if you’re planning to send something in. Here’s how to submit to Flip 08.
ArtsFest – Short Cuts submissions to be in by 30 May
As blogged previously but I’ve just been told the submission date is 30 May. Contact Kate Sullivan (kate.sullivan[at]birmingham.gov.uk) at ArtsFest for details/submission forms.
Rhubarb Rhubarb
News of “what is now known as Europe’s premiere review of the image, bringing to Birmingham 60 of the worlds most renowned international gallerists, curators, agents, photo publishers and picture editors”.
Flip 08 – animation festival calls for entries
Flip will run over 3 days between 6 – 8 November 2008 at Light House and other venues across Wolverhampton and Birmingham. The closing date for festival submissions is 8 August 2008.
D’log – Mysterious monsters
D’log ties in the ‘Mysterious Monsters’ exhibition at the Barber Institute (free, 22 May – 14 Sept) with BMAG’s ‘Myths and Monsters: Unravelling the Truth’ show (£4, 24 May to 31 August).
O2 Undiscovered workshops at Academy 2, 24 May
Late notice but maybe worth a look if you’re an aspiring musician or if you’ve ever had a thing for Dave Stewart (I haven’t, I hasten to add).
Self-published author takes competition to bestseller rivals
Birmingham-based Irish writer Mary Rochford’s collection of short stories Gilded Shadows (Tia Publishing) has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (the most prestigious of its type) alongside Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
Inside The Animal Book
“ITV Local have produced a fascinating behind the scenes look at the making of The Animal Book, the RTS-nominated, stop-motion short by Birmingham’s Second Home Productions”. I can’t get the vid to play unfortunately.
Ikon Gallery – Ruth Claxton in conversation
Artists Ruth Claxton and Richard Deacon joined Ikon Director, Jonathan Watkins before an audience during Richard Deacon’s Ikon exhibition. You can click through to the audio. Good to see the gallery doing this, others should take note.
Birmingham Architectural Association – lecture from Maciej Hawrylak
What does it mean to be a second city? The next in the BAA’s series of lectures is form Maciej Hawrylak, leading tutor of the urban design course at Wroclaw University of Technology. At the Old Joint Stock, 20 May.
