The next Animation Forum event is to co-inside with Flip Animation Festival on 4 November at 7.30pm – 10pm, Millennium Point.

Animating the West Midlands is a free event which will feature locally produced shorts from Flip 2010, and an introduction to Second Home Studios’ Viral Kitchen scheme. You’ll also have the chance to catch up with fellow animators in the iBar at Millenium point.

The event is open to non-members plus those without tickets to Flip. To reserve your place email info@light-house.co.uk with ‘Animating the West Midlands – RSVP’ in the subject line.

For more information, visit Animation Forum or their Facebook page.

A new thing from Second Home Productions:

The Viral Kitchen pilot scheme is a unique development programme that utilises the facilities, knowledge and experience of Second Home Studios for the development of local animators and animation graduates.

The scheme will be free to 4 successful applicants and even provide a small bursary contribution towards costs and expenses

The Bullring has been recreated in Lego. It’s not the sort of thing that you might think was very ‘CiB’ but there’s something about it that appeals to me. More info here. This was spotted on the BiNS PR website (where there are more photos).

In possibly related news, I saw on Twitter that Chris Randall from Second Home Productions is working on a Lego-based project. Hmm.

Also on that page is the evening’s screening schedule with links to the animators’ profiles. I understand they were trying their best to accept last minute submissions meaning giving out a running order on the night wasn’t possible, so it’s good to see it here.

It also helps me to pick out the films that I particularly enjoyed and give them an extra plug here.

First up, ‘Don’t Touch’ by Louis Hudson from Dice Productions.

The Nickolodeon-style anarchy of Pedro & Frankensheep from the Brothers McLeod was great and has apparently been picked up by CBBC.

A name that cropped up again and again was Natalie Ann Hinchley. She has a credit on Pedro & Frankensheep, her Second Home Productions outfit produced the jaw-dropping ‘The Animal Book’ (only the trailer here but it’s still a treat)

and, although I can’t find a video to embed, go and check out the Light House commissioned ‘Onions’ on Natalie’s website – animated bunnies are always a winner.

I’m at risk of just listing everyone here so I’ll finish with a few quick mentions:

• Although less polished, the video for Nyoto Ndogo’s track Dunia (remix) has a good energy about it and I like the song (presented by Andrew Burchell).
• ‘What If’ by Mat Parker’s Short Animations 4 Education was uncomfortable viewing for the right reasons (trailer only on the site).
• Steven Spencer describes ‘My Brown Friend‘ as a “dark exploration of addiction” which it is.
• Finally, the YouTube embedding has been disabled but I’ll forgive that (just about) to mention ex-BCU MA student Guillaume Weiss’s ‘4:51‘ which I thought was just incredible.