Tiny Elephants

Christmas Festivities at Small Birds Singing

Posted in In production

A highlight of the year, this festival lived up to expectations.  There was an emphasis on stop-motion animation with a lifetime achievement award going to Mackinnon & Saunders, Barry Purves excellent interview with Adam Elliot and  Nightmare before Christmas the opening film.

Pipkin screened in Welsh, with English subtitles, in the Commercials and music video category.

Posted in Festivals

This was my first attendance at Aesthetica.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience  exploring York and attending all the various screening venues.  Slightly frustrating as there was a large number of films screening and many other events all running concurrently so had to be very selective.

Mother’s Song screened in Music Videos category in three venues over the three days of the festival and Pipkin screened in ‘family friendly animation’ category.

Posted in Festivals

Sadly I couldn’t be at Green Man Festival http://www.greenman.net, but Pamela was there and said it was fantastic to see Pipkin screening on both sides of the main stage and in the film tent.  Pamela captured the moment below:

In the Woods Festival  – 31st August http://www.inthewoodsfestival.co.uk/

Whirligig Cinema curated a programme of nature-themed shorts, Au Naturel, http://whirlygigcinema.com/events/woods-31-august/ which included Pipkin, for this exclusive little one day festival which has a secret woodland location in South East England. As tickets were all sold out, we couldn’t be there so can’t report back on this one.

Posted in Festivals

Pipkin, a film by Pamela Wyn Shannon & Linda McCarthy, has been in production for the last eight months and is now finished. It is a stop-motion animation bringing visual life to the song Pipkin which is composed and performed by Pamela Wyn Shannon from her album Courting Autumn. http://www.girlhenge.com/

Pipkin is a sycamore seed who is blown by the wind. His journey explores the relationship between landscape, folk memory and finding a place of belonging within the cycles of life.

Pamela has made the puppets and props for the film with needle felted plant-dyed wool.

Pipkin on Teasel

It is a joyous ‘coming of age’  when Pipkin rises up out of a bed of leaves and is greeted by the Green Seed Pod Queen.

Hadcyn is the Welsh Version of Pipkin, translated by Sion Aled Owen and also performed by Pamela. This project has been supported by the Arts Council of Wales.

Posted in In production

Mother’s Song was finally finished at the end of June after a year in the making.  What a joy to bring to life this powerful and disturbing story by The Long Dead Sevens http://www.thelongdeadsevens.com .

So far the film has  been screened at a number of film festivals.  It premiered at Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival  http://www.stopmotionmontreal.com in October 2012.  Then screened at Cinanima  http://cinanima.pt/2012/?lang=en in Portugal followed by Underwire Film Festival http://www.underwirefestival.com both in November.

Underwire  Festival celebrates shorts which have a woman film maker in a leading role in the crew. Mother’s Song was placed in the Editing Programme  ‘In the Cut’. The winner of this category was a beautiful film documenting the journey of recycled clothes accross India ‘Unravel’ by Prano Bailey-Bond http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKnqCzLQI0M

In February 2013,  Mother’s Song went to Animated Exeter http://www.animatedexeter.co.uk/ Always enjoyable…a beautiful city and lots of friends to see. In March the film was shortlisted in the Animation category of  Stoke Your Fires Film Festival and in April Mother’s Song travels to Corfu to screen at Be There – Corfu Animation Festival http://www.betherefest.gr/index.php?lang=en.

Posted in Festivals

http://animationfest-bg.eu/

“Special award “Proiko Proikov” for best animated eco film – HINTERLAND (LINDA MCCARTHY, UK)
The Special award “Proyko Proykov” for best animated eco film award goes to the Britsh director Linda McCarthy for her film HINTERLAND for its original humour and striking character design.”

Posted in Festivals, Awards

This was such a beautiful city.  And the festival was good too. http://anifest.cz/2013/history/11th-anifest/

Very friendly and hospitable and a great line up of speakers, including Barry Purves and Ian Mackinnon http://www.mackinnonandsaunders.com/

A Traditional Christmas at Small Birds Singing was screening as part of a British Puppet Panorama, curated by Paul Wells.

Puppets made by Mackinnon & Saunders

There was also wonderful exhibition of Jiri Trinka’s puppets and storyboards in the local museum.

Posted in Festivals

Excellent festival as always http://www.animatedexeter.co.uk/.

Highlight was a workshop with Wendy Froud http://realmoffroud.blogspot.co.uk/

and of course watching Hinterland screening.

Posted in Festivals

In January, Hinterland travelled to Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, to take part in the Greenflicks strand of Flickerfest International Short Film Festival  http://www.flickerfest.com.au/home.aspx. Here’s the programme of films it was screening with:

http://www.flickerfest.com.au/programme_detail.aspx?e=15201

It was subsequently invited by Gus Berger of Red Hot Shorts in Melbourne http://redhotshorts.com.au/

to take part in a special screening of environmentally focussed short films as part of the Sustainable Living Festival (at Ceres Arts Park).

Posted in Festivals