It's cold out but where is the snow?

During the past two weeks I have spent more time de-icing the car than I have in the past six years. I can see everyone around looking depressed because of the cold and having to de-ice their cars for the drive to work and to drop of the kids. But I am enjoying it, the weather at present just makes me feel like a kid again and the cold winter ice and snow. The only difference now is age and having to wear a hat. This morning was really clear with heavy ice and some interesting ice formations on the back of the car. I took some photographs of them.

In case anyone is missing the snow I have included some snow scenes I took at few years back.

Bradford Animation Festival 2007

It has been a busy few months. Just wanted to post some photographs from this Bradford Animation Festival. I spent last week at the festival where I presented two events I organised the Storyboarding Panel which had Ginger Gibbons, Kevin Baldwin and Ian Culbard as speakers. Most of the past few months have been spent working on the Bob Godfrey retrospective which went well with Bob receiving the first ever Bradford Animation Festival Lifetime Achievement award. I also spent the Wednesday at the festival chairing a symposium on archiving and conserving animation. I will post more about the events plus photographs when I have time.

Bob Godfrey receiving the first Bradford Animation Festival Lifetime Achievement Award

Some of the speakers and delegates at the archiving and conserving animation symposium

The famous Curtis Jobling graced us with his presence at the festival.
Storyboarding panel members Ginger Gibbons, Kevin Baldwin and Ian Culbard.

Comics etc.

I refered to the work of Jonathan Edwards in one of my previous posts in particular about his comic Aunt Connie & The Plague of Beards. Jonathan has now upgraded his website to sell his work including copies of his comics. Check out his work and all the great stuff for sale on his website.

Also Curtis Jobling has a website that has just been launched have a look.

Just read a really good interview of Neil Gaiman on Paul Gravett's website about the film Stardust which is out in the UK in October. He also refers to Henry Selick's stop motion film Caroline which is due for release next year.

Shinden-Ryu-Iai

I found this photograph also with the sho-do photographs. While I was in Japan I studied Shinden-Ryu-Iai a particular school/style of Iai-do. I was taught by an amazing teacher Origuchi Kozo who taught art at the local junior high school where I worked. Origuchi also played classic guitar and a traditional Japanese musucal instrament the shakuhachi. The photograph was taken at regional class where we practiced cutting with katana, this was very different from using a replica katana. It was great to get the chance to pratice with the real katana and to understand all the movements I had been practicing. Most of the classes where in held in the gym of the junior high school which had no heating. Which meant wearing socks in the winter to stop my feet from freezing. I took part in regional competitions and gradings and was awarding my ichi-dan after my first year, which is normal for where I was studing. Unfortunately my work contract finished before I could go for my next grading.

Sho-do

Found this photograph while unpacking and going through old photographs. The photograph was taken for a local newspaper article about me studying Sho-Do (calligraphy). This photograph is of me with my sensei, I have his name written somewhere once I find it I will add it and a copy of the newspaper article. At least it will go some way to answering what else I am interested in or do. Unfortunately I have been unable to continue with sho-do but perhaps being closer to London may mean I can take it up again.

Whitstable Osyter Festival

Took sometime off from unpacking over the weekend and went to Whitstable for the Osyter Festival. A friend Michelle works in Canterbury and lives in Whitsable told me of the festival and runs until the end of this week. It was great fun and sort of set the tone for feeling normal and relaxed.

The Whitstable Giant Landing the Oysters

Especially with the very changeable weather, trying to see the landing of the oysters in between bouts of rain. Some great scenes of the clouds and rain blocking the view from Whitstable to the Isle of Sheppy. I tried to take some photographs to get a feel of the day, some work but a lot have hit the rubbish bin.

I particularly enjoyed the Morris Dancers, its very interesting to see so many different versions of dressing and dance. Still not sure of the history of it but some of the introductions linked them with farming and sowing seeds. Which remains me of some of the dances and theatre in Japan in particular Kagura.

Having enjoyed Atama-Yama (Mt. Head) by Yamamura Koji a few years back it was great to see another example of his work called "Man & Whale" on Stashmedia. It is a wonderful film which bring to light the question of whaling.

More Badgers

It has been a very busy few months with a lot of things happening the biggest has been getting a new job and moving. Still unpacking everything but thought I would at least post some of the last photographs I took of the badgers. In the last few weeks our cat has spent most of the time watching them and I was lucky to get these photographs of her near them.

Sweet Packaging

While I was in Boston I got found some interesting sweet packaging. The best has to be the Lighting Bugs Gummy Candy, which light up when you pick them up the the plastic chopsticks. I found these it a shop dedicated to sweets, unfortunately I was not allowed to take photographs of inside the shop. As it was Easter there was a Easter Bunny version of the Lighting Bugs.

I picked up the Lobster Bait taffy during my stop over at Halifax. The packaging and illustration is interesting in particular as the Lobster seems to be looking forward to being eaten. I also picked up a pack of lobster gummy candy. It is very odd that so much of the food advertising in particular sweets seem to have the producing enjoying the idea that it is there to be eaten. Very much like the character in Douglas Adams's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I happen to find the website Suicide Food which has lots of examples of advertising and product placements that play on the anthropomorphic nature of food advertising. There is such as mixture from funny to the disturbed perhaps the most disturbed is an advertisement for a French sausage, just scroll through the archive pages on the site and you will find it.
On a more lighter note, I just liked this one for the design of the characters there seems to be a lot of products with the Wonka logo but still no sign of the chocolate bars with the Golden Ticket. I wonder what Dahl would have thought of these perhaps a bit let down in the same way that the sweets based on those in the Harry Potter novels just don't live up to expectation. Certainly there would be some problems with the ethical issue of a live chocolate frog.

More Animation Exhibtition Photographs

Puppets from Tim Burton's film Corpse Bride. Puppets and set from Pingu gives some idea of how many puppets are involved in the production of the series.

More Photographs of Boston

Boston

Had a great trip to Boston during Easter to attend the Popular Culture Association Conference. It was superb conference and I really enjoyed Boston, meet lots of great people and took lots of photographs. I spent the Tuesday evening in London and wandering around the city taking photographs with my new camera just to see how it work with in low light. I ended up taking very touristic photographs of sites around London which I had seen so many times but never felt like photographing. I have just posted some of the photographs I took during the trip for now and will write more about Boston when I get the chance.

I liked the effect of the London Eye, but it was the CCTV sign that made the image more interesting.
I took this on my flight back to London.

Animation Exhibition

In one of my previous postings I mentioned the work of Paul Berry in particular his film The Sandman. It is a truly beautiful film and a must for anyone interested in animation in particular stop motion to watch.

A few weeks ago I visited McKinnon and Saunders with Dave Jones to collect some puppets for an exhibition Dave had organised. It was a great to look around the workshop and talk to Nick Roberson as he finished packing the puppets. Dave spent months planning the exhibition and arranging collecting the puppets. The exhibition was excellent and worth all the hard work Dave put in, but not sure if it was worth him damaging his back. The highlight for many was the puppets from The Corpse Bride. I will post some of the photographs of the installation of the exhibition including the displays put up from Jud from Hot Entertainment. A great exhibition which I hope all those who got to see it enjoyed. The exhibition also included a puppet from Mars Attack which Curtis Jobling famously worked on. Such amazing puppets and creative use of materials, such a shame they were never used in the film, but I would still have loved to have seen some test pieces of animation of these puppets if there were any done.

Film and Television Archives

It’s been a very busy period the last few weeks with lots of interesting things happening. Over the past few months I have been watching the BBC 2 programme Nation on Film . The most recent episode was a collection of corporate and amateur films of car production and driving. What was interesting was the established visual language of car advertising that we see today was being used so early in amateur and professional film making. The most notable showing how robust the suspension systems were. A former film maker for Ford note that the most important issue was the conservation and archiving of these films are they are a record of the past. It does ring true for me having worked in an archive and using them for my work. Although I am not interested in cars it is historically interesting how the visual language in different media evolves and in the case of car advertising a certain generic sub-genre of advertising language develops. If you are interested in comparing the visual language of car advertising from different countries have a look at Internet Archive and compare them with come of the new CGI, special effects car commercials which can be found on Stashmedia. These are good examples of the future potential of internet based archives in particular Internet Archive which is full of wonderful films.

WonderCon 2007

I just read a review of the WonderCon 2007 event in San Francisco on Animation World News . This year the Comic Art Conference moved from San Diego, I had sent a conference paper which was not accepted due to limited time slots. I was later asked if I was still interested in presenting my paper as some people had dropped out. Unfortunately I was unable to do it as I had limited funds which I am using to present at paper at the Popular Culture Association in Boston in early April. Reading the review of the WonderCon event and who was there really makes me regret not going. I would have loved to have seen Patrick McDonnell creator of Mutts, if you have not read Mutts check out Patrick’s site.

Thanks to Curtis Jobling for coming to North Wales to give a talk as part of the Digital Media Consortia project and for the workshop for some of the MA and undergraduate students. For most people Curtis is perhaps better known for his work on Bob the Builder. You can find out much more about his role in designing Bob and the creation of the series on Curtis’s site. As with any modern renaissance man he has his creative mittens in many different pies including the forth coming animation series Frankenstein's Cat based on his picture book.

I just had to take a picture of the model of Nine the main character. Interestingly Curtis mentioned that the model was made by the same creative talent that made the Sandman puppet for Paul Berry’s amazing film The Sandman.

It was good to see Curtis again after talking to him at Bradford Animation Festival in November last year. I also meet Jonathon Edwards on Thursday as he came to meet up with Curtis. I remember reading Jonathon’s comic Aunt Connie & the Plague of Beards after buying it from Gosh in London.

Badgering Badgers in the Garden

A very interesting and busy week. With signs of some sunshine the wildlife have started to come out. Tons of frogs in the pond and a return of the badgers that have been visiting for the past few years. Although the forecast of snow for next week is a worry in particular for the frogs.

I have been hearing the badgers out and about in the garden late in the evening but yesterday was the first evening that they came out in good enough light to see them. Last year there were at least ten of them in the garden looking for food. We have been putting out food for them for them for the past few years.

The numbers have grown from three, five to ten, it will be interesting to see how many there will be this year. The high light last year was seeing the younger ones mugging the adults of food. I have posted a few photos taken over the last two years. I will try to post any new ones I take this year.