Brothers of the Stripe are a collective of image-makers working across the UK who work on a mixture of art, graphic design, and illustration projects. The group were shepherded together by the foresight of Joel Millerchip, illustrator and unofficially, the illustrious leader.

Rainbow Kelly by Mr Millerchip

Joel went from city to city, getting full UK coverage by selecting some of his favourite illustrators to represent their area of the country, to bring what they do to the ‘Stripe’, and to play host once their time comes.

Expo by Mr Millerchip

Sampler by Mr the Beef

Some say our name comes from Joel’s obsession with the Newcastle United Football strip design, and that he has it tattooed on his underarm… annually.  Other rumours involve Stephen Chan once hypnotizing himself by staring at a barbershop pole too long, and the collectives shared loved of a striped Jamaican beer. Whatever it is, these boys are brothers in arms and industry.

Kyoto 1 by Stephen Chan

Kyoto 2 by Stephen Chan

So far, shows have included a spot at Get a Grip Studios at the Custard Factory, Birmingham and a day long take over of Design Museum, London. Next up, the collective find themselves in residence at the Soup Kitchen in Manchester sometime in October.

The Hunt (detail) by Will Scobie

Before long, Brothers of the Stripe will have reached the four corners of the UK, with representation in Scotland, Wales and England. Expect shows in Glasgow, Nottingham Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle and London in due course.

Clouds by Cloud Commission

One by Kristian Jones

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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See here for more Collectives featured on Central Station.
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The day started by heading to Queen Street Station for half 8. For someone who has just introduced the concept of weekends back into her life after year and a half getting up early on a Sunday is not that strange. When in Edinburgh, Kaye (who is also part of team) and I found our way to Novotel beside ECA for our shift at Censta hub as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival. After setting up and making the table all lovely with posters, flyers and badges (my goodness, those posters didn’t want to stay up), our job was to introduce the site to people taking part in Digicult’s Red or Dead talks, answer any questions and encourage people to blog about their EIFF experience. All went well. People seem to be enjoying the talks and chatting to each other between the talks.

My shift finished around 2pm and I decided to visit Edinburgh College of Art and their degree show as I had some time to kill before getting ready for Sound : Image : Art and the afterparty. The work I managed to see was all of high standards including some very interesting pieces such as 3D fabrics, educational software about ‘making sex’ and gorgeous performance costumes. Oh, and a moustache on a stick. I liked that.

When entering the main building I bumped into a friend of mine Luke and I never viewed everything on offer as we ended up talking about his time in ECA, graduating and putting his exhibition together, cameras and photography and we made tentative plans for a joint exhibition. I find talking to others who create things very inspiring as it pushes me to do more and you can never beat catching up with someone who you haven’t seen for months (and talking about cats, holidays and music).

It was all too soon time for me to head back to the hub and Luke to pack up his photos and leave the college for the last time. Next couple of hours were a whirl of putting up posters, setting things up, and getting something to eat just in time for people to arrive to Inspace for Sound : Image : Art.

It was great to see the final fruits of a project I had been involved from almost from the start. As an intern I had been there to contact people and push the project in social media. The event was a combination of networking, finding out more about Central Station and hearing views of everyone involved in the Soundtrack project in the beautiful white surroundings of Inspace. There were drinks, there were smiley faces, there were members’ work projected on the walls. But all too soon I had to run off again, this time to man the door of the afterparty which was buzzing. All that remains to be said is that you should have been there, the dance moves during Don’t Stop Believing by Journey were something else.

Please check out all the other blogs posted for the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010for more information and photos.

First up, we’re learning a little about Central Station.

[21:23] As regular readers of this blog & community will know, Central Station is an arts hub – a place to find creative people and inspiration. We’re being shown around some of the portfolios and site features.

[21:25] Central Station has been working with a number of projects. Art/Roc/Docx is a collaborative cross-disciplinary documentary featuring the band Isocele, a shooter, photographer, fixer, designers, curators, a producer and editor. At the beginning they didn’t know what they were making; ultimately they ended up with a 75 minute film that premiered at the Glasgow Short Film Festival. (I wish I’d been part of it. Sounds like fun. Who wants to make a film with me?)

[21:28] CenSta was also involved with the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. They’ve done a lot of work extending art in an interdisciplinary way using the Internet as both a communications and creative device; something I think more technologists should also be involved with. It doesn’t have to be all about extending XMPP and creating decentralized social networking protocols, you know; there’s a lot of human discovery and creativity that can be facilitated. Not just facilited – made. Technologists can be artists too!

InSpace is a beautiful space, by the way, but it’s a little echoey at the back. I’m straining to hear.

Central Station is being compared to WordPress and Facebook. It’s a community that involves people, says a representative of member organisation Savalas – but by implication it’s also a community about opportunities for creatives and creative organisations.

[21:34] We’re being shown a short film which links computer-generated animation and orgiinal composition in a really dynamic way. It’s like an iris reaffirming itself in a radar swoop, set to some arresting beats and atmospheric sound.

The last time I liveblogged anything, it was the Eurovision Song Contest. Alas, I don’t think the chances of anyone bursting out with a saxophone and avant garde sunglasses are anywhere near as great here.

[21:39] “Although it is global [...] There’s a tangible, physical community behind it.”

[21:43] Roderick Buchanan is talking about his soundtrack project. He’s talking about the freeing aspects of doing group shows (relatively little responsibility, the ability to see others’ work at the same time), and how independent shows are significantly more stressful. Central Station has been a useful community for him throughout the process of transitioning from one to the other, partially as a resource for help and advice.

[21:50] A discussion of the narcissism of social networking sites and how Roderick is on the “social networking rocks”. In particular, he has a problem with the terminology: calling people “friends”, for example. This is my day job, and my observation would be that it’s a cultural difference – not necessarily generational. I think people in California, where most of this technology comes from, are far happier with labelling strangers as friends than the Scots are. Generally, the most complaints I’ve heard about the wording on these sites come from Scotland; why is this, and what does it say about Scotland as a culture? (Or, indeed, California?)

[21:52] Indeed, Roderick says that when he was approached by Central Station to work on the “Composer wanted” project, he didn’t like the narcissistic aspects of his personality that the site drew out of his personality.

There does seem to be a very wide conversation that could be had here. As a half-American who lives in Edinburgh, I feel conflicted: should we all be getting used to promoting our personal brands? (This tends to be where I sit.) Or is it a worrying trend that really undermines something important in different cultures?

[21:54] Not everyone enjoys blogging. That’s absolutely true; what’s great about Central Station is that it allows for different forms. When I approached designing an open source social networking platform, back in 2004, our team made the same assumption: not everyone would be interested in writing text, or writing about themselves. Privacy and different media are crucial. CenSta has, in my opinion, made the right decisions here.

[21:56] Here’s a question (from me): do contemporary artists inherently need to be self promoters?

[21:59] Ultimately, Roderick says, his optimism has been restored thanks to the real-life community behind the site. “Giles [Lamb] and Savalas are the guys with the right trainers and haircuts on this project. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.”

[22:01] Roderick: “I was feeling all open and connective about collaborating with Central Station and Savalas on the production of a new artwork until I saw the streamed version of my video ‘Traffic’ online. Now I’m feeling naked and exposed.” But it’s surely good promotion? “Central Station is another set of opportunities, and we all try to make them work for us.” He doesn’t know if people are more connected to his practice thanks to his presence online, but feels that other people may see him (and the sountrack project) as an opportunity.

[22:04] “Technology is always making [promises] and not paying off.” I respectfully disagree, although, of course, I’m biased …

[22:05] We’re being shown a short film. I won’t describe it; hopefully it’s available to view online. Meanwhile, Sasha has uploaded some great photographs (aside from the one of me).

[22:08] Roderick: “the technology is still not there.” Technologists: opportunity! There are creatives out there dying for more tools, more infrastructure. Central Station is doing a fine job with the community – what else can you provide?

[22:10] The short film we’re being shown involves those awesome liquid-filled pen lids where little plastic characters float across the length. There was a bear. I always condone bears.

[22:12] The soundtrack project has received 41 responses; 2677 blog posts; 1641 group members; 2400 project pageviews. Much easier than trying to get that kind of participation offline.

[22:13] Those participants eventually boiled down to six shortlisted members developing soundtrack ideas for Roderick’s next piece of experimental filmmaking.

[22:15] Sasha has left us, but I’ll be liveblogging for the rest of the evening. Don’t forget to also check out the Central Station twitter account (and my own).

[22:17] We’re talking to Nils Mugel Meisel, who is one of the shortlisted musicians, and looking at some of the newly-soundtracked films. It’s inspiring stuff: original films seem to turn into completely new works when creative audio is independently applied. Makes you think about how much of a difference sound really makes, and also makes me want to get my hands dirty, or collar some of the musicians I know.

[22:27] Ultimately, Andy Sim and his team Fear Wasabi won the Central Station soundtrack competition, and went into production with Roderick and Savalas. Tonight’s event, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, is the world premiere of the resulting film.

[22:40] Argh, we just lost 10 minutes of updates! In brief:

The standard filmmaking process can take years from inception to distribution. The process of making this film took between 6-8 weeks, which is revolutionary!

Furthermore, the team – in the end – found blogging useful. The reflection, far from being an act of narcissism, kept them focused; it ultimately ended up being an archive of their creative process.

There’s clearly a lot of work still to do in terms of creating a digital infrastructure for these kinds of activities, but this sounds like it’s been a successful project with a tangible outcome.

[22:43] We’re settling down to watch the films: Tattoo and Lament.

[22:49] Tattoo: centuries of deep conflict laid out on living flesh. Genuinely fascinating and – despite being essentially static – shot through with raw emotion.

[22:56] Lament: a shocking play on Paddy’s Lament that plays with expectations and ends like a lightning bolt.

[22:57] And that’s it – we’re closing down. Thanks to everyone who’s been following tonight, everyone who’s in the room, and to Central Station for making it all happen.

They are hosting their big event ‘Sound: Image: Art’, as art of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, as we speak, so Ben and I are live blogging the event. Everybody wave to Ben.

The event showcases the fruits of short film collaboration between visual artist  Roderick Buchanan, and one lucky composer, Fear Wasabi. Sourced entirely through Central Station, it is a celebration of what Central Station can achieve, enable and produce in the arts.

[21:26] Currently, Suzy Glass is telling the audience all about Central Station, how it works and what it can do.

[21:31] The venue, Inspace, is really gorgeous, with a performance space that spans several levels, several projection areas and some pretty epic surround sound. It also has a very cool red stagey bit (it’s hard to describe).

[21:35] A clip demonstrating how the composer, Buchanan and the animator have chosen to collaborate. Apparently, i terms of sound design each piece consists of ten layers and there is a visual element to complement each of these.

[21:39]  This project has been created in collaboration with sound design company, Savalas.

[21:40] Is anyone else really really warm? My decision to wear tights today was a poor one, even in this cool minimalist space.

[21:42] Everyone look at Ben!

Isn’t he industrious?

[21:47] Roderick Buchanan is talking about how visual art in video and film is now easier to make, due to the simplification of technology. He sounds a little wistful.

[21:56] The first post has fallen to the liveblogging gods. I just spent five minutes writing lovely words about how social media can be used to enable creative projects, and it got swallowed by the internet. Damn!

[21: 59] To make up for it, here’s Roderick Buchanan and Savalas Studio’s Giles Lam, sitting in fro of the odd red stage:

[22:01] RB feels ‘naked and expose’ by the streamed version of his film, ‘Traffic’ online.

[22:03] Has the gallery format fallen to the gods of social media; how useful is it to an artist today to exhibit their work in real time? Should they simply update their Flickr regularly instead? All questions popping into my head, thanks to RB and GL’s conversation. What do you think?

[22:05] We are now being showing ‘Out’, one of RB’s early works. Shh, while we watch!

[22:08] Ben has said my pictures of the event are ‘great’. I think he might be drunk blogging.

[22:12]Get some film action going on here; a short film comprised of shots of those awesome pens with floating stuff in. Apparently, this film was ‘mortifying’ for RB.

[22:15] Sadly, this is my time to go. Work in the morning and huge amounts of reviews to write call me homewards, as does the promise of loungewear. Some very interesting topics raised this evening and wish I could stay to hear rest of the discussion. Sasha out!

I bear little more than a passing resemblance to Colin Farrell, not something that is much of an issue in day-to-day life, but when you’re in a small town stuffed to the gunwales with A-list it can be enough to turn the odd head.

After finishing work on Hallam Foe I travelled with the Sigma Films team to the Cannes film festival in the capacity of chief ligger.  The year was 2006 and we were quite a gang, we’d just finished shooting a film and were in competition with another, Red Road. It was some introduction to the festival, red carpet, parties aplenty and more of the cote d’azures’ famous pink wine than you could shake a proverbial stick at.

After six days of intense hedonism I was not feeling at my best.  I was struggling to keep up with such elite company and found myself a literally withering wallflower at the Film Four party.  It was at this point someone asked me if I’d like to meet Matt Damon.

The machinations of film festivals was unknown to me in any great detail.  Among the famous faces and sea of booze, you have some of the most important conversations of your career.  Life altering introductions are cloaked in the guise of informal chats beneath the shade of palms and have to be navigated with a decorum and mental dexterity that is beyond the reaches of your average drunken reprobate.  The intense atmosphere belies the scene of sunshine and sea air, as the great and good and the hawks and hoods gather to propel themselves and their projects.  As a newbie it is a very strange experience indeed, quite surreal.  You can imagine my sense of relief when Matt Damon turned out to be another person sporting vague resemblance to the real McCoy.

However, as is the way at festivals, it turned out that Matt Damon worked for Screen WM and introduced me to James Lees, producer/director at The Hobo Film Company and rising star of the music video and documentary worlds.

I think it would be fair to say that James was the most eminent of our group having recently won plaudits for his short films at Sundance and Hot Docs.  But at this party we were all at the bottom of the luminary ladder, and so set to wiling away the evening with chat of ambition before disappearing off on our separate ways into the night.

Cut to two years later: I had written a script (I Love Luci) and was in Clermont-Ferrand on a research mission to watch some of the world’s finest short films.  Our days work was done and my producer, Brian Coffey, and myself were coming to the tail end of another drink fuelled round of encounters when heading home I spotted James’ not so familiar face.  I reintroduced myself and we agreed that maybe meeting at the beginning of the evening might be a better plan.

Discussion revealed James was in a unique position to be able to make a connection with both Screen WM and EM Media.  Between the three of us, James, Brian and myself, we started to hatch a plan.  Within the next couple of days we had had dinner with Scottish Screen and EM Media and plans were afoot to engage Matt Damon and his gang.  The finance plan was set to produce my first short film.

Brian and James worked tirelessly to achieve an unprecedented deal that pulled together Sigma Films, Zentropa, Screen WM, EM Media and Scottish Screen contributing the lions’ share.  This is a finance structure very similar to the way feature films are put together and made the world of difference to our approach to making I Love Luci and the way we engaged people to work on it.

Six months later we were in production and James was co-producer on the film.  James’ ability to tie Screen WM and EM Media into the project had significant effect on our budget and allowed us to make a film that competes at the very top level of the international festival circuit.

Come 2009 James and I were back in Cannes exploiting the looky-likey credentials (we genuinely talked our way into one of the most exclusive clubs in disguise), continuing to seek out those all-important chance encounters that lead to opportunities.  It’s safe to say that first drunken evening has served to be a constant reminder to me of the importance of getting to festivals and meeting people.  You never know when serendipity might strike, or when you’ll bump into people again.  If you’re thinking about trying to get to a festival, my advice is to go for it; get out there and get in front of people and you will find a way to move forward with your projects.

James, Brian and myself will be continuing our work together when James’ directs his second dramatic short later in the year and it’ll be my turn to watch and learn while Brian and I produce.

Would you like to meet Matt Damon?  James Lees’ version of events

…that was the opening gambit with which I met Mr Colin Farrell, sorry, Mr Colin Kennedy. Sat on the veranda at the Film Four party in Cannes with my screen agency Screen WM we had noticed an A-List look-a-like contender to go alongside our rather speculative Matt Damon look-a-like. This is the kind of activity you end up doing at Cannes until you’re successful enough to book back to back meetings with major movie players from the moment you land to the moment you take off. I was a short film maker checking out the festival for the first time. Being brutally honest this often means just sitting around getting pissed in the sun amongst lots of other people who’re sitting around getting pissed in the sun. The difference is they’ve been doing it for twenty years and are probably committing millions of pounds to each other’s projects. I still can’t quite get my head round what a million pounds is let alone commit it to anyone.

After we had stood mock Matt Damon and mock Colin Farrell next to each other, laughed and took some pictures… we did what you do at Cannes and got pissed together. I can’t really remember much about it but we had a great evening and sure enough no one committed any millions of pounds to us. Or in fact pounds full stop.
Fast forward and I am at Clermont-Ferrand. I have been very fortunate and my current short is having a golden run at the festivals. Winning at Cork, Hot Docs, AFI and being nominated for a European Academy Award (and in a couple of days a special jury mention at Clermont!). Outside after a screening, in the beautiful surrounds of the old town, I hear someone call my name. It’s Colin Farrell! Oh no, it’s that other Colin. The Scottish one. Nevertheless still pleased to be reacquainted, Colin introduces me to his producer Brian Coffey and we set off to the local bar (theme developing here? Never).

Over the next few days we get chatting about Colin and Brian’s short ‘I Love Luci’ and we start to see potential for something quite exciting. Could we create a co-production and pull together several screen agencies. On a short film?
What followed after the festival was a busy process of working out that yes, in fact we could. I set up my own company The Hobo Film Company, a year or two earlier to facilitate production of my own films and here was an opportunity to take it to the next level, a co-production with one of the UK’s leading independent film companies. After a meeting in Clermont we continued to converse with EM Media and soon they came onboard seeing it as an excellent opportunity to develop my East Midlands based film company. I then tentatively approached Screen WM, funders of my first short film and my own local screen agency as a West Midlands based filmmaker. Thankfully they too thought it was a fantastic opportunity and threw their weight behind it. And that (in rather simplified terms) was that. The Hobo Film Company would come onboard as a co-production partner and bring the additional funding required to green light the film.

We have all heard a million stories about making a film – the writing, the casting, the shoot, the post production etc. So I won’t spoil this by going into any of those details here (Colin can fill you in on that if you ask him nicely – preferably over a beer in front of Le Grand in Cannes). Suffice to say the film that came out of all this, in my own humble opinion, fully lived up to the hype. The experience of working at Film City with Sigma and helping make ‘I Love Luci’ a reality was nothing short of amazing. It is not often I step away from the directors’ role into a producing role but working with a director like Colin was a joy. Whenever I could I would sit back and watch him at work and spot our similarities and our differences in approach. And then pinch the idea for myself next time I directed!
Now we find ourselves back on the festival circuit. Back at Clermont where the seeds of a co-production were first planted and had now blossomed into an award winning Clermont film.
I currently consider myself very lucky to have Brian and Colin as my producers on my fourth short ‘Ending’. Little do they know how much more difficult I suddenly become to work with when I’m the director!

http://www.iloveluci.com
I Love Luci was written and directed by Colin Kennedy, produced by Brian Coffey and co-produced by James Lees.  It won the Prix des Mediatheques at Clermont-Ferrand 2010 and is currently touring the festival circuit in Europe and the US.

I grew up glued to the TV, particularly American cartoons funded by toy manufacturers to flog their products, and playing a lot of video games that didn’t do me any harm. However, cinema was, and will always be, my first love.

Our local cinema was the mythical ABC Muirend Cinema. Designed by William Bereseford Inglis in 1933, the building exterior replicated a Spanish style hacienda while inside the auditorium had lots of Flamenco style motifs, such as balconies, amber lanterns and images of matadors painted on tiles dotted along the stairwells. Looking back as I write this, Muirend Cinema seems a bizarre prophecy of my future; I studied Spanish at Glasgow University and somehow I’ve ended up working for Glasgow Film Theatre as Learning Projects Coordinator for Young People. The range of the films it offered were the standard box office fare but I relished them all regardless. My seminal movie moments included watching Jurassic Park on the opening weekend, my mum convincing the box office grump that I was old enough to watch The Man Without A Face and stuffing my face with the cheaper sweets bought next door in Safeways to the bombast of Independence Day.

Sadly like a lot of old cinemas in Glasgow, ABC Muirend shut down in 2001 due to shrinking audiences that preferred the industrial comfort of a multiplex and the cost of maintaining a building that was well past its prime. Each time I pass it, I can’t help feel a wave of sadness for an important community relic that now functions as luxury apartments for a select few. My memories of Muirend remain but families in the Southside of Glasgow have to travel elsewhere these days for their cinematic outings.

Hopefully some of these families come to the GFT for our free Take 2 family screenings which screen every Saturday morning. I try to programme a range of films that appeal to a wide audience while sneaking in a few classic and foreign gems, like The Boy From Mercury, Mr Hulot’s Holiday and The Belles of St. Trinian’s. Unfortunately a lack of distribution of foreign titles for children and availability of prints makes screening non-Hollywood films a lot harder than it should be.

Although 41% of 15-24 year olds visit the cinema once a month* and are exposed to moving images on a daily basis, young people are often the least catered to by art house cinemas. More often than not, they tend to select films that appeal to older audiences with their youth remit left solely to ‘parent and baby’ screenings. Consequently, children and young adults miss out on the wealth of different contemporary perspectives offered by world cinema and so remain quite happy to settle for whatever is showing at their local Cineworld.

This isn’t helped by the fact that moving image education still struggles to be implemented across schools in the UK. Despite repeated efforts, teachers cite a lack of resources and adequate training to properly implement film into the classroom. As a result, DVDs can often become a babysitter for pupils rather than a key part of their cultural development and awareness. It remains to be seen whether the ambitions of 21st Century Literacy, a consortium set up by the UK Film Council and Film Education among others, can be achieved.

In response to these issues, GFT Learning set up the Glasgow Youth Film Festival to offer young people a chance to help devise, promote and run their own film festival. Programmed by a worryingly cool bunch of teenagers, GYFF aims to reach out to young Glaswegians through their love of movies while supporting their talents and aspirations. This year almost 7,000 young people attended GYFF events; it was such a refreshing sight to see so many young faces in our cinemas. (Previously, members of our Youth Group told me that they felt unwelcome by older GFT patrons who thought they’d only talk throughout the film.) The response we had was overwhelming and encouraging enough to safely say that there’s a youth audience in Glasgow interested in films from around the globe.

Over the next few years for GYFF, I hope to increase the opportunities for young people to talk to people who work in the moving image industries – not just directors or actors but writers, graphic designers, animators and editors who all make a living from their passion for film, TV and video games. Like the rest of the arts, the film industry remains horribly white and middle class, in spite of the occasional tokenistic scheme for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds. Anyone who aspires to work in this industry is expected to intern for free or live off small bursaries. I had to do this for almost 2 years and I doubt that it will change anytime soon, no matter how legally grey internships appear.

There’s more to young movie fans than a lucrative demographic to market blockbusters to. Exhibitors, distributors, not to mention teachers, should encourage young people to look at moving image in a reflective and creative way rather than be passive observers that we often assume them to be. Thankfully youth film festivals such as GYFF, Discovery and Future Film, alongside the exciting developments promised by 8 1/2 Foundation, demonstrate the growing commitment to future generations of cinemagoers. With the falling costs of HD technology and the increasing ease of distributing films online, I’m hopeful that all young people will continue to be inspired by the flickering images around them – from the glow of a TV, the hum of a projector or even the hypnotic whirl of your mum’s dirty washing.

*According to UK Film Council’s 2009 Statistics Handbook

Images of ABC Muirend taken from Scottish Cinemas site

The experience of working on a small budget film of this nature has given me rather a better idea of what helps a director or film maker produce something ‘successful’. While I was squirreled away in my parents’ shed filming Battenberg, I paid close attention to other films with similar production time-scales and budgets. Further research revealed many film makers working with similar parameters whilst creating – unhindered by such constraints – fantastic pieces of story telling. Initially I thought of these parameters as restricting, however since finishing the film I have come to recognise that each and every hurdle which forced me to jump higher and higher to finish the film within budget and on time was integral to its success.

What I have realised is that too much time and money can spoil a director by letting them go wild in the sweetie shop and rotting their little creative teeth away. Budgetary restraints and a feverish desperation to have my film selected for funding, inadvertantly set the boundaries that helped Battenberg retain a consistent visual aesthetic and production philosphy which I now believe is key to a films’ visual success when time and money are not a liberty. By sourcing the majority of the props from found, second-hand objects, the set and puppet build cost very little. I found myself unhappy with the objects I contrived for the set and puppets, preferring the freedom of finding something just right and not having to sacrifice time or money in the process. The entire films visual essence was subsequently displayed as a found object. This in turn let me very quickly rearange sets and test out scenes all in the same two metre squared set. If somthing didnt work out as I had hoped, or fit the script, it was easily rearranged or manipulated to suit, allowing for greater scope for improvisation. These ideals then seeped into the the technical equipment, resulting in a highley succesful camera dolly manufactured from one of my childhood rollerskates, which gave the camera movements a special touch.

This was the ingenuity bred by my parameters, but it has shown me how setting rules for the tools you use in animation can help the universe you create become more believable. Computer film makers such as David O’Reilly and Nina Paley, creator of feature animation Sita Sings The Blues, have also shown this. Sita Sings The Blues’ 1:21 minutes was animated by one person over 3 years. The independent spirit of the project is what I believe nurtured its ingenious and elegant story telling. Similarly, David Oriely has built his success on his restrained use of 3d animation, but this is not solely an economy of style, but rather an awareness of the bare essentials of story telling and what animation really is: the potential that exists in two sequential but shrewdly looped frames. Similar to commercially successful televised animation series such as Dragon Ball Z. This awareness of how simple, pared-down aesthetics can tell a captivating and emotional story has allowed many animators to move beyond what you would expect, in terms of the length and quality of films made by an individual. As a result, right now, my heros are the lone animators and film makers who find ways to make work with very little – the ingenuity of finding a way to create something bigger than themselves.

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The mechanical shark used in Jaws kept breaking down and they were only able to utilise it in a small amount of shots.

‘Who strive – you don’t know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,-
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) – so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged’
Andrea del Sarto, Robert Browning

Other heroes include:

Bruce Bickford – Monster Road, Prometheus’ Garden.

Adam Elliot – Mary & Max, Harvie Krumpet.

During the EIFF I will be part of an animation panel chaired by Melanie Coombes – the producer of Harvey Krumpet and Mary and Max – which should provide great ideas and insights into the film making process, I hope some of you can join us for the discussion.

Red or Dead: Creative Choices in Short Filmmaking
Sunday 20th June
Playhouse Suite, Novotel Hotel, 80 Lauriston Place
14:00 -14:45

Battenberg Screening times at EIFF

Thursday 17 June 11:30 Filmhouse 3 (Press & Industry Screening:McLaren Animation 2)
Friday 18 June 18:30 Filmhouse 3 (Public Screening: McLaren Animation 2)
Sunday 20 June 11:45 Filmhouse 3 (Public Screening: McLaren Animation 2)
Monday 21 June 13:30 Filmhouse 2 (Public Screening: Digicult Shorts)

stewartcomrie