#skwigly features

Mitsuo Toyama is a Japanese animator; his work has a dreamy, surreal style and has been screened in festivals across the world. The song ‘Glockelbar’ is taken from the band’s latest album ‘Tricolore’. The animation and sound work together to produce a glowing, ethereal, child-friendly world, where riding giraffes and living on clouds in the night sky are as possible as getting an artistic hero to create a beautiful piece of work for you. Lucky things!

This sleek stop-motion is made from bent wire and card, it’s a low tech idea with a highly creative outcome, which is what we can expect from stop-motion. The character bends in performance to the music, the use of wire for both character and scenery creates an energetic union between the material and the music. Morphing the figure into sound waves and shapes uses the visuals to represent the liveliness of the music to the fullest. The animation is bold and has a great beat that is not to be missed.

It is as regular as the Queen’s speech and as traditional as leftover turkey sandwiches that continue into the New Year; the original Christmas classic ‘The Snowman’ is now in its 30th year and still entertaining audiences with its timeless charm and memorable style and grace. So it’s no wonder that its success demanded a sequel, but in an effort to keep the story unique author Raymond Briggs would not budge. Thankfully the producer of the original (John Coates) convinced author Briggs that his creations would be once again safe in his hands and the hands of Lupus Films who had the enormous task of remaining faithful to the style of the first film and the memory of John Coates who sadly passed away during production. Read more of this Article here

You may be aware of Plympton’s work by his wealth of animated shorts that have been notorious amongst the animation festival world for over twenty years. Spanning surreal (Your Face), slapstick (Guard Dog), satirical (Spiral), educational (How To Make Love To A Woman) and even poignant (The Fan & The Flower), his prolific output is made all the more staggering by his ability to write, direct and animate a series of feature-length films. The most recent of which – 2008’s Idiots & Angels – was a masterclass in itself of visual storytelling, taking his trademark style and dark humour to a new level. His current film Cheatin’ is set to take things even further, and with all the animation finished Plympton has turned to crowdfunding to get the end result as slick as possible. Read more if this Article Here

Like most people, we at Skwigly all agree that Christmas just isn’t Christmas without animation on the telly. Whether it be a recent blockbuster, a classic short such as “The Wrong Trousers” and “The Snowman” or classic features such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” we all love an excuse to force the rest of the family to sit around the box and enjoy the delights on the screen. Read more the Article here

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