paper cutout animation

Interview at Oberhausen

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Whilst attending the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany this month (May 2016), I had the pleasure of being interviewed by three young German journalism students. We had a brief conversation about my film in the festival Toronto Alice. They recently sent me a link to the interview, and I used Camtasia to capture it in order to share it with you, my readers. There is no video, only audio.

At one point in the recording, you’ll hear my voice mutter the word “ambiguous” over top of the interview. This was in response to — and a correction of — my previous misuse of the word “ambivalent” during the interview.

Tentacled Darling of the Underground.

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Hello, gentle readers. This summer — though not quite over yet — has whizzed by at an alarming rate and those crisp mornings so characteristic of autumn are beginning to cool the air, causing us to reach for that added layer of clothing. As many of you may know, I was preoccupied this summer with producing, and then promoting, my latest short animated film Toronto Alice. With this task now complete, I thought I should mention the activities of that other child of mine, La Petite Mort, which has lately become the tentacled darling of the ‘underground’ film festival circuit.

Last night (August 26), La Petite Mort screened at the UnderGround Short Film Festival in Cork, Ireland. (Wish I could’ve been there, but the finances just didn’t allow for a trip to Ireland). Earlier in the summer, this film was also featured in the Montreal Underground Film Festival — which touts the delightful acronym of MUFF — where it was nominated for the 2015 Jury Prize/Nomination pour un prix du jury MUFF 2015. It was also featured in the Planet X program at the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, a program that promised “some of the weirdest movies you will ever see” (a notion of which I most heartily approve) .
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Beyond the underground film fest circuit, La Petite Mort has enjoyed some loving from the, ahem, ‘alternative’ porn film festivals like the PopPorn5 Film Festival in São Paulo, Brazil, and the granddaddy of them all, the Berlin Porn Film Festival. Both festivals categorized La Petite Mort under “fetish”, which is a fact I find endlessly funny. These festivals are not dedicated to (what I would characterize as) the mainstream “bleached blonde, breast implants and long, acrylic nails” brand of American-produced pornography, but rather the “pierced, tattooed and hairy armpits” type of alternative, frequently feminist or LGBT, produced porn — which is something I philosophically support. Below is a write-up on La Petite Mort from Lucie Blush, a filmmaker who produces pornography directed at women.

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BluRay disc of “Toronto Alice”

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A big stack of BluRay discs of Toronto Alice ready to ship out to my Indiegogo contributors. Made a few extra for those who didn’t manage to pick up this “perk” during my campaign, but would like to now. BR includes Toronto Alice, my two previous animated shorts “La Petite Mort” and “The Incident in the Nursery”, PLUS a one-hour interview conducted by Elizabeth Fearon and Steve Armstrong. Ships right to your door. WOWZA!

You can purchase the BluRays here.

Toronto Alice

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After much thought, I’ve decided to post the entire short film of Toronto Alice online for all to see. Even though I’ve submitted to a bunch of festivals, I decided that wider exposure online was worth the risk of disqualifying the film from a handful of festivals.

If you enjoy, then please share widely. Thanks.

Trailer for “Toronto Alice”.

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The entire film of “Toronto Alice” will not be available online to the general public for a little while longer — it’s an eligibility for film festivals and/or “premiere status” sorta thing. In the meantime, please enjoy this sneak peek in the form of a short trailer. Incidentally, the music that plays in the trailer is not featured in the film.

SYNOPSIS

The character of Alice from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ is transported to contemporary Toronto. Whilst riding a streetcar, Alice encounters a pair of strange characters who engage her in an equally strange debate over whether or not they, in fact, exist. The dialogue is borrowed directly from Carroll, but given a fresh and funny new twist in this short stop-motion animation.

CAST

Voice of Alice by Nicole Bauman
Voices of Tweedledee & Tweedledum by Matt Speirs
Sound recording and design by Karl Mohr
Paper puppets, stop-motion animation, post-production, editing, and direction by Jennifer Linton
Adapted from “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”, by Lewis Carroll (published in 1871).

This animation was made possible by the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council, and by the generosity of my Indiegogo contributors. Thank you!

Copyright ©2015 Papercut Pictures. All rights reserved.

The Toronto Raccoon.

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Work-in-progress photo from my animation project "Toronto Alice" (ETA Spring 2015).

Work-in-progress photo from my animation project “Toronto Alice” (ETA Spring 2015).

Any native of Toronto is well acquainted with our large and active population of urban raccoons. What many Torontonians may not know, however, is that Toronto is unique in Canada for its abundance of these intelligent — though often troublesome — critters.

Unlike cities such as Montreal, Edmonton, and Ottawa, Toronto winters are milder and we typically don’t get buried by the kind of snow that makes it hard for raccoons to forage. The city’s network of ravines also connects neighbourhoods, MacDonald says, which offers raccoons a safe place to retreat, if necessary. And unlike Vancouver (where, historically, there have been more condo buildings in the downtown), Toronto has residential neighbourhoods with leafy backyards, garages, and easy access to garbage. Urban raccoons have flourished here because of their ability to adapt to our environment, forage in our waste, and find shelter in easy-to-break-into older downtown homes.
— from http://www.chfi.com/2013/06/13/why-toronto-has-so-many-raccoons/

While indigenous to North American wooded areas, urban raccoons only exist in large populations in the cities Washington, DC, Chicago, and Toronto (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon#Urban_raccoons).

The gigantic raccoon pictured in the video still above hails from my upcoming animation project Toronto Alice. This creature is loosely based on the raccoon/s who habitually take a large crap on my back porch [grimace].