And.... it's live!

After it's year and a half in the sun in and around the festival circuit it's finally time to put my short film online. So here it is: 9.5 minutes in full! Hope you enjoy.

Festival Awards, Nominations and Selections

Ticking Away has had a nice festival run over the last two years. We are preparing it now for an online release for everyone to see. Though it was made for viewing in a cinema theatre, it'll be nice to have it online for everyone to enjoy.

BEST ANIMATION at the Shortcutz Amsterdam Annual Awards!

Ticking Away won Best Animation at the Shortcuts Amsterdam Annual Awards!!

ShortCutz Amsterdam

We have been selected for the ShortCutz festival. On June 7th, 20:00 we will be screening and 'Q and A'd' at Sociëteit de Kring at the Leidseplein in Amsterdam.

See you there!

MovieZone Nomination at the Holland Animation Film Festival

At the Holland Animation Film Festival 2016  we were nominated for a MovieZone HAFF Award.

Flattering words from the jury:

"The first nominated film is … Ticking Away by Michael Sewnarain

The contrast in colours accompanied by a mesmerizing soundtrack, gives this film a weight of emotion; told as loudly as a silent film possibly could. A story so captivating, it doesn’t leave your mind the moment it fades from the screen. Truly a masterpiece with an animation style that matches its excellence."

Here's the juryrapport.

VPRO Gids

Michael Minneboo did an interview with me for a special edition of the VPRO TV guide (a dutch broadcaster) dedicated to the Holland Animation Film Festival 2016.

You can read the interview here (in Dutch).

Ticking Away at the Holland Animation Film Festival 2016

The Holland Animation Film Festival 2016 will be held from the 16th to (and including) the 20th of March in Utrecht. Ticking Away will be having it's world premiere at this festival. Here are the screening dates and veneus for our film.

We have been selected for the National as well as the International Competition programs AND our film will be among the selection in the opening night program, screening what the HAFF considers to be the highlights of the festival!

We are very honored to have our film welcomed so warmly into the festival circuit.

Trailer for Ticking Away

And here's the trailer for our film!

World premier at the Holland Animation Film Festival

Great news, the Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht has selected our film for their 2016 edition! We are very honored that they wil be hosting the world premier!

Ticking Away will run in both the national AND the international competition.

Poster designed by BLEXBOLEX

Here's what they say in their announcement:

"We are happy to announce that we will be hosting the world premieres of the Dutch short Ticking Away by Michael Sewnarain [...]! ...


Ticking Away, Michael Sewnarain (2015)

Through the Cinecrowd crowdfunding website, filmmaker Michael Sewnarain secured sufficient funds to realise his dream short Ticking Away. The breathtaking result can be watched for the first time at our festival. Ticking Away tells the story of a soured watchmaker, who is lonely but likes his job. His life hasn’t exactly been easy. One evening, a strange man brings him a very special watch to repair...

Michael Sewnarain is an animation filmmaker, story-artist and illustrator with a field experience of over twenty years. His short film 'Rain' (2005) was selected and shown on many international film festivals. Apart from developing and working on his own film ideas, he regularly collaborates on commercial productions, television specials and feature films. Working with internationally renowned directors like Joanna Quinn, Peter Dodd and Piet Kroon.

Ticking Away is also selected for the competition Dutch animation."

See where they say the result is 'breathtaking'...? Makes us very proud!

Model Reference Sculpture

Here's a little bust of my main character that I modeled long ago. 

It's quite rough but it helped me better understand the structure of his head. During production, while I was animating, I kept it within reach for reference, and when I happened to loose track of his structure, volumes and proportions this little fella helped me out quite a lot. 

Foley and Final Mix at Bob Kommer Studio's

After recording and mixing our musical score at Studio Dada in Brussels we did the foley recording and final soundmix at Bob Kommer Studio's in The Hague.

Foley recording is the art of adding sound effects to the film by creating those sounds, using everyday objects, during a live studio recording.

Here's Jeroen, creating every squeak, crack and whistle for our film.

Robin brought his parent's antique pendule so we could record the right tone and resonance of an old wooden grandfather clock. In front of that is my old pocketwatch. Long broken but perfectly suitable for these purposes (and no, we didn't smash them). 

After that we created our final soundmix, sculpting a perfect 5.1 surround track for cinema screens as well as a stereomix for smaller festivals and venues. 

Recording Music in Brussel

It's been a while since my last update.

The fact is it's been crazy busy in the last stages of production. Finishing up all the visuals, coloring animation, correcting, recoloring, sound FX and foley recording and mixing took it's due toll. But it's 99,9% done! Almost there!

In June, shortly after my session with the composer Reinhard Vanbergen, we went to Studio Dada in Brussels to record the music with a chamber orchestra complemented with additional percussion. Just the right amount of musical instruments for an intimate story like Ticking Away. It was a nice adventure and a great privilege to have had these tremendously talented professionals performing just for us.

Reinhard Vanbergen getting ready for our day-long recording session.   

Geert Calleart on the piano.

Gaetan La Mela working the vibraphone.

Gaetan brings out the big guys!

Punishing those kettledrums.

All is cool at mission control.

Our string quartet getting ready.

And performing.

From left to right: Mark Steylaerts, Veronique Gillis, Katelijne Onsia and Karel Steylearts. 

End of day. An abandoned music studio is a melancholy sight.

Reinhard Vanbergen getting comfortable for an evening of mixing.

Button, buttons! Don't push the red one! 

We made it!

And now it's official! We made it, thanks to YOU!

Thank you so much to everyone who helped us get the message around. And to all the funders. The were a couple of very generous anonymous ones; thank you guys, I have no way of knowing who you are but I'm very grateful.

Cleanups

Here's some more animation, cleaned up this time, for our project.
Background is by Brun Croes. Animation by me.
We're on 77% and we only have a few more days to go, so help us out and donate here if you can:
http://cinecrowd.com/en/ticking-away-1

Background Paintings

Here are some full-color background paintings for Ticking Away. Colored by Brun Croes.

If you like these, you can help us finish the film. Our crowdfunding is still running, but running out of time. We only have 10 days left! So please go here and donate if you can:

 http://cinecrowd.com/en/ticking-away-1

Layouts

Here's some more artwork. These are the B/W layouts drawings for the animation scenes. Eventually they were colored in by Brun Croes. (I'll post some of those colored BG's later.) A fair portion of these will be included in the 'Making Of' book, btw.

And please don't forget to donate if you can! Help us finish this thing, we only have 16 days left and that's not a lot.

http://cinecrowd.com/en/ticking-away-1

Gazet Van Antwerpen

Our project made it into the Belgian newspaper the "Gazet Van Antwerpen".
(Pdf can be found here.)

MOOVES

Private preview for my friends from Mooves giving me feedback and advice on dramaurgy and storytelling. 

Fabrique Fantastique

I've been working closely and very pleasantly with the crew at all-round animation and production studio Fabrique Fantastique who are hard at work doing compositing and coloring on Ticking Away.

Here's them looking rather photogenic.

Left to right; Matthew Lu (color artist), Hanne Geeraert (DEA veteran), Michaël Koning (compositing wizard), Quinten van Epperzeel (color artist).


Sweating Away.

Floriaan Den Hoed stretching his neck muscles.

Hanne needs exactly 4 cups of coffee to keep going.

Doing their "Usual Suspects" routine. (Gimme the keys, you @$#%*&!!)

One frame at a time

Screen capture of me sweating away.

And a fragment of storyboard from the same scene.