Valentine’s Date: Lady Mail Man was written and directed by Dice Productions and filmed by 144. Second Home Studios provided some lights and that cafe is 6/8 Kafe.

Animation Forum WM have teamed up with Dice Productions and Flip Festival to bring three separate programmes of screenings of the best UK animated films of 2010 and 2011 to Birmingham. The shorts will be screened on Thursday 9th, Friday 10th, and Saturday 11th February from 7pm each night at The Custard Factory Theatre and you can vote to help determine the Public Choice winners.

Buy tickets and get more information on the Animation Forum WM website.

Last week BBC Comedy asked me to animate to a rap by the very clever Dan Bull to commemorate John Lennon’s 70th Birthday and a blue plaque unveiling. After working out how to avoid some massive copyright litigation parties, I smashed it out in about 3 days..

It’s very good and it seems Yoko’s a fan too:

What’s interesting is how he’s using a YouTube channel to upload little work-in-progress snippets so you can see how he works and how the piece is coming along. Hoping he can keep this up.

In other Digishorts news, three of the filmmakers are looking for producers for their commissioned films.

After its Brum debut at the Birmingham Comedy Festival last year, cult London comedy night Popcorn Comedy is back, this time at The Victoria on Thursday 25th March 2010.

Popcorn Comedy showcases the funniest comedy videos from around the internet, combined with live stand ups and character comedians, who mix in their own comedy videos for good measure.

This time, Popcorn has live performances from Rob Rouse (8 out of 10 Cats, Grown Ups) and Brian Gittins (described by Ricky Gervais as “One of the best comedy characters of the decade”). I’ll be hosting the night along with my Dice Productions cronies, so I’ll see you there.

It’s a fiver in (and less for students), so follow this link and book your tickets for Popcorn Comedy.

]]> http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/2009/12/08/birmingham-on-the-culture-show/ Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:33:29 +0000 http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/?p=4482 [Read more...]]]> There was a good showing for Birmingham on last week’s Culture Show. It’s available until Friday 11 Dec, so there’s still time to catch it.

Birmingham Opera Company were featured (at 11mins). Othello is currently racking up rave reviews in a manner approaching unseemly – 5 stars in the Guardian and Times and the Birmingham Post described it (somewhat inaccurately, seeing as how it’s sold out) as ‘unmissable’.

Dice Productions also made it onto the show in a feature on online comedy (at 51mins):

Message in a Bottle was included in a little montage during Josie Long‘s segment on the rise and rise of online comedy, which focused squarely on Funny or Die UK and Popcorn Comedy, in which we’ve had a little more active role through October’s Electric Cinema screening. Ian’s giggling face was also spotted on the show enjoying Popcorn Comedy at the Roxy Bar and Screen in October

So hurrah and more of this kind of thing.

Now the trailer for their new piece ‘All Consuming Love (Man In a Cat)’ has been featured on the global YouTube homepage. That’s pretty impressive stuff – the online video equivalent of being hit by lightning twice, so congrats to them.

Here’s the featured trailer:

After a failed career as Britain’s second-favourite celebrity fitness coach, Max Fitness turns to German morning television for a final shot at cellulite-busting stardom.

Available on VHS, audio cassette and minidisc!