A festive well done to current 3rd year student Megan Yaxley as she sees her 2nd year film Life Models accepted into the CHHATRAPATI SHIVAJI International Film Festival (CSIFF) in India! It will be screened on 25th Dec over there - there's a feeling that the date might be clashing with something...
Last week a delegation representing the British animation industry found itself at Number 10 to celebrate and promote the achievements of the industry and to hopefully maintain pressure on the powers that be to support it. But who was in that delegation? Only several of our illustrious alumni, that’s all! Here’s Adam Bailey(centre) from Cloth Cat in Wales and that’s Aaron Wood(left) from Slurpy Studios and who’s this? Only Marcus Armitage(right) wondering if it was all a joke but happy to be eating the free sausages.
Big congratulations are in order to 3rd year student Michelle Brand who just came back from Germany this week with a prize! - She assures us it was hers and provided photographic evidence which seems authentic enough to us. As she says, ‘I won the Animation category for my age group. It was loads of fun, and it was a great place to meet nice people…’
A couple of days ago a newspaper from Granada contacted recent graduate Pepe Gomez, asking for an interview about his graduation film, The Last King of Grenada. He says ’ It was quite a fun experience, and here is the result, it´s in Spanish, but trust me they say nice things.’ We trust him but you can read it for yourselve here.
Congratulations to current 3rd year Sinead Stoddart (left) seen here sporting her new and rather fetching award from Portsmouth International Film Festival. Her 2nd year film One Too Many won Production Design Award for Animation. One of the film's stars is pictured right and is actually made of colourful wool, the kind of wool we might typically see knitted into a lovely scarf or pair of winter briefs.
Farnham alumnus Liam Harris' new postgraduate film Perched is really starting to get around the festival circuit now and you can hear him chatting about it on Eagle Radio here. The film produced at the NFTS has already picked up Best Animation at this years IOMFF where Liam somehow got to shake one of Mark Kermode's hands! Actual photographic evidence does exist though at a questionable resolution...
We do like to keep up with our recent graduates work and it’s great to see Dann Parry's short RCA film Bound being nominated as Best Student Animation for Shirtpole's London International Film Festival. Multi-award winning Farnham and RCA alumnus Marcus Armitage will be on the jury throwing his opinion about at Encounters Animation Festival this month.
The Sea directed by graduates Elmaz Ekrem and Dominika Ozynska and commisioned by Channel4/Ignition Random Acts finally gets it's first promotional outing as part of the First Acts season of online releases. Great work with an important message that deserves to be seen.
Earlier this month we were super psyched to meet Sam Taylor and Tim McCourt from multi-talented animation studio The Line who came and gave us a hilarious and revealing talk full of energy, fun, fan art and filth. As you can see they arrived in their own bespoke vehicle and carefully crafted street style and attitude.
Michelle Brand’s amazing Journey Never Ends has been selected at 6 festivals so far, two of those include the Aesthetica Short Film Festival and excitingly, the London International Animation Festival too! The other 4 are the Minikino Filmweek in Bali, the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film in Worcester (US), the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'arte in Italy and the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Germany. It’s journey indeed continues….
Meanwhile many of our brand new 3rd years films are still out doing the festivals with their splendid 2nd year films! Hattie Crouchers Fruitcake continues beyond its 100th festival screening and Sinead Stoddart gets her film Munchies obscured by even more laurels including the much feared Upstate New York Horror Film Festival.
Good luck to our very own tutor-tech Jessica Ashman shortlisted for Widening The Lens pitching competition at this years Encounters Festival in Bristol - she’ll be pitching her Animate Projects idea and, Farnham fingers crossed, we’ll be hoping for that green light!
One Last Dance - Will Rowson’s recent graduation film will be screening at Manchester Animation Festival this November in the Student Films Panorama. Told from a daughter's perspective the film emotionally explores how it felt as she watched her father slowly forget everything he knew.
We’ve just heard from very happy graduate Stew Powers that after freelancing through the summer he now has a FULL TIME ACTUAL JOB at Livewire Sport - to quote Stew himself ‘It's sport and animation! Literally my perfect job! Thanks for everything, wouldn't have been able to have secured this job without the course’. It's just Stew Powers power...
Nice to see that Pepe Gomez has his graduation film The Last King of Grenada among the September selections for the Ibiza Cineast 2017.
Altea Claveras has her 2nd year film Sleepwalkers out there putting itself about a bit - it will be shown at the 10th Tehran International Animation Festival (TIAF) taking place in March 2017.
Always worth having a look at Remus and Kiki’s work since they graduated last year and became actual directors at Beakus! Have a look at their showreel here for a bit of bonkers character madness.
Law of the Sea
Though nearly everyone is asleep in the sun throughout animation-land at least our own Elmaz Ekrem and Dominika Ozynska’s Channel4/Random Acts film The Law of the Sea will be available to view Wed 17th Aug via Screen South. Meanwhile, here is a picture of something nice until the wind pics up and the chestnut trees start to turn…
Sinéad Stoddart has seen both of her 2nd year films One Too Many and Munchies putting in some mileage on the festival circuit this summer with screenings at Portsmouth International Film Festival, Full Bloom Film Fest, Hot Shorts Film Festival London to name a few. Witness too the scary laurel from the Celluloid Screams selection at Sheffield Horror Film Festival 2016.
Very good to hear that The Last King of Grenada by Pepe Gomez has won it’s first award gaining Best Animation Short Film from Spain at Euro Film Festival Online 2016.
Stew Powers and his ubiquitous Sky High film has now garnered a nomination for Best Animation for Music at Portsmouth International Film Festival. The sky is literally the limit for this film.
Michelle Brand of our soon-to-be 3rd year has been super busy working on an internship for 3 months at HU & Hudson to create educational animation shorts for children. Not only that, she has been commended for her dedication and professionalism in producing all the animation imagery for a company called Videocall as well as working on the short animation film 'Puddle' by Stormhouse Pictures. The above image is from her 2nd year film A Small Voice - because it’s nice. She’s going to need a holiday after this…
Last King
Nice to see that Pepe Gomez’s graduation film The Last King of Grenada has been selected for TMFF - you can read a nice little review of it here
Also great to see Em Langdon-Smith’s 2nd year short film No Place Like Home will be playing at Film Miami Fest.
Here’s a few snaps of Stew Powers getting some more Sky High love this time in the form of Special Mention at Festival De Cannes new talent offshoot, Festival Du Court-Metrage in France.
It’s good to see Sam Palmer’s 2nd year film Flavour of the Month is still melting hearts around the globe - this time at Girona Film Festival where it’s been selected in the official Experimental Section.
Great to hear that Saeho Oh’s graduation film Father and Son has been selected for it’s first festival at the 5th Bangalore Shorts Festival 2016. It then went on to gain a certificate of excellence in the festival.
Even though it’s the summertime and sun is out people are still going to Film Festivals to watch Altea Claveras’ film Sleepwalkers. Now she’s won Best Experimental film at Gold Reel Film Festival and the ‘Fall In Line’ award at Bad Film Fest. The film is also on it’s way to Doc Sunback Film Festival in Kansas.
The red carpet was rolled out once again and the coveted gold effect Farnhamanimation Awards were dished out in a star studded celebration studded with stars. The excellent Jim Le Fevre and Marcus Armitage where our guest award givers from the world of animation and they did it with characteristic aplomb. We could have given awards to everyone for just being them, but there isn't enough gold in Surrey for that. We’re really going to miss this lot. Such a great set of films this year and plenty of proper talent on show. Amazing people to work with over the last few years and to see them put together some genuinely remarkable films is a testament to their creativity, perseverance and cake. Check out the reel here.
So the show is up and it’s looking resplendent in pink and quartz! All our very fine films are available to view in the room and there’s a delicious selection box on the big screen. The cinema is showing all the graduation films in two screenings for a whole week. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you may even gag very slightly. Come along and have your eyes and ears expanded. In a good way.
The big pots of paint are out and the transformation is nearly complete! Barring the entirely wrong grey, evidenced bottom right by tutor Stuart Hilton. Yes, these extraordinary young people with an unstoppable urge to painstakingly make things move a frame at a time are turning into graduates before our very eyes!
Always nice to catch up with long time friend of the course, alumni and multi award winner, Michael Dudok de Wit and it’s great to see his new Studio Ghibli co-produced feature film The Red Turtle has won the Un Certain Regard category award at Cannes no less! Outstanding alumni scoop!
Congratulations to 2nd year student Chloe Peters who knows that Who Nose, her 2nd year short film (see what happened there?) has been selected for the Extremely Short Section of Extremely Short Films (non-competitive) section at the 9th International Animation Festival Fest Anca (29 June - 3 July 2016, Zilina, Slovakia). Not to be sniffed at etc…
And here are some snaps of Ellie, Domi, Gabby, Ollie and Tom(see below for actual names) mingling at the Channel 4 Spring Arts party at the ICA in London. Grayson Perry, Will Self and even the mighty Jon Snow (NOT from GOT!!) all in attendance and all subjected to major mingling mayhem no doubt.
Exciting news that the two films produced by our students for Random Acts this year have been picked up by Channel 4. Elmaz Ekrem and Dominika Ożyńska produced The Sea(pictured right), a poetic documentary about the refugee crisis in Greece while Ollie Pendle, Gabriella Ditton and Tom Willis have made Hiveminds(pictured left), an agitated meditation on the pervasive effects of social media.
Michelle Brand of our extraordinary 2nd year continues to get her film, A Small Voice, travelling the earth for her. Los Angeles CineFest, Barcelona Planet Film Festival and Athens Animfest are now on the growing list. Above is a pic from her latest 2nd year film The Journey Never Stops. Just because.
It’s well worth a late spring 2nd year update as we see Sinead Stoddard’s film One Too Many has reached 17 festivals and counting, Tom Makkinson’s Fandango is being danced at Vafi Festival in Israel, Megan Yaxley has her 13.58 to Falmouth Town traveling way past its stop to NYC Dum-D Festival and Em Langdon-Smith has No Place Like Home selected for Cordoba International Film Fest. Altea Claveras’ Sleepwalkers has yet another festival screening this time at Custom Reels Short Film Awards.
Hats off yet again to Hattie Croucher for her Fruitcake as it wins at CUFF Film Festival! She won Best Sound Design, and was a nominee for best short film. The film has gone on to many more festivals since including Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival, Lisbon International Film Festival, Sydney World Film Festival and TMC London Film Festival.
Our students have been visiting some London animation studios and having a tip top time with the lovely people at The Line, Blue Zoo and Animade. Great to see several ex-Farnham students working at these places including Max Van der Merwe, Francesca Adams and at the helm of the brilliant Animade it’s the one and only Ed Barrett in his magnificent jumper of gold(pictured here in a jumper of gold).
Above is a fine selection of our 2nd and 3rd year students poised to experience the lovely Blue Zoo where they will be allowed to feed the animators and perhaps even pet them.
Hattie Croucher and Sinead Stoddart are off over to the mighty land of Cambridge for the weekend to hopefully land yet another gong, this time at the Cambridge University Film Festival for their 2nd year films Fruitcake(pictured left) and One Too Many(pictured on the other left) respectively. Hattie has been busy gathering various awards for her excellent film and Sinead has her film showing all over the planet too!
Emma Brett-Phare now has her 2nd year film Imprison in the Leeds Young Film Festival and she’s off to see what that northern powerhouse has to offer a young animator. We hear the tea up there is exquisite.
Also, news just in! Yep, It happened! Stu Powers’ Sky High reaches 50 festivals!!! In all likelihood there will have been more added in the time taken to compose these words.
Nice to hear and see that Grace Evetts, currently of our 2nd year, had a recent internship at designers Thornback and Peel where she produced some sweet animated spots for them that are now being using to promote their Easter rabbity designs. Mmmm, Springy....
The 2016 British Animation Awards down at the National Film Theatre last week proved to be a joyous and gongingly fruitful time for Farnham graduates, alumni and associates alike with recent graduate Katie Lenton winning Best Student Film for her graduation film Man Up, Bexie Bush winning the Public Choice award and Dan Chester of the gorgeous Moth Collective who collectively won Best Commissioned Film. Outstanding celebrations demonstrated above by Bexie Bush, Course Leader Lesley Adams and Katie Lenton.
It's prize time again for our ace 2nd Years as both Altea Claveras and Hattie Croucher share Best International Student Experimental Anime Micro Short - or BISEAMS if you're an acronym enthusiast like most of us - at Wendy's Shorts Festival for their films Sleepwalkers and Fruitcake. Em Langdon-Smith also gets in on the act with a win for her film No Place Like Home as does Emma Brett-Phare for Imprison. Time for an extra shelf in the awards cabinet...
Yey! It's the return of the T-Mak! Tom Makinson's 2nd year film Fandango will screen at the Headline International Film Festival along with Hattie Croucher's Fruitcake.
Also, here's a little Remus and Kiki update - they have been busy as new directors at Beakus on Alain De Botton's School of Life project so watch this space for images of that inevitable loveliness.
We're very happy to hear that one of our fairly recent alumni has been busy winning awards too - Lauren Sunderland graduated in 2012 and has been composing music for films amongst other things since then. Her music has won her Best Original Composition: Short Film Score category at the Music and Sound Awards so bend your ears around this.
We haven't heard much news of Stew Powers' 2nd year film Sky High for the last few minutes so with a view to addressing that, we now hear that it has been designated as an Official Jury Selection for the 2016 Delta Moon Student Film Festival, California and will be featured at the main public screening event Friday, March 4th.
Curtain is 7 pm at the Margaret Lesher Theater, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive,Walnut Creek, CA 94596. We expect you all to be there of course...
Emma Brett-Phare has been getting her 2nd year film Imprison out there and winning things in festival-land picking up this month's Best Student Short at LA CineFest! Her funny little short project called Boing is also showing at Selby International Short Film Festival. Also great to see Emily Whittingham's 2nd year film Straw Man still getting screenings this time at the Global Short Film Awards.
We can now release the excellent news that 5 of our students forming 2 directing teams are in the very closing stages of production on 2 films as part of FUSE Ignition Random Acts in the coming months. Ellie Ekrem and Dominika Ożyńska form one group while the other sees Ollie Pendle and Tom Willis working with Gabriella Ditton.
Channel 4 have the first option to pick up the projects on completion so fingers are crossed for all involved.
Noriko Ishibe, one of our excellent 3rd year students seems to pop up in the news feed quite a bit has revealed that she’s getting well nervous about her Q+A at Cinema Jam in London tonight (Feb 11th) - She reckons her English is ‘a bit mumbly’ but we think her film speaks for itself. Cinema Jam’s associated online magazine Spread will also be interviewing her about the film so keep watching the internet for that.
Since 1995 when she won the much coveted "Under 8's Colouring-In Challenge" at Twickenham Local Library, Harriet Croucher (Hat) had won nothing until this month when her 2nd year film Fruitcake started gathering in the gongs. At barely 1 month old the film has won Best International Student Animated Short at the Texas Ultimate Shorts Film Festival and then gone on to grab Animation of the Month and Documentary of the Month at the 12 Months Film Festival. Time to buy a lotto ticket...
A splendid congratulations is aimed at excellent 2nd year students Emily Langdon-Smith, Dan Corbett, Megan Yaxley, Tom Makinson, Altea Claveras and Sinead Stoddart who all have their films showing at several festivals on the planet already including Texas Ultimate Shorts Film Festival, Los Angeles Cinefest, College Town Film Festival, Roma Cinemadoc, Wendys Shorts Selby International Short Film Festival and several more besides. In our experience, it’s just the beginning of their journey…
Yet more 2nd year success has been visited upon Sinead Stoddart as her film One Too Many is off to New York City and the ANNY: Animation Nights New York - Feb Films screening event. Have a look at that here.
The film was finished in the first few minutes of 2016 and is now in it’s 9th festival - Canterbury University Film Festival in Canterbury of all places.
Congratulations to Michele Brand who’s 2nd year film One Small Voice will play at 140 Character Short Story Festival. It’s worth noting here too that as we go to press Toronto Short Film Festival has requested it.
Excellent to hear that Dann Parry, currently studying at the Royal College of Art has had his Farnham Graduation film Love and Papercuts nominated for the Royal Television Society Southern Award. Regal stuff!
We’re privileged and to be hosting once again the British Animation Awards Public Choice screenings this month. We’re especially excited as this year’s screenings feature work by UCA Farnham award-winning alumni Daniel Greaves, Chris Shepherd, Bexie Bush, Marcus Armitage and Kristian Andrews, tutors, director and composer Robert Bradbrook and Stuart Hilton and perhaps most exciting of all, recent graduates Katie Lenton and Henry Dunbar, who have both been nominated for Best Undergraduate Student Film. It's worth noting that of the total 35 awards nominees no less than 7 have their origins at Farnham. Grab a ticket and get your voting fingers out! Details to follow…
Knockout news for Pepe Gomez as his excellent 2nd year film Knocked Down has won Best Animated Short Film in the Lisbon international film festival, Winter Edition 2015. We’re going to have to invest in a new awards cabinet…
We are very excited about our thrillingly talented current 2nd years who have just launched their joyous first films onto the 2016 festival circuit and are already getting them accepted within days of them being finished. These are films that have only just learned to walk and talk! Hattie Croucher’s Fruitcake(pictured above), Tom Makinson’s Fandango and Altea Claveras’ Sleepwalkers will feature in Festivals as diverse and distant as Belgium Film Festival, Texas Ultimate Shorts and Barcelona Planet Film Festival.
It’s time for another Remus and Kiki update! Yey! So, as the winners of Beakus’ NewD graduate competition last year they’ve produced a lovely spot called Tuft about people with beards, generally blokes, and their one word descriptions of their face hamsters. Feed them carefully here.
We’re proud to see our own award-winning 3rd year Lissea Jordan has popped up in the Farnham Herald sporting her Best Newcomer gong won at Oska Bright Short Film Festival. Now in its seventh year the festival held in Brighton is the only one in the UK run for and by people with learning difficulties.
It’s always great to hear from Pepe Gomez who’s 2nd year films have both been making their way to more festivals; now it’s time for his boxing flick Knocked Down (pictured above) to get down to Portugal for the Lisbon International Film Festival and the Goldensun Short Film Festival sunny Malta. His first film Two Dancers also twerks over to Eppfilms Indie Theatre in Cleveland Ohio.
Also off to Goldensun Festival in Malta is Stew Powers’ 2nd year film Sky High which has now been included in a staggering 40 festivals! We need a Stew-o-meter to keep track of those totals coming in from our glamorous switchboard assistants who man those phones all night long.