i’m doing it again — signing up for another city to city project. i feel delighted, and also there’s a twinge of guilt. i’ve accepted that i’ll wait until the last minute to work on my book. the shame.
but good things happen from this!
old sketchbooks inspire me. a couple of our past themes will be in animation pre-production this year! like caterpillars, they become butterflies.
I happily start the music, light the candles + drink so much coffee that I’m unaware the house is on fire… then draw!
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For my Sketchbook Project, I tried out certain lyrics, which wonderfully, are always stuck in my head. The brilliant artists are these guys: {Telekinesis, Beirut, Foster the People, The Muppet Show Theme Song, Okkervil River, Bishop Allen, Deer Tick} + some things I think too.
Smile at your sister is my new favorite spot to stop by and visit for a while. They recently wrote about our lady friend and animator Julia Pott, asking her about dreams, life and love:
” … my first career aspiration as a child was to be a balloon. it seemed like a very feasible choice but as I got older I started to think about the ins and outs of becoming a balloon and I lost the ambition. after that I went straight on to wanting to be an animator and never really explored anything else …”
Still from "The First Time CeeCee Did Acid" by Noelle Melody
Odds are the show is probably your basic dumb shit . But then you sort of think well maybe it’s beyond dumb, maybe it’s a ra-tard. Maybe it’s something really cool that you don’t even know about. And uh, and you started feeling like you definitely wanna be a part of it.
I’ve got to celebrate this teaser for the show, created by Taylor Armstrong.
Showcasing our submissions of half-cocked short-shorts, we promise you’ll be disturbed and/or left in great dismay.
It’s all happening at Glasslands this Wednesday, July 13th at 8pm — come experience some dumb shit AND drink a cold beer at the same time.
Sometimes, films aren’t planned. Place Stamp Here was an accident. Shhh, a happy accident, darling.
“I realized that sometimes my favorite part of my job is that my chair swivels, so maybe I need to more actively pursue other, more creative, more lovely projects.” - Kelly Sharp
And then Kelly sent us her charming script.
When she talks, Kelly goes off on these tangents that are wonderful and natural and so insisting that she narrate the script exactly how she’d described it to us in an email, we moved forward with our take on how to tell the story visually…
To the storyboards.
Cute … we could’ve drawn the whole film that way. But at the same time 1.) I sort of loved finishing a film in such a timely fashion and 2.) I really loved using the actual trinkets and the things we’ve all collected on all of our travels. Which also made the process unique and interesting. And amazing!
The music really tied the film together — composed by Jasmin Way, Carter Logan and Hannah Rawe of The Chandeliers with Zach Knox on piano.
It was so fun to collaborate and we’re so lucky to be surrounded by such creative types. We all thought of it like this — maybe we’re broke and maybe didn’t plan on making another film … but it’s festival season which equals fun. Motivation!
We used different techniques like shooting the stop-motion elements, combining traditional animation with cut-outs, watercolor, photographs. It’s um, a cornucopia of mixed media.
But OK, my favorite part was making coffee-stained paper for the backgrounds.
Joy and I are the proud parents of this year's festival poster
We’ve been attending the Charleston International Film Festival since it was born in 2008 { see recap from 2008 and 2010 } and it gets better and better every year. The weather was perfect for bike rides to screenings, enjoying yummy summer drinks, watching great films and staying up super late only to do it all again the next day. This festival is fun in the sun. Some highlights!
the lovely Tina McCard and Kelly Sharp { who wrote the script to our film }
2 for 1 margaritas for bike gangs
Jameson + margaritas at Taco Boy
iced coffees at our new favorite Charleston spot, KUDU
AND we won Best Animation for our little film Place Stamp Here. This made us smile as the films in the Animation Block were amazing and to be chosen as the best among them is surprising and wonderful.
Place Stamp Here wins the Best Animation Audience Award
don’t let this fall through your crack! for more information on the deadline and rules (that’s right, we made RULES damnit) go to our Dumb Sh*t tumblr. it has the bokeh!
Sometimes, when Joy and I are supposed to be working on a million other things, we make a film instead.
This inevitably leads to a string of sleepless nights fueled by pots of coffee and takeout. Our friends think we’re crazy and our mom calls to make sure we’re not dead, but it’s really fun when it pays off.
One of our Festival Bumpers, (the one for the Martha’s Vineyard Film Fest 2010) is up for an award at the ASIFA East Festival on May 1st!
The Peculiar Picture Parade Joy and I put together at 92YTribeca last night couldn’t have been more fun. The theater is small which makes for a really chill screening with the nearest and dearest.
Look at all the pretty faces
Joy and I surprised everyone with a film we did just for the Parade called “Place Stamp Here.” It’s based on a short story by Kelly Sharp and the three of us made the film in about a month. The music was done by The Chandeliers with Zach Knox on piano.
Thanks again to Brett W. Thompson for making the event flyer.
Brett Thompson rocks
There was a fantastic audience reaction from each film. Our Q+A session with the filmmakers covered animation, crunch berries, sex and death.
Jessica Polaniecki, Brett Thompson, Dusty Grella, Signe Baumane and Kelly Sharp
Joy Vaccese, Lori Samsel, Katie Cropper and Noëlla Borie
Please enjoy the Signal Film by Taylor Armstorng – it is a 25 second documentary about how Joy and I put this lil animation show together.
Opening title sequence created by Kris Clarkin as his thesis project. It’s for a proposed film adaptation of the book “Kill Your Friends,” based in London in 1997 when ‘Britpop’ is at its height.
I found Clarkin’s title sequence very entertaining, playfully integrating the names of the cast and crew into items found in the apartment with quick cuts to flashbacks from the main character’s life – sex, drugs and debauchery.
The book opens with a quote from Hunter S. Thompson, which summarizes the essence of the novel:
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.”
