Festival-ing Specs

I'm excited! My film will be playing as part of the New Film-makers Los Angeles at Sunset Gower Studios in December, next weekend my film will be playing at 4pm on November 7th at the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival here in Toronto (at which there is a possiblity of my joining an after-screening discussion panel), and this weekend I'll be attending the Montreal Stop-motion Film Festival Montreal Stop-motion Film Festival , where my film will be playing on Saturday at 1pm. If you happen to be in any of these areas at said times, come and say hi!

promotions! promotions! & progress

“I was watching BET one night, and they were interviewing a man about jazz music. He said jazz music was invented by the first generation out of slavery. I thought that was beautiful because, while it is music, it is very hard to put on paper; it is so much more a language of the soul … The first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a music birthed out of freedom. And that is the closest thing I know to Christian spirituality. A music birthed out of freedom. Everybody sings their song the way they feel it, everybody closes their eyes and lifts up their hands.”
- Donald Miller

Promotion No. 1: Blue Like Jazz is an honest, humourous, and poignant exploration of 'non-religious thoughts on Christian spirituality', and I expect nothing less from the film. That said though, it needs support! and its Kickstarter campaign (funded entirely by individual contributions) is coming to a close Monday evening.

Promotion No. 2: My mentor Chris Walsh just posted a neat little zombie animation he made in time for Hallowe'en, check it out here and additional information here!

And progress:





I received an early birthday present this year in the form of an air brush, and I put it to good use with painting the oppossum's head. For the most part the results turned out pretty decent. I'm new to air brushing, and one thing I'm going to do next time is rub the surface with an anti-static sheet so it doesn't attract all kinds of dust while it's drying. Another thing to be figured out is how to fix problem areas that might arise after additional details/features have been painted. I mixed acrylic paint with a bit of water, so re-applying paint (either with areas masked off and re-spraying, or perhaps with a very fine brush) to small areas that have been scratched etc. might be problematic. Overall though it lends a smoothness to the painted surface that I like, I know the lighting I'll be using for this fellow will be fairly low and won't involve any super close-ups, and this puppet is predominantly meant as a learning-curve project (I'll be getting into adding fur down the road!)

around about

Mein kot.


One of my brothers found a couple old Kodak cameras there once, and last summer the youngest one came back with a 'Do-It-Yourself' home dissection kit - the frog and fish were old and rubbery.

The Railway Steam Galop Has Arrived!

I've just spent the last week or so on the finishing touches of The Railway Steam Galop, a short film I worked on over the summer with animator, NFB veteran, and Sheridan professor Kaj Pindal. The film had its first public screening yesterday at the school, and it looked - and sounded! spectacular. This was (for everyone involved) our first foray into HD, and the output is pretty slick. I had a truly wonderful time working on the film and with those involved, and while I'm a little sad that part is over there's a very satisfying feeling that accompanies the knowledge of another completed project, and one well-done. (The previous two being my thesis film, and Chris Walsh's True Family Story. The Railway Steam Galop is now off to Denmark for the Ribe Animation Festival (founded by Kaj), and from there, who knows?

In other news, The Scarf will be showing at the Redemptive Film Festival, the Montreal Stop Motion Film festival (more details to come for both), and at the 9:45am Family & Folktales screening, October 26th, of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival!

It's been a little busy the last couple days so I haven't been able to post more on the puppet or start on a second one, but I hope to have more progress up soon.

A few stills, excepting the clock, that didn't make the final cut: