Created in Birmingham

• Birmingham Loves Photographers
  “The idea will be that each month the group will get together for tea/coffee and a chat at 6/8 Kafe in the City Centre, and pairs will be drawn. Each pair will then get together in their own time and take a photo of each other”
• Historic Dale End venue to reopen in Autumn | Counteract
  Three rooms with music and club nights. So the temporary arts venue thing fell through then. I wonder who’s backing this and what sort of bands/nights they’ll get down there, what with the Academy and Institute behemoths already battling it out
• The Hearing Aid: Plenty more Swordfish (and gigs) in the city
  “after a little renegotiation with an understanding landlord, they’ve decided to stay open”. That’s good news
• Shorts on Walls Open for Submissions
  Get yer animations in. Venue and date for the event itself TBC
• Pilot Returns « Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company
  “11th August will see Pilot Night return @ A E Harris, co-Piloted by Stan’s Cafe”. One day I’ll make it to one of these
• Radio To Go: In the Treehouse
  “Two soundcloud files: a two-part documentary. I try to tell the story of an evening at Paul Murphy’s Songwriter’s Cafe”
• A free Bristow e-book: Concrete and Cocktails | Dirty Bristow
  “Can you drink in all of Birmingham city centre’s independent hostelries in one day? Yes of course, although it might not be sensible.” A free ebook for your delight

It’s festivals a gogo with the Fierce and Flatpack festivals kicking off today with a whole load of interesting stuff coming to Birmingham between now and Sunday.

You’ll no doubt have done the decent thing and booked up a load of tickets for both of these already but, if not, there should still be time. I’ve had a nosey through the programmes and reckon that I’ll be going to the following:

Tuesday:

• Fierce/Flatpack launch at VIVID
• The Irrepressibles at Town Hall

Wednesday:

• Shadow Shows at the Patrick Centre

Thursday:

• Shorts on Walls at VIVID
• Too Much Information at The Electric

Friday

• Nesst 2
• Queerfest to Fierce at VIVID
• Los Angeles Plays Itself at Ikon Eastside

Installations and ongoing things that I’ll try to catch when I can:

• Burningham
• The Commentators
• The Soldiers’ Song
• Prayer

All subject to having to work to do and so on. Plus I’m not around this weekend, which is a shame because there’s some ace stuff happening.

What are you going to be going to?

The new site and programme is up for this year’s Flatpack Festival (23-27 March). Hoorah!

I’ve had a brief skim through and, as with previous years, would recommend ignoring the titles (which tend to leave me going ‘Eh? Never heard of it’) and read through the descriptions (which tend to leave me going ‘nice, I reckon I’ll go to that too’).

Of the things I’d already heard of, I’m looking forward to:

• Shorts on Walls featuring a screening of Man in a Cat
• Rubber
• Shadow Shows (with after party)

And this lot looks good too:

• Kinshasa Symphony
• Too Much Information
• Los Angeles Plays Itself
• and plenty others besides. Take a look at the programme.

There’s also a Paper Party (as a kind of progression from last year’s Plasticine Party), a vintage mobile cinema and all sorts of other goodness. It’ll be great buy tickets and don’t forget to see the free stuff too.

‘Codswallop’ by The Brothers McLeod has been nominated for a BAFTA in the category of Short Animation, pitching them against Aadrman’s Christmas TV big-hitter ‘Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of of Loaf and Death’.

The short had it’s first screening at a 7 Inch Cinema event back in September. Ian gave some context to the film:

Codswallop is based on a series of postcards Greg McLeod sent to his son, and it’s similar in atmosphere to their Spamland shorts. Some nice mucking about with splitscreen and stereo sound too, so we’ll have to make sure we don’t get our left and right mixed up.

Also, Ian Ravenscroft interviewed Greg McLeod for 4Talent and they discussed Codswallop.

If you want to see the short for yourself, go along to The Victoria on 14 March for the next Animation Forum WM event, Shorts on Walls (always recommended), taking place as part of the Flatpack Festival.

Here’s the film’s trailer:

It’s a heck of an achievement, so all the best to the Brothers on the night (8 Feb).

(Via Louis from Dice Productions)

I went along to the Animation Forum West Midlands event, Shorts On Walls, on Monday which was most enjoyable. The organisers were certainly pleased with how things went and have said so on their pleasingly blog-ish news page.

Also on that page is the evening’s screening schedule with links to the animators’ profiles. I understand they were trying their best to accept last minute submissions meaning giving out a running order on the night wasn’t possible, so it’s good to see it here.

It also helps me to pick out the films that I particularly enjoyed and give them an extra plug here.

First up, ‘Don’t Touch’ by Louis Hudson from Dice Productions.

The Nickolodeon-style anarchy of Pedro & Frankensheep from the Brothers McLeod was great and has apparently been picked up by CBBC.

A name that cropped up again and again was Natalie Ann Hinchley. She has a credit on Pedro & Frankensheep, her Second Home Productions outfit produced the jaw-dropping ‘The Animal Book’ (only the trailer here but it’s still a treat)

and, although I can’t find a video to embed, go and check out the Light House commissioned ‘Onions’ on Natalie’s website – animated bunnies are always a winner.

I’m at risk of just listing everyone here so I’ll finish with a few quick mentions:

• Although less polished, the video for Nyoto Ndogo’s track Dunia (remix) has a good energy about it and I like the song (presented by Andrew Burchell).
• ‘What If’ by Mat Parker’s Short Animations 4 Education was uncomfortable viewing for the right reasons (trailer only on the site).
• Steven Spencer describes ‘My Brown Friend‘ as a “dark exploration of addiction” which it is.
• Finally, the YouTube embedding has been disabled but I’ll forgive that (just about) to mention ex-BCU MA student Guillaume Weiss’s ‘4:51‘ which I thought was just incredible.

Animation Forum West Midlands are running an after-work (6.30pm to 8.30pm) event at The Rainbow in Digbeth on Monday 28 April 2008. It’s called Shorts on Walls and in their own words:

Whether or not you actually make short films, Shorts on Walls is a great chance for animators to meet and network after work with other freelancers, animation companies and professionals over a mid-week beverage.

It’s free to attend but please let them know if you’ll be going down. There are contact details and more info on the Animation Forum West Midlands website.

Incidentally, props to AFWM for showing how this web promotion lark should be done – the news page of their site has an RSS feed and features a map of the venue. There’s also a Facebook group (with a list of participating animators/studios) to join as well as a newly-minted YouTube group.