Man in a Cat screening at Light House

We've had two screenings of our animated short All Consuming love (Man in a Cat) so far, and now there's a screening at Wolverhampton's Light House cinema on Tuesday, 5 April. In even better news, it's free to the public, so you can come along, see the film and watch the five other Digishorts filmed commissioned along with ours.

Here's what's going on:

On Tuesday 5 April from 7pm the Light House in Wolverhampton will be screening six short films made by the most exciting filmmaking talent emerging from the West Midlands region. In partnership with the UK Film Council, Digishorts was a yearly scheme run by Screen WM offering West Midlands based filmmakers and animators the opportunity to produce innovative and striking short digital films. In its eighth and final year, the slate of films produced demonstrate regional filmmaking at its strongest.

I think we'll be doing another panel discussion after the screening and we'll be hanging around for a little afterwards to have a chat, so do come and say hi.

To book a free place at the screening, email ayesha@light-house.co.uk.

See you there!

Man In A Cat is Commissioned!

Start the fanfare please Freddo!

We're amazingly chuffed to say that out of over 130 proposals All Consuming Love (Man In A Cat) has impressed Screen WM and the UK Film Council enough to become one of the final 6 commissioned films! It's not all that often you get to be completely self-indulgent on a project for 6 months, especially with the support and backing of some the most experienced people in the country.

So far we've had to be fairly hush hush about the development process, if only because we'd look like wankers if the film never actually took off, but now would be a nice time to say thanks to the people we've met and who have helped us get here.

The process up to getting commissioned has been fantastic. Before that development process it was getting hard to know what to do with the story. On the first day of development we met Kate Leys, who just with a few anecdotes and case examples, completely opened our eyes to the art of story telling. That was really empowering.

I also had the priveledge of bashing out ideas with Camilla Deacon of Lupus Films and about 15 other talented animators in London. That was really invigorating and affirmed a lot of what we've been learning over the last 3 months. Big thanks to The Square for seemingly unlimited chocolate, fruit, coffee and some quite spiffing toilets! Not unlimited toilets. That would be incredible... ANYWAY.

Simon Flynn and Dan Lawson from Screen WM, and June Goldrei on behalf of UK Film Council were in charge of commissioning the final films. They had the balls to see that this could work, and their notes and questions have made sure the story has developed in a very nurturing and understanding way.

Overall, we're really thankful that we've been given the chance to make this unsual and edgy film, and that everyone involved were nuts enough to with the idea in the first place. Now we've got to hammer out the last few kinks in the script without desmantling the whole thing, get the look of it all completely pinned down, get some communal office space/therapy for me, and round up some amazing talent to help out with the project. All within the next couple of weeks if we're to have a good chance of finishing this by the end of August! Ha ha ha!... Oh my God.

Recommence the fanfare please!

Wait! Is that...? Nah. Couldn't be. Doesn't matter.

Man In A Cat's Shortlisted for Funding

All Consuming Love (Man In A Cat) has been shortlisted for Digishorts funding! Nice Stuff!

X-Factor styley, over 100 entries have been whittled down to 12. After the development process 6 of those will be commissioned. Next week we'll be starting off with a day of discussion and workshops with the other shortlisters and Kate Leys. The development process will go on through till March when we'll see... If all goes well and we get the green light, we'll be chucking up regular updates here for you to track the progression of the film.

While 'Man In A Cat has been talked about for a while, and the tester trailer alone has got over 850,000 views, it had to stand on ice for a while as our other projects and work relationships developed. But after having the storyboards on my wall for over a year it'll be great to get some outside input. I'm particularly excited to see how the original story changes. While I love the idea of a Man, Woman, Cat love triangle (not like that), there's still plenty that could be done on the script.

So let's start from the beginning shall we? Here's where the original idea taken from my sketchbook when I was 16, which was taken from Tony Lopes' Odd Streak strip.

Huh, will yer look at that. Message in a Bottle was on the same page. Page 32 was obviously drinking well that year.