Last of the Festival Circuit

Just when I thought the 'festival circuit' was finished for Acorns, the film has been accepted into this year's MUMIA (Mostra Udigrudi Mundial de Animação) 2014 in Brazil! Looks like fun!

The shortlist is up on their blog now, scroll down to the 'International' category to see Acorns at the top!
http://www.mostramumia.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/12-mumia-selecionados.html

I also have a couple of other cool things to talk about, first is a certificate and program that came in the post all the way from Argentina! This was from the ANIMA - Córdoba International Animation Festival back in October 2013. I received a lovely certificate of participation and a complete printed program of the entire festival catalogue!

And there is also news from the 15th Hiroshima International Film Festival 2014 in Japan. Sadly, I received a letter declining my film for the competitive screenings (of which there were 2,217 entries and only 59 accepted!) but it was so nicely worded and presented I wanted to share it!

Good news however is that Acorns will be in the 'educational film market' screenings at the festival between the 21st-25th August, so it will be screened after all! I'm very happy for the film to be in Japan (my first inspiration for Acorns was Miyazaki-san's My Neighbour Totoro after all!) and I sent a little package to them with some postcards!

And that's about it from us, I'm so happy to see Acorns is still doing well even after 2 years! DVDs of the film have also done well at UK conventions and I will get them in stock online as soon as I can!
Thanks everyone! :)

New Acorns Poster

I made a new poster for Acorns this weekend for advertising the film. It was a lot of fun to add all the awards/festival selections to the poster! I have recently had some more invitations to festivals and a couple more I've entered into myself, so sadly I think I will have to delay the online release of Acorns for the time being! I am working on some cool stuff for the movie including my own DVDs and little artwork booklets which I will have available to buy sometime next year, so keep an eye out!

I was also interviewed by Creative Skillset last year after their Animation and VFX Showcase in London about how my Graduation film helped me get my first job, and it's just been printed in their 2013 Yearbook! Thanks to my connections through Newport University and an animation graduate from Lupus Films seeing our graduate showcase, I was hired there to work on last year's The Snowman and the Snowdog! I can't wait for the DVD this Christmas! :)

Click the image below to enlarge the interview.

Until next time! :)

Acorns at ANIMA, Klik! and Blackrock!

Acorns has been selected for screening at more festivals at the end of this year!

This October, on the 10th-12th, Acorns has been selected for the 'animation for children' category at the ANIMA - Córdoba International Animation Festival 2013 in Argentina! You can view their list of selected films here: http://www.animafestival.com.ar/eng/2013/08/11/anima2013-list-of-selected-films

Also this month, on the 11-12th October, Acorns is screening at the Blackrock Animation Film Festival  in Dublin! It looks like a fantastic time, so for anyone is Ireland this month, Acorns is confirmed in the "Best International Student or Graduate Film Category" and is screening in the Pop-Up Cinema One, Main Street in Blackrock on Saturday, 12th October 2013. Enjoy!
 More info on films, screenings and dates, please see their website: http://www.blackrockanimationfilmfestival.com

And finally, Acorns is in the official selection for the Klik! Amsterdam Animation Festival and is also running in the 'Kids' competition! The festival runs between 12-17th November 2013 and looks amazing! http://www.klikamsterdam.nl/

As of yet, I don't think I'll be able to attend any of the festivals myself due to my work and the costs, but it's all very exciting and I couldn't be happier! Thanks everyone for supporting my film! :)

Acorns Screens @ Paris and Barcelona Festivals this April!

A quick update about festivals this month! As previously posted, Acorns is participating in this year's Mecal International Short Film and Animation Festival of Barcelona which starts tomorrow! It runs from the 4th-28th April 2013 in Barcelona.

Acorns will be showing in the Children's Section 2 screening, it looks to be a great selection of films so do check it out if you can!

I am also pleased to announce Acorn's selection in The Inconnu Festival 2013 in Paris! The 10th International Short Film festival is in the 5 Avenue Mac Mahon cinema in the evenings between the 14th-17th April in Paris. Have a look at their wesbite here! L'inconnu Festival 2013

I'm still considering attending the festival in France so I'll post again soon if I decide to book a flight! Exciting! <3

Acorns @ Mecal Festival!

Acorns as been selected for the Children's program screening at the 15th Mecal International Short Film and Animation Festival of Barcelona! The festival runs from 4th-28th April 2013, check it out if you are in the area!

For more information, check out Mecal's website here: Mecal International Short Film and Animation Festival of Barcelona 2013

I will post again with more screening information once the program comes through.

In the meantime, Acorns has joined the bandwagon of Facebook Pages! I know everyone's getting you to "Like" their pages left, right and centre, but this one is really awesome. ;)

But seriously, I'll be putting up the most recent updates and screenings and pictures on there, so head over to Acorns on Facebook and "Like" for updates! :)

And I've also got in with the Twitter kids and invented a # hashtag! It's #littleacornfilm for those who want to tweet about Acorns! :)

Thanks for your continued support! :D
-Gemma, Amber and the Spirit

Annecy Animation Festival 2012

This year myself, 3 friends and my fiancé travelled to Annecy in France for their annual animation festival, which was fantastic! I cannot recommend it more to animation lovers and animators pursuing a career in animation!

From pouring rain to sweltering hot! It was like we never left Wales!

As poor students, we were only camping there, which meant we managed to get soaked and sunburnt in the same week (or day, even!) thanks to highly sporadic weather, but the place is beautiful and the work was fantastic.

Arrugas (Wrinkles)

Particular works of mention were the features; Arrugas (Wrinkles) a hauntingly touching film about growing old with Alzheimer's, Approved for Adoption about a Korean boy adopted into a Belgian family and the difficulties with fitting in, Zarafa a 2D film about an African boy traveling across Europe to save a baby giraffe and A Letter to Momo which is Production I.G.'s most recent feature about a girl and her mother learning to cope with the loss of their father and husband respectively (with added supernatural demons).

Hi-no-youjin (Combustible)

The shorts; Tram, a hilarious film about female sexual frustration, The People Who Never Stop a lovely film about the effects of the Japanese disaster last year, Le Jardin Enchanté a cute musical about a down-to-earth hippy and a tech-savvy guy who don't get along, Chinti, a sweet mixed-medium film about an ant who wants to visit the Taj Mahal, Father about a handful of children in different mediums who share their experiences with their fathers, Pythagasaurus a funny CG Aardman film about cavemen and their encounter with maths, Hi-no-youjin (Combustible) a beautifully detailed and ornate story about a brother and sister who are forced into social roles, Paso Doble a wonderfully animated sequence between a dancer and a bull and The Making of Longbird, a British 'making of' film documenting the restoration and remake of an old animation that turns into hilarious banter between a paper cut-out longbird with a Russian accent and it's creator... just to name a few!!

There were of course more films that we didn't even get to see and then countless CalArts and Irish screenings showing fantastic films throughout the years. It was a fantastic event. The only downsides, were, as students, the exclusivity of some of the events. The Making of Brave, Wreck-it-Ralph and the premiere of Paperman were either invite-only or so limited to seating that you had to be at the front of the queue to even get in. For the Making of Brave, we stood in a queue for 2 hours only to discover that there were only 30 tickets available for students, 22 of which were already reserved so at least 100 people were queueing for only 8 tickets!

The DIsney Booth!

Fortunately our day at the Disney booth at the Mifa building completely made up for our disappointments. We spent the whole day speaking with real Disney animators, concept artists, story artists and talent seekers. Their talks were fantastic and we got amazing one-on-one sessions with them afterwards to look at our portfolios. Unfortuantely I didn't have much to show but it was still an unmissable event and I'll never forget it! I'm going to try submitting my portfolio too so you never know!

A life drawing of me and my fiancé that filmmaker Jake Nelson did at the same time that I was drawing him! I clearly wasn't being as secretive as I thought

The whole experience was amazing, the food was great, the gorgeous book shops, the atmosphere and place, the films and the people! You never know who you might bump into: we shared a taxi to Annecy with the lovely Shelley Page from Dreamworks without realising it (unbelievable!) and Peter Lord from Aardman was on our flight back to Bristol--three seats in front of me!

Me and Pascal Campion!

My friend Bryony and I also bought art books by the incredible Pascal Campion who was doing a book signing at the festival. He did marvelous pen and ink drawings in our books and was such a lovely and charming guy to talk to. Hope I get to meet him again one day!

My Annecy swag!

Pascal's drawing of his family at a Caribbean beach!

Pascal's drawing of his family at a Caribbean beach!

My friends and I hope to go again next year, cannot wait! :D ... As long as we don't have to camp again, ha ha!

"Acorns" is now Complete!

I am very happy to announce that my graduation film, "Acorns" is at last finished and handed-in as of Thursday 30th May 2012!

Although our course deadline was originally the 14th May, we were given an extra week to finish our then very incomplete films and the top 11 shortlisted films had a little longer too just to get them polished (or in my case coloured and composited!). My film is also one of the shortlisted films at Newport and I must say they are an excellent year, and congratulations are in order for everyone's hard work as well as those who unfortunately did not make it on the shortlist, they are all brilliant films and well worth the time and effort that clearly went into making them. :)

It's certainly odd to think that it's all over now and I have officially finished my three years worth of University, but it's been a wonderful experience and I hope to end it with some happy memories with my friends and colleagues at our grad show later this month.

Sadly I will be unable to upload my film in its entirety for some time as I think it deserves a good festival run in the coming year, however I have a brief clip of it online in this compilation reel of our shortlisted films that myself and my fiancé edited yesterday. Please enjoy!

For more films and grad show info, you can check out our blog here: http://newportanimation2012.wordpress.com

I will also have lots of production goodies to show in the next few weeks in the run up to our graduation show on the 13th June and beyond and will be editing a short trailer for my film on its own, this won't be for another week though as I am off to the Annecy animation festival tomorrow for the whole week so won't be able to make any posts for a while or promote my film just yet! When I am back, I will have some well-deserved rest and be back on the case with promoting my film!

In the meantime, here are a few funny "alternate" colourings of the tree Spirit that my younger sister Eleanor did while helping on my film. :)

And with that, I am off to finish packing! See you all in a week! :)