Monday 26 May 2014

Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival 2014

Eminent director and great pal of ours Steve Woods emerged as a big big winner at the 2014 Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival, picking up Best Arthouse Film, Best Cinematography and Best Original Music for his latest dance film 'Keeping Time'. Congrats, congrats and very well deserved!


Big Winner Steve Woods eats fish and chips before picking up his prizes!

DQ did a workshop/seminar on Friday afternoon entitled 'Collaboration in Animation' - Festival Creative Director Chris O' Dell said he'd never experienced so much information packed into one hour! I also participated in various technical workshops organised by Chris and judged and presented the festival's Best Animation category.


Chris O' Dell with his baby Bell and Howell

An excellent, excellent festival as ever! Especial thanks to Helen, Chris, Pauline, Hilary, Maurice, Maria and Chris O' Dell!


Chris's Technical Workshop - Sunday morning

Friday 9 May 2014

My Last Short Film - Ever!

The time has come to officially announce that my current animated short 'A Warning To All Kings' will be my last ever.

I've now completed 11 animated shorts - only three of them have been fully funded. My last 5 animated shorts have emerged (self-funded) from my 'cutbacks' internet series. Whilst the self-funded films have won prizes and have been very successful on the film festival circuit, they've cost me (and my family) an arm and a leg to produce and promote. I don't have the financial resources to continue this activity. As a very good friend says 'we gotta give up making short films, they're killing us'. Tony Donoghue describes 'a short film ghetto' from which escape is practically impossible. There's no money in this activity (there never was, I know) but the longer form (specifically tv) projects which I'd hoped would emerge from the success of my recent short film work have not materialised - funders are not interested. Schemes like Frameworks are fantastic, but they're getting harder and harder to access.

I now must concentrate on returning to tv production - the 'machines' series for RTE in 1999 was my last tv series. I don't care if my return to tv production takes years - it must be done. That's where the funding lies.



A Warning To All Kings - image


1991 - Arts Council Film and Video Award for ‘To Forget’ short film (stop motion) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL-NLR3bpeA&list=UUT34LrcyJLGwiMF6CmyhPKA

2000 - Frameworks Award for ‘Florida War’ short film (CGI) 
2002 ‘Forest’ short film (CGI) 
2006 ‘Press p To Play’ short film (machinima) 
2007 ‘biography (of DT Finn)’ short film (machinima) 
2008 - Frameworks Award for ‘T’was a Terrible Hard Work’ short film (stop motion) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APEMB_tDFWY&list=UUT34LrcyJLGwiMF6CmyhPKA

2010 'Mister Heaney - a wee portrait' (short film - stopmotion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAtwCCtBOKo&list=UUT34LrcyJLGwiMF6CmyhPKA

2011 May 'leitronium' (short film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KFBR_hUV1s

2011 May 'rinkydink and the salmon of knowledge' (short film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7m7yJJm38w

2013 May 'Furniture, Murder and Love' (short film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msbQW2crEPk&list=UUT34LrcyJLGwiMF6CmyhPKA


2014 May 'A Warning To All Kings' (short film)

http://www.davidquin.ie/CV.html

IADT Technology Showcase Video

Excellent work  by DL832 Animation 3rd year (soon to be 4th year) student Viki Katona on this IADT promo video! Great job! Showcase on the morning of May 14th!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzeieWraP38&feature=youtu.be


3rd Year DONE - Alan Holly - Anim Table Quiz

IADT DL041/DL832 Animation Stage 3 is DONE for this year - most of the exit tutorials done yesterday, on my return from Dusseldorf - well done to all! Then the final excellent IADT AnimSoc lecture, with IADT Animation graduate Alan Holly.


Key learnings from Alan... Keep pitching those projects - projects may be shot down by one panel, but funded by another. Pitch projects only when you're completely happy with them - but pitch documents CAN be simple and concise (the Frameworks proposal document for Alan's CODA was 5 pages of (beautiful, moody) concept images, a script, a budget, a schedule and director's and producer's treatment notes)...

Try to work out exactly what will end up onscreen and try to schedule the production accordingly - don't leave tracts of your film, unplanned and 'not nailed down'.

Other Alan learning... When your film is finished - keep applying for film festivals. Just because your film is rejected by one festival, doesn't mean it won't be accepted for the next festival - it might even WIN the next festival.

Once again - excellent lecture from Alan and thanks to Emily, Ross and the AnimSoc for organising it!


Next, it was upstairs to the Animation studio for a small 3rd year 'exhibition', AnimSoc pizzas and bottles of fizz... After that, an Animation exhibition fundraising table quiz in Bakers. Jazis - a long day, but a great day!


2014 Stage 3 exhibition...


Baker's - the table quiz...


Baker's - the table quiz...


Baker's - the table quiz... Checking them pesky answers...





Wednesday 7 May 2014

Tempus ALIGN Dusseldorf finishes...

Our Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday sessions on planning Training for Work Package 1 of the Tempus Align project finally come to a successful close. with a very useful Skype call with David Woodhouse! Training Session One takes place in Ghent on the week of the 29th of September...

Great work done in Dusseldorf...


Jazis - ANAMU Newsletter from 1992?

Mention of THE QUINS in an ancient copy of an ANAMU Newsletter... Who dug this up? Though marked from 1993, I think it's probably from 1992, when my first short film 'To Forget' started doing the rounds on the film festival circuit. As Pegbar's Daniel says 'a pinnacle changing point of Irish Animation?'

Seems like yesterday? No... Seems like a LONG long time ago!

Thanks to Daniel from Pegbar and to Cathal and Doc for the Twitter mentions!

Here's a Youtube link to a rough SD version of 'To Forget'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL-NLR3bpeA&list=UUT34LrcyJLGwiMF6CmyhPKA




Tuesday 6 May 2014

TEMPUS Align - Dusseldorf

Fly out on Sunday 4th for Tempus Align meeting in Dusseldorf - designing Work Programme One (WP1) 4 day training packages for later in the year. Here we are, on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday, in the ASIIN offices...