Sweatshop Success!!

jotta's fashion workshop brought hoards of budding sewers out of the woodwork, 23/02/09

 

jotta's fashion workshop was a huge success, with queues of fledgling seamsters coming in to create their own knickers, laptop bags, and for the brave- a Richard Nicoll frill belt.

Littlest Birds

If you find yourself in the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden this evening you will find yourself amoungst the 'Littlest Birds'. A quiet night of poetry and music hosted by Emma Robertson, every monday, and sometimes other days and other places. This is a place where the more quiet performers out there are encouraged to express themselves. 

This Monday evening sports a wonderful line up in the evening title 'Fight for Crumbs', I think it involves some kind of cake ! Line up includes ex-Horsebox frontman Will Vaughan with his solo project 'Stairs to Korea', Kate Kilalea and Maya Lu

binsky.

Emma has also hosted a show in her living room as the 'Bird cage Gallery'. Im lookin

g forward very much to hearing more news of this and the next art show. Which I will post up as soon as Im in the know.

myspace.com/littlestbirds

facebook.com/group.php?gid=8928206315 for the facebook group and updates!

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Written by Chloe

Fanny Bostroms Curiosities

Treat your eyes to the most delectable of visual delights at fannybostromscuriosities.blogspot.com. Visit the realms of beautiful vintage sirens and sleek boys as Fanny blogs up an array of photo's old and new, with poetry and prose to make your eyes and hearts cry with glee. Be sure to have a look at her own beautiful watercolours, books and installations at fannybostrom.com. 

Her blog definitely sums up every thing I love too. Wonderful to have a new place to hang out while on Internet adventures.

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Written by Chloe

Scratch n See

The pics from our Scratch n Sniff cinema sensory soiree, 17.02.09

A naked man in a vat of popcorn...


Was one of many oddities which aroused the curiosity and/or revulsion from visitors during the UK's first ever Scratch n Sniff screening, at the launch of jotta's pop-up craft fair last Saturday. That and gold foil dipped hot dogs, flavour tripping pills which saw punters sucking whole lemons and tasting sherbert, plus the range of aroma's concocted to compliment Peter Greenaway's The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover. Check out the proof...  

One's to watch: Lucky Pdf

Deep in South London lies an Artist led project, promoting the work of local artists through dynamic exhibitions, film screenings and events. They have found their current home nestled in the Peckham UNITY centre, in the heart of Peckham High Street. The third in their series of exhibitions features sculptor Molly Smyth in the show titled 'Delays Not Colours'. 

'Molly's forms cite their origin as the indeterminate spaces of the city and the structures and constructions that fill them. It is in the gaps between streets and buildings that our interactions with the the city take place, a space we share with parked cars, building sites, skips and scaffolding. This show indends a display of her sculpture that will create fluctuations between obscurity and signals, violence and recovery.

Delays Not Colours is the attempt to make the presence within these works available and tangible to the viewer, when something about the sculptures' mutual future is on the point of being decided, and there is recognition of irreparable damage underway.' (Text from Luckypdf.com)

Previous shows include rich visual displays and interactive computer games from James Early and cosmic installations from Daniel Woolhouse(danielwoolhouse.com) The guys at Lucky Pdf are a non for profit organisation that host an array of  party's and nights to raise the funds for their shows. From folk music to monthly club night 'Night Fever'. Keep an eye out for their next endeavour. www.luckypdf.com

Written by Chloe

jotta Pops-Up!

With the jotta Craft Fair, February 14- 28 at 29 Foubert's Place, W1

January blues are a thing of the past here at jotta HQ, as this February we take our maiden voyage offline and into Central London, where jotta will take over a vacant shop space amongst the cobbled alley ways of Carnaby St.

Not just any run of the mill pop-up gallery/shop, jotta's inaugural Craft Fair is a fortnight of interactive creativity, during which anyone and everyone will get the chance to step into the jotta world and take something away with them.

Kicking off on Valentine's Day with Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema helmed by gastronomic wizards and jotta members Bompas & Parr. A cinematic experience with an olfactory twist, smells concocted in the Bompas & Parr kitchens will be transferred onto absorbent paper, giving the first ever UK audience the opportunity to scratch n sniff their way through a film - Peter Greenaway's classic "The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover," while cigarette girls hand out aphrodisiac cocktails supplied by Bulldog Gin.


From olfactory scents to sartorial sense, next up on the crafty agenda is Sweatshop, jotta's fashion workshop will be abuzz with sewing machines just in time for London Fashion Week, also starting Feb 18th. One for those of us who have looked longingly at style.com, wondering if we'll ever have the pocket change to afford designer threads. With a pattern donated by London's highly anticipated and talented fashion designer Richard Nicoll, try your hand at making your own garments - no experience necessary. Choose a pattern, choose your fabric and embellishments and get to work, with fashion students on hand to assist. Once you've finished, step into the photo booth to commit your design to film and share your artistic vision.


Following on from Sweatshop, spend Sunday Feb 22nd getting your hands dirty at our Illustration Market. Complete with bawling cockney market slang ("pound a bowl!"), fruit and veg stalls will spawn potato print cards, create costumes using life size illustration cut-outs and vinyl prints for windows and wall ornamentation. Illustrator Emma Rios, who has run workshops at the V&A and National Gallery, will host the day.


From 23rd February, the space will be transformed into a gallery for the group exhibition, 'It's A Mess and Probably Irreversible', curated by Five Storey Projects, a five-strong collective fresh from curating the critically acclaimed 'Matter of Time' show in Hackney. The show will see a selection of the best of jotta.com's artists exhibiting and selling works along side other young artists. Unrestrained by boundaries of medium, their discourse questions the world around us, and by doing so attempts to translate the intangibility of our current cultural climate. The Jotta.com gallery will be run as non for profit, all proceeds of eventual sales will go directly to the exhibiting artists.

Closing with a bang and pop, our Craft Fair will end with a special party on Thursday 26th, when all the crafty people from the previous fortnight can come and have a drink on us!

 


Pictured - Bompas & Parr architectural jelly events, Emma Rios' life size illustration banquet, and sniff your way through the menu from Peter Greenaway's The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover.

David O'Reilly Wins the Berlinale Golden Bear

Animation wizzkid premiers his film at Berlinale this week and wins! 12.02.09

At 23, animation wunderkind David O'Reilly has already contributed to films Son of Rambow and Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Please Say Something is his 25 part animated series, a heart-wrenching love story about the dysfunctional relationship between a cat and mouse. Geometrically severe, it's ambient scenescapes and raw, pixellated graphics burst and disintegrate on the screen, snubbing the trend towards slick Pixar cuteness. He premiered PSS at the Berlinale Film Festival on February 9th, taking home the coveted Golden Bear Award- the first prize of the entire Film Festival.

 

Interview by Viola Levy


How do you feel? It's crazy, I think what honours me most is that something so small, made on a single computer in my tiny apartment is considered in the context of world cinema, it was side by side with live action films. It's a big step for me but a even bigger one for independent 3d, it's an award I share with both Svankmajer and John Lasseter.

When did you first discover you had a gift for animating? Did you start out like the rest of us making flicker books and go from there? 
I was never particularly interested in anything until I was 14 or 15, but I took up animation very fast from there. I was among the first generation to start with software, I never made flipbooks, although strangely after learning the software I got a job doing them on the film Son of Rambow. 


Can you describe your creation process? 
I get an idea, then I do it. I do it like my life depends on it. 

I imagine creating the animation itself can be painstakingly monotonous at times- how do you deal with that? 
It doesn't get easier, you just push yourself every day to finish it. It's only hard when there's no set deadline, such as with my short films, but you just have to push harder, get up earlier, do whatever it takes. 


"Please Say Something" is based on the dysfunctional romantic relationship between a cat and mouse. I got the impression it was a parody of middle-class angst. Would you describe it as pure entertainment or is there a message behind it? 
I wouldn't say it's middle class, it's about love. Maintaining a relationship. The endless battle between logic and emotion, left brain and right. There's an element of sarcasm to the tempo of the film, I wanted it to the opposite of boring, but the story is sincere. 

What inspired the cat and a mouse couple? 
It's the oldest archetype in animation. The only thing I changed was making the relationship psychological rather than based on physical violence, or slapstick. 
One of the things that struck me about the film was its atmosphere- suddenly you're drawn into a surreal other world. 

What were your influences in designing the film's backdrop? 
I always liked the comics by Jason (John Arne Sæterøy) and Chris Ware - Jason for using anthropomorphism in a sincere way and Chris Ware for his asceticism and reduction of style. It's important to avoid making animation into a moving comic book, you can do things in animation you can't do in comics, nonetheless unlike animation it's driven by individuals and can therefore teach us things. 


When embarking on "Please Say Something" were there any films (animated or not) that you were inspired by? 
There's a few films I love and which stay with me through the writing process. It probably bears most similarity to Trier's Breaking the Waves and Bergman's Persona. There's also a nod to Funny Games.

Please Say Something (preview) from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Did you have an idea of how the film would look or was it a gradual process? 
I was very specific about the look from the outset. It did get more refined as the film progresses but it's essentially very consistent. 

You're sharing the stage at Berlinale with world renowned experimental filmmaker Michael Snow, what direction do you think your Berlinale talk will take? I have no idea, I've never shared a stage before. He's nearly 4 times my age so it should be fun.

Is there one question you are eager to ask him?
I'd like to talk about the current perception of experimental film. For me, experimental has become another way of saying oblique and boring... Even if I try a lot of new things in animation and ultimately want to push it forward, it's usually not in the name of experimentation.


What do you think viewers get from animation that they don't get from other art forms? 
The feeling of being absorbed into another world. What separates animation from live-action is that the world can be totally abstract from reality yet be just as believable. There's an excitement in falling in love with something totally artificial. 


Do you have anything else in the pipeline? What would be your ideal project? 
Right now I'm working on the intro to the next Pictoplasma festival. I'd like to do more religious pop art, like Wofl and the piece I just did for the Pass It On project. I love the idea of depicting heaven and hell, even in the age of atheism we are still fascinated by these 2 conceptual worlds.

 

See more of David's world here

One To Watch Elle Harrison

A self-confessed recovering data collector, Glasgow-based artist Ellie Harrison began charting the finer details of her everyday routine as an undergraduate in 2002. Having spent the next 4 years compiling and accumulating vast quantities of personal data, Ellie tells us how this analytical approach to her early work informed her current artistic practice.

Interview by Heather Blair

What initially prompted you to take such cumulative approach to your art-making?

I started this way of working when I was an undergraduate student at Nottingham Trent University. My first major ‘data collecting’ project, Eat 22, began on my 22nd birthday. I remember being interested in ‘the challenge’, the idea of the process of photographing everything that I ate being an endurance performance. After surprising myself that I could hack it, I became addicted to the process, the structure and order the documenting routine imposed on my life. More experiments into different aspects of my daily life ensued.

http://www.eat22.com/
http://www.jotta.com/jotta/article?no=2118

And what did you learn about the minutiae of your everyday life?

I created a lot of facts and figures naturally. In one year a person like me eats 1640 meals and snacks, travels 9236 kilometres on public transport, walks 2269 kilometres, drinks 559 alcoholic beverages, produces 7784 gaseous emissions and says 142 swear words. The result of this of course is that I now remember the years in which I was documenting far more vividly than any others in my life. Like a sort of alternative diary, these years have become immortalised through the data which they left behind.

In 2006, you decided to move away from introspective data collecting projects; to focus on self-improvement in the pursuit of becoming the perfect artist. What prompted you to do this?

The deciding factor was that ‘data collecting’ was taking over my life. The final major project, Timelines, carried out from 26 June – 23 July 2006 was to document every activity that I did 24 hours a day. It drove me totally crazy. I felt as though I was no longer living my life in the now, the present, but instead was living it second hand via the documentation. My mind had become so focussed on the act of documenting, that I could not really be part of or enjoy anything.

www.ellieharrison.com/index.php?pagecolor=5&pageId=project-parttime

An online element features heavily in your work, how crucial has the internet been in helping to promote yourself as an artist?

I learnt how to design websites in 1999 whilst on my undergraduate course. I built the first version of my website in 2000. What I immediately loved about it was that it became the central focus of my practice rather than a physical place – a studio in London, Nottingham or wherever else. This gave me a lot of freedom for where I decided to live. It also gave me an instant audience, a reason for making work – once it’s online it has the potential to be viewed. I have people contacting me from all over the world as a result.

Any further plans or projects in the pipeline?

I have just moved to Glasgow to study the Masters in Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. From January – June 2009 I’ll be artist in residence at Plymouth College of Art. I will be working alongside i-DAT at the University of Plymouth to research and develop an exhibition for the Viewpoint gallery at the college from 23 April – 30 May 2009. I am also working on the first publication about my work ‘Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector’ which will be published to coincide with the exhibition.

Anna Garforth creates Urban Galleries of Earthy Delights

Central Saint Martins graduate Anna Garforth is putting a degree in Graphic Design to sustainable use, by creating some beautiful and inspirational projects with a green thumbed creative touch.

Employing all things leafy and grassy, Head Gardener, a self-initiated project utilising recycled milk bottles as plant containers has been displayed around urban areas which need a bit of earthy decoration.

Something of a horticultural wizard, Anna has been growing moss for years. Taking inspiration from guerilla gardening tactics and the work of land artist Andy Goldsworthy, Anna’s current series, a collaboration with friend and poet Eleanor Stevens, explores street art and public space under the clever title ‘Mossinger’. Fixing Moss to walls using biodegradable materials, once in place these letters become verses of a poem. "In this spore borne air" is followed by "watch your skin peel," where the textures of cracked concrete walls and lush green plant life combine to form an ethereal and evolving work. The series will encompass four quotes peppered around central London, writing the cityscape green.

http://www.crosshatchling.co.uk/

[deletia]

Art for the Masses

Taking their name from Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, London collective [deletia] replace ads with art.

With advertising concepts becoming more subversive, and ‘advertorial’ filling the pages of fashion mags, these days it’s tricky to tell what is advertising and what’s editorial. Our visual landscape is crowded with mass produced images from magazines, newspapers, TV and billboards, and -lets be honest- this landscape is mostly commercial. Doing their best to remedy this mass malady, London based radical art collective [deletia] have been buying up advertising space and replacing it with art since 2004.

Mancunian born fine artist Paul Stanley started [deletia] as a way to use our visual landscape, and the canvas of the mass media, to circulate original, non-commercial artworks. Texan born Lynn Harris joined Paul in 2006 and the collective is now 9 people strong. “Fundamentally [deletia] subverts advertising by giving away a free and original experience of art”, says Lynn, "which an ad could potentially achieve if it’s main goal was not to coerce you into buying product or brand.”

While it sounds like Lynn and Paul were bitten by the ad bug one too many times, Lynn’s experience project managing in the design and branding industries gave her insight into the motivations and processes of the commercial creative industries. This knowledge became “frames of reference and tools to unpick the making of the advertised surface. And while we understand the nature of advertising is that it eventually re-appropriates all opposition, we still feel it is our duty to try and test these limits.”

[deletia] have published their ‘editions’, as they’ve dubbed the artworks, in high profile magazines such as Art Review, Art Monthly and US art publication Cabinet, and more recently, magnificently plastered across billboards. Their most recent, ‘Point of Difference’ and ‘First Moment of Truth’, are both terms used in the design industries. (POD) Point of Difference refers to product or packaging asset(s) that set you apart from the competition and (FMOT) First Moment of Truth was coined by Proctor & Gamble to describe the first few seconds a product on shelf has to make an impression on you. (FMOT) is an image of a billboard turned to blackboard with the play on words ‘first moment of truth’ eclipsed by a sun flare, suggesting a dark revelation.

“We’ve changed the surface from a selling face to a reflective, learning space. The play on words can also be used to describe a religious realisation, a grand experience.” Explains Lynn, “By removing the motivation of the ad to sell product, to do something, more universally provocative or reflective with the space, to try to create more socially relevant messaging, we are trying to offer something new.”

The [deletia] billboard brings to mind the work of South London situationist collective Cut Up, who in 2006 bombed the city’s east end, slicing and rearranging billboards to create striking and meaningful works of art for the public’s pleasure.

“During the Paris riots of 68 the situationalists made posters saying Under the Pavement, The Beach! Perhaps [deletia] is trying to say Under the Advertising, Art!”

http://www.deletia.org.uk/

Waltz with Bashir

From the opening Waltz With Bashir is surreally brutal. A dark, wet cityscape and loud pounding industrial music hits you in a nightmare scenario, as a pack of vicious dogs gallop unmercifully through the streets, scattering bystanders as they pursue their prey.

Slick yet eerie, the Israeli animated documentary pioneers a new form of animation that deals with very real subject matter. Writer, director and producer Ari Folman documented his personal experience trying to reignite missing parts of his memory, holes from during the first Lebanon war of the early 80s. He was there; he fought and probably killed for Israel; but he can't actually remember the details, so he interviews his old friends and comrades to try and fill the gaps.

Made initially as a real video based on a 90 page script, shot in a sound studio and cut as a 90 minute video film. It was then made into a storyboard and drawn into 2300 illustrations. Invented in Folman’s studio “Bridgit Folman Film Gang”, by the director of animation Yani Goodman, the technique is a combination of Flash animation, classic animation and 3D.

“It’s important for me to make clear that by all means this film was not made by rotoscope animation,” Folman has stressed, “Meaning that we did not illustrate and paint over real video. We drew it again from scratch with the great talent of the art director David Polonsky and his three assistants.”

The stylised animation makes everything hyper-real, drenched in colour, moving dream-like to the brilliant soundtrack - a combination of Max Richter’s classical scoring and Israeli rock n roll and post punk tunes from the 80s. While scenes of combat are graphic, it is the repetition striking and surreal imagery that pinpoints the futility and emotional dislocation of war. As a younger Ari walks zombie-like through war torn Lebanon, his posture slumped eyes vacant. His comrades who’s stories each personifies a unique reaction to the indescribable mayhem. The hardcore military character, whose Zen yet cold approach to warfare sees him launch into a balletic shooting spree.

What makes Waltz with Bashir different from the rising tide of well-meaning war films is how its visuals lead up to a specific - and devastating - conclusion.

The final 10 seconds which show real footage from the remnants of the Sabra and Shatila massacre are incredibly impactful. Where blood and guts war films only further desensitise us to the brutality of war, Waltz with Bashir takes us through graphic yet surreal scenes, so that the last seconds of real footage hit that much harder.

“War is so useless it’s unbelievable. It’s nothing like what you’ve seen in the American movies. No glam, no glory. Just very young men going nowhere, shooting at noone they know, then going home and trying to forget. Sometimes they can. Most of the time they cannot.” Waltz with Bashir opens in cinemas November 21

Cape Farewell and the role of the artist

A voyage to the frontline of climate change

Artists and creative practitioners have something special - the opportunity to connect with people through their work. When economies crash, when war torn images are all we’re faced with on our screens and when environmental catastrophe strikes, it is art that speaks to many. British designer, artist and film-maker David Buckland saw how artists and communicators could take an active part in spotlighting climate change.

Since 2003 Buckland, as founder and director of Cape Farewell, has organised six expeditions to the Arctic, taking artists, scientists, educators and communicators to experience the effects of global warming firsthand, get inspired and alert public attention to it through their resulting work.

From September 26th to October 5ththis year, over thirty artists including musicians Laurie Anderson, Jarvis Cocker, Feist, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall and Martha Wainwright plus composers, a comedian, theatre makers, artists, architects, poets, photographers and filmmakers, accompanied two science crews from the National Oceanography Centre and British Geological Survey.

“Artists are the cultural pioneers- the adventurers.” Buckland declared on his return from the latest voyage, “Being on the edge of possibility drives the art process forward. These nature machines, which take the Gulf Stream from the equator up to the Arctic - there’s no way anything we could do as human beings could replicate this power.”

Journeying to Disko Bay, Greenland then across the front of the Jakobshavn Glacier, one of Greenland's largest glaciers moving at a faster rate than ever before, and losing 20 million tons of ice every day, the artists took part in daily research with the scientists, as well as group discussions, presentations and debates focused around the topic of climate change.

“It was crucial that artists were engaged with the scientists. The scientists are always producing material in an isolated environment,” Said Chris Wainwright, artist and Head of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges, “This is an opportunity to externalise it through the artists, who then take the message to a wider audience.”

“It was an incredibly intensive.” He continued, “Days started at 8am and ended at 12pm.”

No stranger to environmentally focused art projects, in the early 90s Wainwright undertook a similar, albeit more solitary, expedition up the Amazon River in a dug out canoe, gathering evidence of deforestation. “Watching this gave me the proof of what is happening. I now have a political and emotional engagement with climate change, so I can make my art, as now I can back it up.”

Wainwright kept busy on board, collaborating with musician Robyn Hitchcock, “I asked him if he knew the words to Here Comes The Sun, he did, so Robyn, who’s an amazing musician, performed it at 5am with the sun coming up behind him, and I documented it.”

Also teaming up with architect Sunand Prasad, he and Wainwright attached helium balloons to cameras on a piece of ice flow, forming a 6.25m cube – equal to the mass of 1 tonne of CO2.

Not all work, Jarvis Cocker had the idea that it would be fun to have a disco at Disko Bay, so brought his turntables with him. A proper knee’s up was had, with impromptu all-star band featuring Feist, KT, Martha, Ryuichi, Jarvis and Robyn, performing for locals at a smoky pub in Ilulissat.

While many of the musicians said they wouldn’t write a song about climate change, because that would be a bit naff, instead Martha Wainwright stopped midway through a recent Roundhouse performance to explain her experiences on the boat, while KT Tunstall has since reschedule her entire tour around energy efficiency.

Next, Buckland says, a walking journey in the Peruvian Amazon- a smaller pilot programme as usual lead by the scientists’ research, while in 2010 Cape farewell will go to the Russian Arctic.

“People have already got climate change fatigue without having done anything to respond to the scientists.” Comedian Marcus Brigstocke surmises neatly. “If CO2 emissions were visible, this would never have happened. In the same way that, if someone with a nice house had a crisp packet shoved into their hedge, they would be furious because they can see it, without realising that the big 4 x 4 parked in their drive way is doing so much more to their hedge and everything else, they just can’t see it. This is about getting people to see climate change.”

Images -
Balloon Installation Sunand Prasad and Chris Wainwright
Robyn Hitchcock performing semaphore version of Here Comes The Sun. Chris Wainwright
Jarvis Cocker with Martha Wainwright and Feist
Red Ice 01 Chris Wainwright
Red Ice 02 Chris Wainwright
Matt Wainwright, Chris Wainwright and Martha Wainwright

See blogs and podcasts from the artists and crew here
http://www.capefarewell.com/

Bermuda Shorts

How to set up a company and still have fun

Trevor Murphy set up Bermuda Shorts animation studio in 2004 as a personal challenge. “I was running an animation company that ran into financial difficulty, I wanted to prove that I could run a successful animation production company for three years.” At this time the creative industry was focused on what they call “breakfast cereal” animated advertising, (think Tony the Tiger), whereas Trevor and his workmates were more interested in a the creative end of animating.“I believed there was room in the commercial arena for creative animation.”

Trevor made his first animation at 14, “it was a stop motion filmed on super 8 called “Can Can” and was tin cans dancing around in my garden to Offenbach!” He earned a living from the craft up until 1998, when he decided to turn his hand to producing, and was the production mind behind the UK’s first adult animation, Pond Life. “I’m much happier pushing and promoting talent.”

Trevor is now CEO of the company he started, after passing the reigns to a new managing director, he has settled back to oversee Bermuda Shorts activities from further afield. The company has grown from a humble few to having an MD, two full time producers who handle television commercials and ident’s, an editor, a studio manager, and varying freelancers.

The crafty and creative peeps that make up their roster came to Trevor and co. via natural channels, they rarely need to search out talent. Max Hattler is one such talent. One of their proudest success stories and most active directors, Max is also very well accomplished in the art of self-promotion who came to them through a competition.

“Originally I only ever wanted 10 directors, but now we’re at 20 and nowadays you need to have that roster to provide enough of a service to ad agencies.”

Half of Bermuda’s directors are London based while the other half are based around and outside the UK, with directors hailing from Somerset, Kent and Manchester, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and a team in Milan. “That’s the great thing about computer technology, you can work from anywhere these days.”

Trevor does not have plans for expanding much further, or world domination. “Boutique is how we see ourselves. Bermuda were the first animation company to promote directors individually as opposed to being under the banner of say Pizzazz or larger production companies who never mention directors by name.” That old fashioned anonymous system was not unlike the old Hollywood system, where a studio would have a stable of screenwriters who barely got a mention in the title credits. Bermuda gave each director has a showcase, while other studios have since followed suit.

The original and unstated manifesto which accompanies Bermuda Shorts is to maintain a balance of creative and commercial work. “We’ve always said to directors when they come on board that it must be 50/50.” Another unique quality in the Bermuda Shorts ethos is never to force a job for financial reason, “I calculated how much money we lost recently from a huge job we turned down because the director did not want to do it, I almost fainted!”

In addition to that the happy folk at Bermuda don’t have contracts, they call all their relationships with their directors “mutually beneficial collaborations. So a director or designer is always here on their own accord, when they complain about they way we might be doing things we say, well you can leave, and then they say, ‘Oh hold no I don’t want to do that!’”

The essence of the Bermuda Shorts’ good humoured philosophy lies in the name- “We wanted to remind ourselves that ultimately we always want to be making short films. A memorable name that would hopefully make people laugh, and it worked really well as a way to open doors, when I cold called people back in the early days they would always remember it.”

Trevors hot tips on animation directors:

We’ve recently taken on The Neighbourhood, a computer animation Manchester based collective who have already picked up 3 jobs since they come on board.

Also Mario Cavalli, Rosto and Dave Mckean, who has made a feature length animated film, a graphic novel and a coffee table book with The Design Laboratory. He’s never done a commercial, but exists purely off these creative projects.

Check out Bermuda Shorts on jotta
http://jotta.com/jotta/artists/BermudaShorts

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