patience is a virtue...

the key word for today is 'patience'...

an animator needs patience during a film (obviously), but also after a film is complete.

i have learned this lesson the hard way today...

reflections on stuttgart...

sitting on a train traveling southwest at 153km/hr, from warsaw to krakow... (in poland the 'w' is pronounced as a 'v' - so heading phonetically from varsav to krakov)... seems like a good a time as any to vrite an entry for ze blog.

it's been a couple of weeks since the festival at stuttgart and i've had a chance to reflect on the happenings there. it was simultaneously overwhelming, thrilling, fun, educational and chaotic... i've never seen so many animators in one place before, and when you get a roomful of cartoon nerds congregating - a strange cross-section of folk who rarely see the sunlight, and by choice spend years of their life drawing the same pictures over and over - a weird pack mentality unfolds.. fueled by red wine and choked with cigarette smoke, red faces loom large, the cacophonic babble of multilingual banter fills the air and business cards fly through the air like little harmless cardboard ninja stars.. i collected billions of the little buggers. and then at the right concentration of alcohol, noise and bravado, bizarre occurrences occur, such as the impromptu formation of the hip hop band 'lei lei and the australians' - an eclectic fusion of chinese rap, melodica, twangy back-up vocals and experimental percussion... we were a hit and held three encore performances - one including david silverman on the tuba.

most importantly, friends were made, and there will be familiar faces at future festivals. and even more important than that is the hours of often beautiful, and only occasionally dull, short animations that i saw on the big dark screen. my favourite was 'a family portrait' by joseph pierce, which ended up winning the grand prize, an unexpected winner but wholly deserved! hopefully we'll get to see it in melbourne in a couple of months...

obviously the biggest thrill of the festival was premiering my film. i'm prone to slight hyperbole, but there were at least 700,000 people in the cinema that night, and the reaction was great... i've found that audience reactions to mr eugene green can vary depending on whether or not people start laughing early on... and on this occasion there was a lot of laughter and a general positive buzz in the air.. it was brilliant. after the film i was asked to come up on stage to be interviewed by the hilarious christoph.. who had a habit of saying that 'big tall handsome men made him forget what he wanted to ask'.. funnily enough he remembered all of his questions for me... unlike me, i wasn't nervous at all - it was all very off the cuff and relaxed.

another highlight - almost an unexpected one - was the screening of my film as the opener for 'the simpsons movie' on the outdoor screen in the schlotz platz... it was a filthy night - freezing and rainy... i thought it might have been cancelled, but it went ahead for an audience of maybe thirty or forty hardy souls, and again it had a great response... it was so good to stand in the rain with my friend and musical compandre, jamie messenger, by my side, both of us clutching hot mulled wine, watching eugene shine through the gloom...

so, the stuttgart international festival of animated film was a great experience - one i wish to one day revisit... hopefully i will.

an australian animator in deutschland...

hallo, danke gut morgen...
so... i premiered my film 'TNSGEG' at one of the largest animated film festivals in ze world last nite, the Stuttgart International Festival of the Animated Film (in German - the Trickfilmfestivale). strangely i did not feel nervous (much) as i stood on the stage in front of, saaayyy, maybe 7 or 800 people as i was interviewed by a famous german tv star. all in all it went swimmingly... i didn't make any culturally insensitive remarks - the worst (which occurred later in the evening) was an unfortunate mention of a woman's hair colour (nancy from belgium - the first lady of the european film festival scene).. all i said in relation to her flaming chilli red hair was that 'my mum naturally has the same coloured hair'... 'naturally' being the fau pax. anyway, forgiveness was found in a glass of red wine.. oopsiedaisy..


here is some cheese... very large cheese.. as modeled by my beautiful lil sister Lisa... it's nothing to do with Germany, but it is very interesting nonetheless.. thank you Lisa..

overwhelmingly, my film was received very well - i like the German's very much for laughing in the right places - they share my sense of humour.

let me give a shout out to some of the other great films i have seen so far.. 'family portrait' by joseph pierce (a very nice animator who enjoys baring his chest to the german club crowd, but sadly does not represent his country well on the football field), 'lucky' by darcy prendergast - an awesome light painting animation that was made in melbourne (if you squint you can see my silhouette in some of the shots), 'crocodill' - a wickedly absurdist estonian comedy, 'runaway' by cordell baker - the oscar shortlisted film that very very very much deseved to be nominated and WIN the damn award, and an awesome russian 2d animaation - i think called 'walk dog road' - i'll check that - about a world of dog poop and a lonely and hard working poop cleaning machine... twas tre cute and beautifully crafted..

ok, pretzels und coffee call for me, and then it's off to a film makers talk - note to self, don't mention hair colour...