Great to see that Jess Lester’s beautiful 2016 graduation film will be screening at London International Animation Festival this month in the Best of the Next programme. Selected from 60 graduate showreels and almost 30 countries this is a look at the best student work and first professional films from all around the world.
And hey Look isn’t that Hattie Croucher at LIAF Animated Documentaries Q&A. We don’t think she’s singing, it’s merely passion and wise words as to why animation can be the perfect tool for documenting a story. She was singing a similar song at Aesthetica Short Film Festival recently too.
Always fun to check up on Moth Collective co-founder and alumnus Dan Chester - there he is on the right looking fairly chuffed after having been awarded Best Commissioned Film at the @EmileAwards for their film 'The Last Job On Earth'. Let's get them over here again for cake!
Great to see that Grace Evetts who graduated last year has recently joined Content Creatures, a growing animation studio right in the heart of Surrey. Grace made a beautiful lyric film for the band Coasts recently which looks just like this picture pictured above.
Recent graduate Sinead Stoddart’s film Tone Death is doing some travelling after having been selected for FECEA Festival de Cinema Escolar de Aldorada in Brazil it is now off to NYC in the 21st Islansa International Short Film Festival. Her second year film Munchies is also at Vancouver International Film Festival Canada touring Reel Youth Film Festival.
Great to see that Will Rowson’s graduation film One Last Dance just won 1st Place in Documentary of the Month at 12 Months Film Festival.
Last year, Domniki Papadopoulou directed and wrote a short film called Hoarder (that's him pictured!) for the first year group project. Now in second year her film has found its marvellous way to TAF Festival in Greece, Thessaloniki. Well done the whole team who produced the film with her Jack McEntire, Paul Davies and Karl Keskula
Hattie Croucher and Elmaz Ekrem are amongst several alumni who have been busy visiting and actually featuring at Encounters Festival this year. As Farnham alumni go they don’t get much more mighty than Michael Dudok De Wit director of the extraordinary Red Turtle - here he is photobombing Ellie Ekrem at this years Encounters shortly after his thoughtful, funny and inspiring talk. Hattie also described the talk as ‘absolutely spellbinding’.
Our two completed films for the Random Acts/Channel 4 funding scheme, ‘The Sea’ by Elmaz Ekrem and Dominika Ozynska and ‘Hiveminds’ by Gabriella Ditton, Tom Willis and Ollie Pendle are now on tour around the country as part of ICA’s Playback exhibition and will continue touring throughout 2018. This month the exhibition is swinging through the filmmakers home turf at the Farnham Hockey Gallery.
It’s UN-declared World Space Week this week as if you didn’t know and its great to see the endlessly busy and excellent Elmaz Ekrem getting involved. Ellie is continuing to grow her burgeoning animation career since graduating last year by contributing yet more work for Nerd Productions in London.
Hattie Croucher’s head and her excellent words have been simultaneously appearing on TV screens since cameras and microphones where pointed at her by the good people at That’s Surrey TV. She speaks about her graduation film Blue Light (pictured) and the things she said can be seen here.
Great to see 2nd year work getting around on the festival circuit too! Zuzanna Elhag and Verdi Pagnano’s short film Ice Bear will screen at the SunChild 7th International Environmental Festival this month.
Will Rowson’s 2016 graduation film One Last Dance is still doing business for him as he makes it available to view here. It will be screened at 12 Months Film Festival 2017 and will be in competition there - you can also view and vote for it here. Get your voting slippers on people! https://12mff.com/movie/one-last-dance/
Our very own stop-motion guru and tutor-tech Jess Ashman gets animated in an interview in South London’s Women In Film forum. Jess’ installation animation piece I Don’t Protest, I Just Dance In My Shadow is discussed in the article titled ‘Women and Animation. Find out about Jess’ perspective here.http://www.herfilmproject.com/news/women-and-animation
Here’s the poster we made for the marvellously prolific Marcus Armitage’s lecture this week as part of the Induction Week fun.
Here’s a lovely news catchup for the absurdly talented Hattie Croucher. Her grad film Blue Light has been selected in competition for Manchester Animation Festival 2017 taking place in October. It will also be screening at Encounters Festival in Bristol and BAFTA recognised Aesthetica Festival this year. Not only that but her work has gained her an amazing Artist in Residence gig at Downside Abbey near Bath.
Here’s a new update for graduate Gaggandeep Kalarai who has recently been through the intensive interview process for the Animation MA at the National Film and Television School! The word is she did really well - now its all about waiting for that call. Our fingers are crossed so perfectly that she’s just bound to get a place!
Updates a plenty as new graduate Michelle Brand will be getting her back to school furry pencilcase out and begin settling into the wonderful world of the RCA as she starts her Animation MA there this week. Her Grad film is already on its way to various festivals and it’s well worth checking out her beautiful and thoughtful work here.
And now we bring you yet further fantastic Hattie Croucher news! Her grad film Blue Light has been selected in competition for Manchester Animation Festival 2017 taking place in October. Get down there and vote! Lets bring home some well deserved gongs!!!
Brilliant news for the brilliant Hattie Croucher who graduated this year with her brilliant film Blue Light - her powerful and emotional film will screen at 2 prestigious festivals, Encounters Festival and Aesthetica this year. Not only that but her work has gained her an amazing Artist in Residence gig at Downside Abbey near Bath.
We’re looking forward to welcoming back Farnham Alumnus, RCA graduate and BAFTA nominee Marcus Armitage this month - he’ll be doing some talk, showing some new and old work and maybe even glimpses from his new Bfi commissioned film That Yorkshire Sound made for the Listen To Britain project. While we wait, just for old times sake, here’s a still from his excellent 2012 graduation film The Laughing Policeman
So, the mighty directing team EGADS that made some stunning work here over the last two years have a nice feature on the UCA website about the making of their award winning 2nd year film Miasma. Check that out here. Miasma won best animation at Bundes Film Festival in Germany and for your records the EGADS team consisted of Emily Langdon Smith, Grace Evetts and Dan Corbett alongside the excellent exchange student Sophie Miriam from Stuttgart.
We’re excited to announce that Farnham Alumni Elmaz Ekrem and Dominika Ozynska’s Channel 4/Random Acts film Law of the Sea from 2016 will be screening at Encounters Film Festival 2017 and also Enchanted Cinema. So thats nice…
Graduate Sinead Stoddart did amazingly well with her 2nd year films as a student here and things continue in the same vein as her 2017 grad film has started to gain screenings and nominations. Tone Death (pictured) was a semi-finalist Les films de la Toile and will also be screening at LA Cinefest. Her 2nd year film Munchies has a load more screening too including Exit 6 Film Festival, Cyprus Comicon and Wasteland Film Festival.
Congratulations are in order for Will Rowson who’s beautiful and heartfelt 2016 documentary grad film One Last Dance has been featured in the Student Showcase on Show Me The Animation website and can also been seen at the Shortfil.ms website.
Pepe Gomez’s 2016 graduation film Last King of Grenada continues to do good business for him and his swollen awards cabinet as he won Best Editing at the Macro Project festival and Best Period Piece at The Monkey Bread Tree Film Awards. It will also screen at Little Wing festival so get along and see it somewhere - its likely to be on.
Our 2nd year ADT unit has produced some great work for CATS charity, Cancer Awareness in Teenagers and Young People Society and 3 of the films have been adopted by the society for their social media campaigns!
Its always good to catch up with what Beakus directing duo Remus and Kiki are up to. Its great to see Cartoon Brew featuring their great new TED-Ed film as their Pic of the Day. The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall can be viewed here - treat yourself to some education.
Sinead Stoddart’s is getting plenty of action for each of her 3 stop motion puppet films created whilst a student on our beloved course - her 2nd year ‘ZomCom’ film Munchies gets a fun mention on the Directors Notes website here whilst One Too Many gets shortlisted Senior Rossi Award at Cartoon Club Rimini. Her graduation film Tone Death gets its first laurel as a semi-finalist at LA CineFest.
No big shock here as Brain Shock, Marti Latini’s visceral graduation film gets a first official festival selection at Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival 2017.
Great news too for recent graduate Wiktor Adamkiewicz who’s film Painium will screen at its first festival Les Films de la Toile in Paris where it features as a semi-finalist in competition alongside fellow graduate Sinead Stoddart showing her grad film Tone Death. Good luck is making its way to them via the magic of internets.
Really good to hear that Matthew Whitmore has his 2nd year film John screening at its first ever festival. The Hackney Attic Film Festival will show his very personal and heartfelt film about his family’s experience of living with Alzheimers.
The show is go! It’s all up and running and ready for your eyes. We have 31 short films to view along with images, models, sketchbooks and all manner of paraphernalia from all this year’s graduate productions. Witness the wonder from 7th June right through to Sturday 17th June.
The Graduation Show Awards night was an absolute joy. The students were fabulous, the films looked great and the mums, dads and all manner of significant other fams were treated to a delightful evening featuring solid gold effect awards augmented with champagne! The much coveted gongs were given to 8 graduates for their outstanding work in all areas of animated filmmaking and for their invaluable contributions as students to this great animation course of ours. Any excuse for a party.
So the graduation show is going up and there are some pink paint issues to resolve. Pictured here are the Executive Paint Force preparing to let loose their bottled up creative energy and express themselves in the confines of the temporarily transformed and much loved Room G02 - The animation engine room! - no boys allowed apparently - at least not until it has been made safe...
Amongst all the graduation buzz it’s nice to see that our Year 2 students are still busy getting their careers going with more festival screenings to note. Richard Dai’s funny little Short Film project Tubby is on its way to yet another really nice festival this time in the capital; The British Animation Film Festival 2017 takes place in London and the film will be screened in a Cineworld theatre! Sweet! That’s the icing on the cake etc…
Well done to current 2nd year student Marta Lemos who has got her first short film into its first festival! Hopefully the first of many her beautiful, painterly film Maternea will be travelling to Toronto and will screen at Take 21 Festival this month.
More good news for 2016 graduate Pepe Gomez who has won the Best Animation Award at the 2017 Canterbury University Film Festival. Pepe has been super busy gathering various awards around the planet in-between his new teaching duties here with our lovely 1st years. Working with Pepe is Elmaz Ekrem who has also been busy in a slightly different way, partying at the ICA at the launch of Playback Festival. The festival which is a touring showcase of Random Acts films will include Ellie and Dominika’s brilliant The Law of the Sea.
We love catching up with our splendid alumni and Kaori Onishi is this months featured filmmaker. Kaori’s beautiful, lyrical film When I Was Youngwas her graduation film in 2011 and will screen at Tricky Women festival in Austria during March. It's well worth a look.
In other 2nd Year news it's good to see Ian Kidd’s short film Arthur Twee’s Boring Day has barged it’s way into the Open World Animation Festival taking place in Allentown, PA, USA. All being well it won’t be held back at the border for a full cavity search. Also good to know that Rinu Rana will be getting her Bath Time shown at Athens Animfest 2017.
Stay alert people for we have THE genuine, bona fide ‘White Walker’ wandering into our 1st year Digital Skills classes for a couple of weeks of acty fun. Ross Mullen joins us straight off the set of Game of Thrones to show us his acting chops and no little simulated action fun and games to be filmed as reference material for all. Prepare to shake this man's hand - it's a memorable experience as handshakes go!
Will Rowson’s 2016 graduation film One Last Dance has just won the Animated Shorts category at Dorking Film Festival where a total of 9 Farnham films were competing. Also, great to see the film making its way across the Atlantic to The Large Apple for a monthly curated screening and networking event known by those in the know as ANNY: Animation Nights NY. Their blog is worth checking out too.
Great news that current 2nd year student Miriam Fox has seen her fab first film Make Notes fly off to its first festival. It will be screening at the beautifully named Dingle International Film Festival in March 2017 over there in the west of Eire along with our own Pepe Gomez’s graduation blockbuster Last King of Grenada. Star Wars fans might like to know that Dingle is only a hop skip and a jump away from Skellig Michael island where we last saw an ageing Luke Skywalker standing waiting for his favourite lightsabre to be returned. Mim's film will also be screening at Discover Film Awards in April. It’s a great festival taking place at one of the oldest cinemas in London and probably even more importantly there will be an opening night party by the Thames that will need attending…
The endlessly busy Sinead Stoddart of this parish has popped up in interview form right here. Her 2nd year film Munchies has being doing good business for her on the festival circuit ending up recently at Final Girls ‘Women In Horror’ Berlin Film Festival where it caught the eye of We Are Moving Stories, a new online platform broadcasting new voices in drama, documentary and journalism who conducted the interview for their splendid site.
One of our most decorated and celebrated alumni Michael Dudok DeWitt has found himself yet again at the Oscars this time as as a nominee for his extraordinary Studio Ghibli produced animated feature film The Red Turtle.
And here’s Elmaz ‘Ellie’ Ekrem pictured alongside legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh and Utopia director Marc Munden all hanging out at the London Is Open event last week.
The properly outstanding news is that Elmaz Ekrem & Dominika Ożyńska's Random Acts film The Law Of The Sea was just screened alongside Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning film The Salesman on a massive screen at Trafalgar Square on Sunday. The free open air event is part of The Mayor of London’s London Is Open campaign launched in response to the US Executive Order banning Muslim’s from entering the country.
We were recently visited by the very talented Colossal Crumbs puppet making workshop people. A lively and hilarious day of character creation and manipulation was had and it now seems that anything lying around on the floor could be transformed into a thinking being before you can say ‘upcycle!’
Time to check in on Hattie Croucher who is currently deep into crafting her graduation film and who’s 2nd year film Pandas Have Got To Go has been accepted into 3 festivals in the last month, including LMFF, Fresh Meet International FF and iChill Manila International Film Festival.
This weekend is the 2nd Dorking Film Festival and the Animated Short Film screening consists almost entirely of 2016 Graduate and 2nd year films from UCA Farnham! Oh yes.
Pepe Gomez, Andrew Whittle, Will Rowson, Grace Evetts and the EGADS team, Duncan Senkumba (film pictured), Stew Powers, Jess Lester, Richard Mirosevic-Sergo, and Noriko Ishibe, all feature in this 2017 Dorking take-over...
Always nice to have another reason to show a still from Jess Lester’s graduation film City Lights and the reason this time is that it will be screening at Screentest, National Student Film Festival 2017 soon. Good enough reason any day of the week.
Big news just in alert!!! Stew Powers’ jurassic graduation film Dinosaurs in the Playground has been nominated in the Animation category for the Royal Television Society Student Awards 2017! The awards evening takes place in March in Winchester and is a spangly affair involving suits, ties, frocks and fizz. And, if last year's ceremony is any kind of measure, there WILL be dinosaurs….
Hattie Croucher is no stranger to film festival fun and her 2nd year film Pandas Have Got To Go will now screen at the Miami Independent Film Festival. Hattie is currently deep into production of her 3rd year Grad film and will struggle to find the time to go to Miami for ANY reason at this time - that’s what we told her anyway…
PICTURE COMING SOON!
We’ve just heard the great news that current 2nd year student Miriam Fox has seen her fab first film Make Notes fly off to its first festival. It will be screening at a beautifully named festival over in the west of Eire. Updates and pictures to follow but Star Wars fans might like to know that the festival is only a hop skip and a jump away from Skellig Michael island where we last saw an ageing Luke Skywalker standing, waiting for his favourite lightsabre to be returned…
We had a fantastic, solid gold lecture last week from our new Friend of Farnham, John Knowles, lead animator and writer from the BAFTA winning CG animation specialist studio Blue Zoo in London. We'll be getting him back her soon for more CG japes.
Our very own enterprise guru Lam Olusegun currently in the 2nd year has been spotted on ITV news in an interview situation discussing his plasticine model characters and showing clips of his animations. His ‘Lambs’ are selling like hot kebabs on a Friday night so grab one while you can…
This week we a super excited to be welcoming Ed Barrett back to his spiritual home this time as one of out Keynote Lecturers. Ed is Creative Director at the excellent London animation studio Animade and is an alumnus and long time friend of the course. He is also a dab hand at putting funny eyes on things...
Congratulations to recent graduate Jess Lester as she has her film beautiful, lyrical film City Lights screening at the Premiers Plans Film Festival in the Animated Films competition, which will take place in Angers, France, from January 20th to January 29th 2017. A wintery week by the Loire beckons...
It's only 2017 and 3rd year festival stalwart Sinead Stoddart has been busy picking up more awards for her 2nd year film Munchies. She now has to make room in her awards cabinet for the Regional Filmmakers Award and The Michael Fuller Award both from the Southhampton Film Week. Here she is at City Eye Cinema Festive Films picking up a latte, muffin and gongs.