Wednesday 8 October 2014

Funding and the state of the Animation Industry.

I know most people probably don't really care about animation (unless it's Pixar's next release) and it's all I bloody bang on about... but for those that do -

Seeing as I've been lucky enough to get some incredible opportunities in the animation industry across this year, I'm setting myself a New Years Resolution.... in October. As long as I'm working (ie - earning) at the time, I'll support every independent Stopmotion, 2D and puppet/traditional animation project I can on things like Kickstarter/Indiegogo etc.
If everyone in the industry did this, it would help keep the old-school styles alive (in these CG-dominated times) and help more of us stay in jobs. Or as I experienced when I backed Morph - a few months later I actually got a job on it. I helped fund my own job!


I'm starting with a stop-mo project by a friend of several friends and owner of Animation Toolkit - Wes Wood's short, that'll help a few Manc-based guys out...

Pooch Proposal



and just because Thunderbirds marionettes and real-life explosions are still motherflippin' awesome...

Gerry Anderson's Firestorm




I've already backed Aardman's Morph and Lee Hardcastle's amazing feature film pitch, which I'm still gutted didn't get funded. I've missed the boat on some amazing projects - but most of them got funded (like Toby "the baby from Labyrinth" Froud's Lessons Learned).

I just thought the world should know, and please please please do your bit if you can! If you complain about the state of the industry but do nothing about it, you can't expect it to improve.

Thanks for listening...... with your eyes.