We’re very chuffed to see our very own Megan Earls up on stage at LIAF last week. Her amazing 2nd year film Women and Power was featured in the British Showcase at the Barbican and she had the slightly nerve-racking pleasure of having to spontaneously improvise a short film synopsis - quite brilliantly as it happens. Here she is in the line up of actual filmmakers - she's over on the right with white shoes.
Here’s a selection of lifedrawings from a busy and fabulous bunch of 3rd years who have spent some quality ink and charcoal time with the singular marvel that is Pete Western. Big shout out to Laura our excellent regular life model - you might not be able to tell from the drawings but she actually lives on a barge in a central London! IKR...
Senior lecturer Stuart Hilton composed the soundtrack for BAFTA winning filmmaker Jonathan Hodgson’s brand new film Rough House which has just won the Best British Film Award at LIAF. As a lecturer, filmmaker, director he can also sometimes to be found wearing his ‘composer’ or even a ‘punk rock drummer’ hat. He has also been known to do silly voices and can even be contacted for light removals.
Here’s a little glimpse of some of the extraordinary work we saw last week in our 3rd year Crits. Such a lot of good work around it’s going to make the degree show veeeeeery interesting indeed. And possibly veeeery long!! We liiiiiiiiike. We were totally spoiled (spoilt?) for fabulous imagery - many more to follow soon...
This week we had the pleasure of animation director Bexie Bush’s company for a full day. Bexie is an alumnus of our course and of the NFTS and has won many awards for her film directing work. She talked us through her extraordinary new stop motion documentary project, The Rumour Mill. She’s a singular inspiration and rest assured, we’ll be doing everything we can to get her to return super soon - and regularly….
Very excellent to see alumni and tutor Ellie Ekrem who is also a director at Nerd Productions getting a shout out at the BaddassGal takeover - quote: ‘a talented young director with a great vision and a wonderful heart to go with it. Her work is outstanding and has been recognised by some of the industry's most prestigious institutions.’ So yeah, what they said….
Nice to hear from Rebecca Ransom who graduated last year and has since found work in her dream job working in a motion graphic studio in London. This is not actually her pictured above relaxing after hearing about the job, it is in fact a still from her 2018 graduate film.
It's also always pleasing to hear more from Matt Whitmore who graduated this year too - his film Christine@11 (pictured 14 items below!) is still travelling far and wide and has clocked up 9 festivals worldwide so far. He’s also in the process of starting up his own studio so watch this space for more info on that…
Nice to see current 3rd year student Leto Meade continuing his tour of the Earth with his 2nd year films, Water Moves and Losing The Sponge. He recently found himself in Istanbul at KisaKes Short Film Festival and was amused by this pic of himself on stage ‘looking like I know what I’m talking about’. It’s a good trick if you can pull it off…
Here’s a quick update about 2017 graduate Michelle Brand currently at the RCA. Her excellent Graduation film Not The Same River, Not The Same Man has been screening around the world including London International Animation Festival, Multivision Animation Festival, Palm Springs International Animation Festival, ReAnimania Internation Animation Film and Comics Art Festival, Roma Cinema Docs, Athens Animfest, Supertoon Animation Festival and the Southampton International Film Festival where it was nominated for Best Sound Design and Achievement in Art. Above is a little glimpse of her current RCA work Synchronicity which had its premier screening at Encounters this year.
Here’s a splendid bunch of our 3rd year students relaxing in the Forbidden City in Beijing after a short 6 hour stroll around the grounds - Evie Gaffney, Sophie Bird, Megan Earls and Jordan Brunton were our China Girls for a week showing their work and seeing some sights and sitting on benches for as long as possible.
This week we had the ever animated Jim Le Fevre dancing his way through an amazing array of his wonderful and expansive work including everything from games and installations to pottery and laser cut towers and yet more besides. Jim is a regular sessional lecturer here and it was again great to see what else he can do besides give expert tutorial advice.
Leto Meade of our 3rd year has just returned from Anim’Est International Animation Festival in Romania after winning Special Mention for his excellent and beautifully strange 2nd year film Losing the Sponge. No, it’s not necessarily about cake though now that’s it’s started winning things we’re thinking it could be time to invest in some celebratory sweet confections…
We’re SUPER proud to be able to announce that Megan Earls’ 2nd year film Women and Power has been selected to screen at the mighty London International Animation Festival this year. The film is already doing some good business for Megan having already screened at the London Feminist Film Festival and Underwire this year.
Most excellent to hear that Joe Headd’s 2nd year short film Fragile will be headding off to Portugal to be screened at Cinanima 2018. It’s been selected for the International Grand Panorama from a total of no less than 1500 submissions! Check the font on that laurel!
Four of our fabulous 3rd years are off to China for a 10 day cultural trip accompanied by animation artist and reader Birgitta Hosea. Megan Earls, Jordan Brunton, Evie Gaffney and Sophie Bird are the China girls who will be showing their work and engaging with our friends in the east of our planet.
Congratulations to Jordan Brunton as her 2nd year film Disconnected will screen at Youki International Youth Media Festival in Austria this year. It will screen in competition as part of the Lost Love programme. Gain some love by getting over there and cheering loudly during her film.
Such a joy to welcome back the marvellous Merlin Crossingham, Creative Director at Aardman Animation and long time friend of the course. He gave us yet another talk filled with solid gold advice for our students and some privileged access to behind the scenes Early Man feature production material - not only that, he was accompanied by the stars of the film - the ACTUAL PUPPETS!!!!!
Here’s a fun little of glimpse of current 3rd year student Megan Earls on stage at The London Feminist Film Festival 2018 discussing her 2nd year film Women and Power, an short adaptation taken from Mary Beard’s well known book of that name.
Great to see that Underwire Festival 2018 will be showing works by several of our students this year. Marta Lemos’ grad film Dear England will show alongside Uncomfortable made by Isabella Cintra in her 2nd year. There’s also the extra good news that Megan Earls has her brilliant 2nd year film Women and Power showing there in competition.
Congratulations to Chiara Congeddu and Verdi Pagnano who’s 2018 grad film Eroica will be screening at NY Animation Nights in New York, New York - so good they spelled it twice.
Nice to see the freshly graduated Matthew Whitmore continuing to get his film screened. His emotive graduate film Christine@11 has recently been selected for two international film festivals - Festival de Cine de Elche and Nile's Diaspora International Film Fest.
Great news just in from the freshly graduated and very excellent Miriam Fox! Her 2018 grad film Look For Me has won Judges Choice Award for International Short Film at the Focus on Ability Film Festival in Australia and if you do look for her you’ll find that they’ve only gone and flown her out there for a 2 week jolly! Bonza!
It looks like 2018 graduate Daisy Fairbairn will be journeying to Hong Kong with her film Cage this November as the film screens at the Global University Students Film Festival. Her film illustrates the hideous plight of rare birds captured and smuggled for illegal sale across international markets. The film will also be screening at Short To The Point, May edition.
A prolonged and fabulous congratulation noise is being made for Megan Earls whose 2018 2nd year film Women and Power is being screened at The London Feminist Film Festival 2018. Her film, adapted from Mary Beard’s book of the same name, actually features a voice over by the author.
A big well done to Leto Meade as his poetically esoteric Year 2 film Losing the Sponge will be screened at Anim’est International Animation Festival in Romania in October. Leto will be a guest at the festival for a few days where hopefully the sponge can be located.
Yet more of our new 3rd years are off around the globe accompanying their 2nd year films to festivals. Now its Elly Larkin’s turn who will be off to The Czech Republic for a screening of her film at EKOfest.
It’s great to see 2017 graduate Hattie Croucher continues to gain screenings of her amazing and hard-hitting animated documentary Blue Light. It’s been travelling around and will now be screening at Bolton International Film Festival 2018 this October.
Great news for recent graduates Emily Langdon-Smith, Dan Corbett and Grace Evetts! Both of their animated films Miasma from their 2nd year and their grad film WilderLife (pictured) have been nominated for Best International Animation at Anim!Arte Festival 2018 in Brazil.
We recently had really ace news from Joanne Salmon who graduated in 2016. Joanne is an animator who now works at LoveLove Films and her new film Chin Up has won the MoFilm Many Voices filmmaking competition as featured in Campaign magazine. You can see her inspiring personal story of living with Treacher Collins Syndrome here.
When Leo Murray came to UCA Farnham to study BA(Hons) Animation with us he came with the rare and enviable skills of a qualified tree surgeon. Since then he has clearly expanded his skills considerably to include the design and launch of a giant inflatable protest blimp in the shape of an angry or hungry or possibly hangry Donald Trump baby. With the wind of change behind it it should be clearly visible in the UK's capital city this week. Whaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
So good to see that Hattie Croucher has just won yet another excellent thing with her 2017 graduation film Blue Light. She picked up the Best Music Award at the very fantastic British Animation Film Festival as well as a nomination for Best Film. In her own words ‘It was cool enough screening in Leicester Square, but the lineup was mind-blowing. Seriously humbled.’ Hattie's mind remains blown according to recent reports. No news on the status of the humbleness yet but if we know 'the Hat' like we think we do, it surely remains in full effect.
25 years since he left Farnham Grant Philpott (real person on the left) has just finished Series Producing not one but two fully animated TV Shows one of which features comedy and light entertainment behemoth David Walliams(cut out person on the right).He explains 'I chose to use animation and storyboarded, designed & commissioned the work from Flickerpix in Holywood, Northern Ireland'. David Walliams presents...Return of Alright on the Night airs on ITV1 and is sure to be the distracting comedy mouthful we all deserve right about now.
2016 graduate Stew Powers is still having lots of fun in his proper dream job of Digital Content Video Editor at his beloved and yet somehow godforsaken(according to some tutors) Chelsea FC. Here’s a daft thing he’s been enjoying making for the World Cup of football. Note: The World Cup (or WC) is a huge football competition that is held every fortnight around the globe and features thousands of famous players of all ages on one giant pitch attempting to kick an enormous football into space. This year England look set to win! Though Chelsea could be a close runner-up. More informed football content soon…
The 2018 Animation Graduation Show is up and running now with over 35 films being produced of a typically wide range of genres displaying a myriad of remarkable techniques and processes. All the films are available to view on a big screen as well as online on small screens in our beloved and beautifully transformed Room G02. A short showreel of clips from all the films is available to view now if you go here.
Here are some more lovely images from the 2018 Animation Graduation Show featuring a fab selection of stop-motion puppets, fragments of sets, sketchbooks, stacks of hand-painted, animated frames, showreels of both graduation and 2nd year work alongside stills from the films themselves.
Year 2 student Leto Meade’s beautiful, poetic Short Film Water Moves has been busy swimming around the globe and getting screenings in all over the place including at the 14th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Barcelona Planet Film Festival and many more. Fellow student Julie Lindh wrote the poetic narration.
Matt Whitmore, currently at the business end of production on his Graduation film, has been having lots of success with multiple screenings of his 2nd year film, John. The film is a short documentary about living with Alzheimer’s and has screened already in Pakistan International Film Festival, Linoleum Festival, Hackney Attic Film Festival and will now screen at Beer Town Film Festival in May. Sounds like a place to go...
Well done to 2nd year student Evie Gaffney who has her 2nd year film brilliantly titled Woodland Soup screening at Chalon Tout Court this month. The Festival takes place in Chalon-sur-Saône and you can find out more about the screening here.
As we continued to dodge between snowy blizzards we did somehow managed to sneak a few 3rd years over to the mighty Blue Zoo Studios in London and also dipped down to Jellyfish Picures too. Students were allowed to touch not only the basket of fruit but also the shiny BAFTA which they had been instructed not to bite.
Marta De Lemos has her beautiful 2nd year film Maternae screening at Short Waves Festival 2018 in Poland from 20-25th March. It has also screened in these festivals since it was born: Take 21, Linoleum-Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival , Encounters 2017, FilmYoungFest, Curtas Film Fest and Cardiff International Film Festival!
Good news just in that Raquel Alves Vasco, currently in our 2nd year has her 2nd year film I Miss screening at the Cinemira-Budapest International Children's Film Festival in your actual Budapest. Her film reflects on the sheer greyness of the light in England compared to her native Portugal and right now, that's absolutely fair enough…
Here’s a little extra 2nd year screening update as Jordan Brunton has her bonkers 2nd year film Spoiled Milk screening at Al-Nahj International Film Festival, Iraq of all extraordinary places in the Best Seconds Video competition - see you there people...
It’s always nice to catch up with graduates and it was great recently to hear that 2016 graduate Piper Storer has been working full-time at Notion Digital. It’s a great excuse to show an image from her grad film Alive - you can see it here.
The excellent Edge of Frame Experimental Animation 2018 weekend returns on 2nd - 4th March and will screen work by our very own senior lecturer Stuart Hilton. His film Six Weeks in June will be part of the Particles in Space screening at the Barbican alongside work by seminal filmmakers Len Lye, Robert Breer and more. Sessional lecturer Jess Ashman will also be part of the event and will be speaking at the Bfi Southbank about her work as a black woman artist and experimental animator.
Just when we thought Snow Days were a thing of the past we get a bumper crop! Several Snow Days caused a certain amount of travel disruption mingled with no little excitement. Luckily animators just love to hunker down in the dark and tinker away moving things and drawing things bathed in the warm glow of a lightbox or digital equivalent. Here is a picture of sun and snow at the same time.
Nice to see that 2017 graduate Hattie Croucher is still winning stuff with her excellent animated documentary Blue Light. She picked up the Best Animation award at the Short Movie Club over there in Minsk, Belarus. Take a scarf and chunky underthings should you decide to go there at this time.
Well done to Will Rowson who’s 2016 grad film One Last Dance has been selected for the Cardiff Animation Festival this year. Will’s film is a beautiful and moving animated documentary about living with Alzheimer’s.
Shelley Nichols, once of this parish, has been busy working on a little thing Wes Anderson calls The Isle of Dogs! Yes! Her name along with many other skilled workers will be visible at the end of the film in what some people are already calling ‘the credits’. To celebrate her achievements here is a picture from this much anticipated film.
A big snowy well done to graduate directing team EGADS have been short listed in the British Animation Awards Student Excellence category. The team, Em Langdon Smith, Grace Evetts and Dan Corbett co-directed their graduation film Wilder Life in 2017. The film is a CG extravaganza of flamingo related shenanigans that features almost every colour available in that year.
Peter Millard was just in and we’re not letting him leave. He gave us the most honest and joyful lecture about what led him to make work despite the various forces of life and youth that might have got in the way. Gotten in the way? Who knows? Either way it was a funnier lecture than most cartoons and made us all want to get the paints out and make things. An inspirational force and a singular pleasure to have saying things in a room.
Nice to see that Vann Baker’s first film, Oneirophrenia, will screen at Dirigo International Student Film Festival in Bristol this year. Her short film was made on our 2nd year Short Film unit and will be her first screening! Yey!!!
The Law of The Sea returns to the BFI to be part of the BFI Future Film Festival where it will be collecting its first proper laurel! The film was directed by our very own Elmaz Ekrem along with Dominika Ozynska as part of the Random Acts funding scheme.
Now in its 11th year, this festival is one of the most important and influential of its kind and will be running from 15-18 of February. The film will feature as part of the Modern Life shorts programme and with its focus on young, emerging film makers with a diverse line up of films, its a fantastic achievement for our tip top alumni! Brilliantly the film is also going to be shown throughout Jaunary at the Gulbenkian Art Centre in Canterbury before a selection of features including films such as Murder on the Orient Express, Happy End directed by Michael Haneke and Human Flow directed by Ai Weiwei.
We’ve had the recent pleasure of welcoming multi award winning stop-motion legend Barry Purves back to the big room. Barry is drama itself! it’s what he is and it’s what he does! He brought his boundless enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the subject of storytelling and acting through images into the room in a generous 2 hrs that flew by like a winged god….
BAFTA award winning animator and storyboard artist Peter Western brings his exquisite eye for drawing to the life classes throughout January and working with a super dynamic professional model the students are producing some of the best drawings we’ve seen for a while. Check out the selections above - makes you want to get the charcoals out and get in a room with a naked person….
The British Animation Awards once again return to Farnham for the Public Screenings for the next few weeks. Monday 15th, 22nd and 29th January will feature a selection of some of the best animation going on in the UK. From films to commercials to music promos and other forms its a great opportunity to see this quality work on a big screen.
So Mim Fox of our current 3rd has her 2nd year film Make Up Your Mind travelling to three more festivals including Dingle Animation, Dorking Film Festival and Best Shorts Competition. As she points out in her lengthy and considered reflections on the developing screening situations, “eep!’
Altea Claveras, who graduated last year has been getting busier up there in her home in the North East. Her films have clearly opened doors for her as she is set to begin work soon directing material for ‘a kids TV thing’ in her own words. While she waits for that to start she’s enjoying the glorious Sunderland warmth both socially and meteorologically (see picture…