Jonathan Demme / Stop Making Sense / David Byrne GIF

I didn't know too much about Jonathan Demme, who died yesterday, other than that he directed The Silence of The Lambs and Stop Making Sense. Even if he did nothing else, that's a hell of a CV.

I remember first reading that Stop Making Sense was 'the greatest concert film ever made' in Q Magazine when I got into music as a teenager but I never watched it. It floated in my periphery for years before I finally bought the DVD in Fopp for a fiver.

A decade of hearing that something is unequivocally the best had me ready for disappointment but I was sold before Psycho Killer (the first song) was over. Stop Making Sense is the best. If you've never seen it, you should. Look, here it is here:

Seeing clips from SMS all over Twitter put me in the mood to sit down and watch the whole thing. I had my iPad to hand at the time and I started doodling David Byrne dancing in his big suit. The doodle became a couple of poses which became an animated gif (above).

I also added some music and put it on my Instagram. He dances in time! That was a lucky accident.

Pictish Trail Live at The Stand: Animated

In 2015, Johnny Lynch (aka Pictish Trail), toured with Josie Long. The mighty Lost Map Records has preserved his set from The Stand in Edinburgh as a limited edition cassette available exclusively at Pictish Trail live gigs.

To promote the release, Johnny asked if I'd be up for illustrating a 7-minute excerpt to share online. I was definitely up for illustrating a 7-minute excerpt to share online. I finished it yesterday and it's available to watch at the top of the page, on the Lost Map YouTube channel and on the Pictish Trail Facebook page.

Anyone who has seen Johnny live will know that his stage patter often veers into all-out stand-up comedy, particularly when he's playing songs from In Rooms, his fantastically weird 30-second song project. The new cassette captures the magic and even includes the infamous 'Birds' - a one-word singalong that hangs over Johnny like 'Creep' hangs over Radiohead. A true albatross (ho ho).

The plan was to create a simple slideshow of drawings to accompany the audio. Given that I've caught the animation bug recently, I tried my best to add as much movement as I could in the fairly tight timeframe I had. The end result is something in between - it's not a slideshow but it's not a full-blown animation either.

Regardless, I'm happy with it and it's definetly worth a look/listen if you've never caught a Pictish Trail gig before. He's on tour next month btw.

Animation Showreel

Although I'm not an animator, I often have reason to make animations. Sometimes they're pretty full-on but mostly they're small and silly. I've now made enough to edit together this showreel, though I'm kinda reluctant to call it that (I'm not an animator after all).

While most of the work isn't exactly slick, I'm pretty happy looking over everything as a whole. I had a lot more stuff than I was expecting and I can definitely see a style starting to form. Most of the included animations were completed in an afternoon or two as I was usually working to a short illustration deadline rather than a longer animation one. This, combined with the fact that I'm not an animator, is my get-out-of-jail-free excuse for any and all wonkiness.

If you haven't seen them before, the three longest animations I've made are The Dancing Lion for Pringle 1815, You Only Went Out to Get Drunk Last Night for Kid Canaveral and the Snow Giant for Lost Map's 2016 online Advent calendar (which I'll write about properly soon). The Kid Canaveral video was my first try at stop-motion and, in retrospect, it could've done with more time spent on lighting / framing / white balance.

I hope to animate some more throughout 2017. To trot out the old cliché, it's really satisfying seeing drawings come to life. Playing through a sequence for the first time is fun - you kinda know how it's going to look but seeing things actually move is always surprising. I find myself laughing at my own work fairly regularly, which is good.

The music in my showreel is by the fantastic Jonnie Common. The track is a remix of 'Bed Bugs' by the also fantastic GRNR. I chopped it down into a short instrumental version but you should listen to the original. Also worth watching is their live version for BBC Radio Scotland.

BTW, if the video looks particularly grubby, make sure you're playing in HD. Oh, and subscribe to my YouTube channel if that's your bag.

Jonnie Common - Kitchen Sync

Jonnie Common has made an album using only sounds from his kitchen! It’s called Kitchen Sync and is available for preorder on Song, By Toad Records as a digital download and as a set of limited edition fridge magnets(!). This blog post has more info.

I've worked with Jonnie on a few things now and he's asked me back to draw some bits and pieces for Kitchen Sync. My work features in Jonnie's promo video (above) but I've also dotted some of my favourites around here as animated gifs.

Because I didn't have much time to spare, these are all first-try little drawings of the different 'instruments'. Some are pretty wonky (bottles, I'm looking at you), but I'm happy with how they turned out.

Once I'd scanned everything, I added a little animation using Photoshop. Again, there's some perspective dodginess going on here and there but I'll hold on tight to my 'don't blame me, I'm not really an animator' excuse forever.

To launch Kitchen Sync, Jonnie is playing a couple of live shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh in early April. I’m 100% positive that they’ll be amazing. Jonnie says he’s gonna go into the process of making the record as well as performing some of the tracks live.

I've had a preview copy of Kitchen Sync for a while now. It's beautiful - all instrumental and ambient and intriguing. It's also got some of the best song titles going: Harder, Faster, Washer, Dryer?.. C'mon! That's textbook JC.

Big thanks to Jonnie for having me on board. Go buy the record.

Pringle 1815 Illustrations and Animation

Pringle 1815, the Japanese wing of Pringle of Scotland asked me to draw some illustrations for them! Everything has been done and dusted since January but I had to wait a wee while before sharing the work here.

Rather than repeat everything in multiple places, I've put together a page about the project with the main images, information and links.

That said, I want to draw specific attention to the above. Pringle 1815 also wanted me to create an animation to accompany the ad campaign, which is nuts. Despite not being an animator, I gave it a go and, after a lot of long nights, managed to put together something I'm pretty happy with. I've given The Dancing Lion its own page if you'd like to see it a little larger.

Music and sound by the phenomenally talented Jonnie Common.

Lost Map

Last week, my good friend Johnny (aka The Pictish Trail) announced that he is finishing up things with Fence Records, a label he has headed alongside King Creosote for many years, and is starting a new project with many of the artists involved. Today he launched Lost Map, a record label from Eigg.

To fans of Fence Records and the Scottish music scene, this is big news. It's big news to me too, having worked on a whole bunch of different odds & ends for Fence over the past wee while. Posters, album artwork, music videos and, um, Hott Loggz have all put food on my table (at least a couple of Mars Bars-worth).

More than that, I've been a fan. A big fan. Not as big a fan as some (there are some giant fans out there), but a good fan. An honest fan. A hairy fan. I bought my first Fence 'record' in 2000, Fence Sampler #03, from Avalanche in Edinburgh. It's still one of my favourites. That CD got me through college. From there, I bought albums, read zines, attended dozens of gigs (+5 Homegames), made friends and, eventually, got on the books. Fence has been a part of my life for 13 years and has influenced my work, my taste in music and helped me pass my driving test.

The what-the-hell-is-even-going-on events of the last few days have unsurprisingly caused much (mostly positive, I'm happy to say) a-twittering and a-beefering (?), but I don't wanna talk about that. I'm sad to see the end of this iteration of Fence, but I look forward to seeing whatever direction Kenny Creosote steers it in next. I also look forward to seeing where Lost Map goes too (hopefully to the Bahamas) because, if Johnny's involved, it'll be bloody good. You can like 'em both, y'know, that's ok.

So aye, Lost Map. I'm involved in a pretty major way. I could probably give myself a proper title but I can't handle the pressure / scrutiny, so I'll go with Chief of Winging It. I'll be working closely with Johnny on all the visual stuff - doing a fair amount of it myself and hopefully also getting some other artists involved where I can. We do have an art-direction direction, but fully intend to stay loose and playful as we go. The last thing we want is something cold and clinical so please forgive the wonkiness.

What you see on lostmap.com right now is our starting point. The above animation is hidden behind the main banner and will play when you click. It was made incredibly quickly and features a wee snippet of music from the upcoming Monoganon album, F A M I L Y, which is set to be the first full-length Lost Map release. It's brilliant, by the way. Incidentally, John B. Monoganon (MonogaJohn?) is good value on Vine.

From here on out, things'll get colourful.

Visit the site to download a free sampler, featuring music by Monoganon, Rozi Plain, The Pictish Trail, Kid Canaveral, eagleowl, Seamus Fogarty and Randolph's Leap. You can also follow @lostmaprecords on Twitter and like Lost Map on Facebook.

Stay tuned x

GFT: For All

Here's something bonkers. I've been working with the amazing Glasgow Film Theatre on a series of simple animations to accompany For All - a project discussing what cinema means to the community.

Between July and September, 9 writers will publish texts on the theme of 'For All' to encourage discussion and the sharing of ideas. Short extracts of each piece will be animated and shown onscreen at the GFT before films and on the Glasgow Film website where you can read the texts in full.

The first part of the project launches today. Pamwepo (at together), a poem by Tawona Sithole, beautifully sets the tone for what's to come. Visit the page, read the piece and share your thoughts.

(flip to HD for better quality)

Creating these animations (which I'm still working on btw - it's gonna be a hectic month) has been a learning process and no mistake. I may have dabbled before, but this is my first time working on anything on such a scale. Despite this, I'm determined to play around and enjoy myself. The turnaround on each clip is short so we're going for simple, effective little ideas and trying not to stress on getting everything perfect.

Music for the project is provided by two of my very favourite musicians in the world - Jonnie Common and The Pictish Trail. This makes me unbelievably proud. If you don't know their work, go check it out. Figurehead (by JC) and Michael Rocket (by Pictish) are good places to start.

So, if you find yourself in Glasgow over the next wee while, go see a film at the GFT. It's a beautiful cinema and they show brilliant films. The For All animations will play before the features and you can contribute to the project via the Glasgow Film blog, on Twitter using the #filmforall hashtag, on the Glasgow Film Facebook page and by using the post-it notes in the GFT foyer. Here's some more information about getting involved.

Emily Munro, Head of Learning at the GFT has written a response to Pamwepo on the blog. It's a good place to start.

I'll write more about the project as it progresses here and I'll toot about it on Twitter. Stay tuned.

Innis & Gunn Artwork

Work! I'm supposed to post bloody work here, aren't I? It's easy to forget that sometimes.

In 2012, I was lucky enough to work with Innis & Gunn, the Edinburgh-based brewer of delicious oak-aged beer, on a couple of projects. I'm very proud to have been on board (they're a damn fine company and it's damn fine beer).

For I&G's involvement in the Edinburgh Film Festival, I made a little cartoon (above) depicting the importance of the oak-aging process to the unique flavour of their beer. Although short, this was still the most ambitious hand-drawn animation I've ever tried and I think it turned out pretty good, considering.

The animation was edited down to a lean 60 pages and made into a lovely little flickbook that was distributed amongst festival-goers back in June. It can be seen at the end of the short video I made below:

(note, it's surprisingly hard to flick a flickbook straight-through only once while holding it in front of a video camera. Please forgive my slightly juddery attempt. Music is 'P' from the album John's ABC by the Fence Collective.)

Using a combination of the old-fashioned (drawing stuff over-&-over-&-over) and the new-fangled: (Photoshop trickery), I was able to put the whole thing together on a fairly short turnaround. Although frustrating, tedious and difficult, animation is something that I hope to explore further. My Wired illustrations, which I animate for their iPad app every month, are getting increasingly ambitious and are good practice.

I also produced a few illustrations for their beautiful Bartender's Choice book, including the above Edinburgh cityscape and a small set of drawings depicting various stages of the brewing process.

(more on the Bartender's Choice section of my site)

Big thanks to Lucy and everyone over at I&G for getting me involved and for all their help - they've been amazing to work with. Fingers-crossed, I'll have more to share in the spring.

Oh, and not that I like to toot-my-own-trumpet too loudly, I'll just that, when it comes to perks, this job had one or two:

It's been tricky, but I've kept some aside for Hogmanay. Dancer.

Batman Illustration for Wired Magazine

For the past 6 months or so, I've been regularly contributing to the US edition of WIRED Magazine, specifically illustrations for Mary H.K. Choi's TV / entertainment / pop culture column in the Play section.

It's been great. Having a regular magazine gig is an exciting, scary and rewarding thing. It's the kind of job I'd imagine having when I used to think, "man, maybe I could work as an illustrator" back when I was studying graphic design and feeling fairly unenthused about a future in a studio discussing typefaces with tastefully-shirted men. And, when I accidentally fell arse-backwards into actually being an illustrator, it's these editorial briefs with their sketches, drafts and deadlines that most make me feel like I maybe, possibly, just might have some kind of future being my own boss.

As with everything I do, I see only the mistakes. I beat myself up for procrastinating and live in constant fear of 'blowing it'. Every other artist out there is more talented, wittier and more proffessional than me. I'm often uncomfortable with the style I can easily fall into and I meticulously budget 6 months in advance for when the money, inevitably, dries up. But, for now at least, I'm happier than I've ever been. I feel more like a grown up than I did a couple of years ago when I was working part-time in the same stockroom I'd worked in since college and I feel less depressed, ashamed and washed-up than I did a year ago when I took a job as a web designer for a company that I did not fit.

The above drawing, part of a larger piece (featuring Bert from Sesame Street on drums) in the May edition of WIRED is maybe my favourite thing I've done for them. It made me laugh while working, which is rare, and I got to retrofit some little animations (something I'm still learning) in there too for the iPad version. Compared to how I often feel about my work, it makes me extremely proud to say that I'm 'mostly happy' with how this guy turned out.

Thanks to everyone who has helped and encouraged me over at Wired - Mary, Bradley, Alex, Tim, Christopher and Meighan have all been awesome. Go buy it, read it, and keep your eye out for my daft drawings. Well, unless I blow it.

Oh, and the best thing about having your work in a magazine? It impresses your mum.

Kid Canaveral Music Video

Above is my debut as a music video director for the single You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night by the very fine Kid Canaveral. It was animated, filmed and edited by myself with some help from Alex and Fergi - particularly in the dancing kitchen scene.

I've posted about this clip before on my old blog but, happily, I have new reason to post it here. I have just recieved news that it will be featured in the BBC Music Video Festival 2011 and will be shown at The Forum in the centre of Norwich, from the 19th of September to the 1st of October - on bloomin' giant screens no less.

'Chuffed' doesn't explain the half of it. Having an animated film shown by the BBC is one of those things you dream about. Yeah, it's rough around the edges. Yeah, it was made with sellotape and fishing lines in our messy wee flat. Yeah, I don't really know how to work a camera. You know what? I don't care! We had the most fun ever staying up until 5am making the video and I'm still very proud of it.

Filmmaking is something I'm growing increasingly fond of these days, in part due to being a complete novice and knowing it's ok to make mistakes. I'm always looking to find time to knock together a new video and if anyone wants to work on any projects, get in touch. You'd make my day.

For more info on the Kid Canaveral video, I did an interview about it a while back which you can read here. You can also watch and subscribe to whatever other nonsense I make on my YouTube channel. Big Thanks to Johnny at Fence and Kate Canaveral in particular for all their help with this project.

Terry Gilliam Explains His Cut-Out Animations

This video did the rounds a few weeks ago, but I'm posting it anyway because I just rewatched it. Monty Python's Terry Gilliam explains, in a completely honest and straightforward manner, how he put together his famous cut-out animations for Flying Circus etc.

What I like most about this video is how simple he makes it look. The young Gilliam actively encourages you to go out and make your own versions, in exactly the same way (or differently, he doesn't seem to care) as he did, without being at all precious about his creations. Despite being behind some of the most instantly recognisable, even iconic, animations ever made, he acts like 'ach, I only do it this way because I'm lazy. Anyone could've made these stupid things'. It's a lovely, inspiring and encouraging attitude from a brilliant creative mind. Now I feel a bit dumb for not having made the Monty Python intro.

I originally found this clip via Drawn (who found it via KC Green on Twitter).

Odds & Ends

Recently I've been trying to clean out my hard drive a little, deleting all the junk that builds up over time. iPhoto is one of the worst offenders. Because it just magically sucks all the photos from a camera, arranges them nicely and is generally headache-free, I never, ever delete anything. Pure black photo from when my camera went off in my bag? What the hell, keep it. Blurry photo of the carpet? Yes please! Back of a complete stranger's head? Don't mind if I do. Well, no more. I've been sorting through it, trying to delete all the garbage.

One thing I've found, which I'd totally forgotten about, is a few stop-motion animation sequences. I guess there's been occasions over the past couple of years where I've felt the urge to take a bunch of snaps with the intention of slapping them together later. So, as part of my clearout, I chucked them into an editing program and slapped a bit of music over the top.

I know the end result isn't exactly mind blowing but, for me at least, it's quite a nostalgic little video. Maybe stop-motion does that to everything, gives it that Wonder Years, old-home-movies kinda feel. I dunno. It's nice anyway. Nice to see these fairly boring pictures from days I'd forgotten about come back to life. The music, once again is from the album John's ABC by the Fence Collective.

Rugrats / Klasky Csupo

While lost in a deep Wikipedia hole, I found myself reading up about the production company Klasky Csupo, which in turn inspired me to hunt out the (surprisingly hard to find) Rugrats title sequence, which I have embedded above.

I've not watched it in years but, boy, that's some brilliant animation eh? Combined with the Mark Mothersbaugh theme, I think it makes for one of the most charming intros to any tv show ever. Rugrats itself, at least the seasons before they added the little brother and had them grow older, was great.

Klasky Csupo's other 90s output was also really strong. They were often weird to the point of alienating kids, but their artwork was always bang on. They had amazing logos and music too. Check out clips of Santo Bugito and Aaahh!! Real Monsters for some other goodies.