Kevin Baldwin, 12th June 2012

Kevin Baldwin and Tom Lowe

To my considerable surprise and delight we had an enormous turn-out for a summer’s evening at the last London Animation Club: about twenty-five people!

Our guest of honour was Kevin Baldwin who showed some clips from the TV pilot he is making with comedian Graham Fellows based on the John Shuttleworth characters. He then gave a Q&A with the audience, a clip of which is here:

We also had about eight new people who came along, so clearly we are doing something right.

The screening programme which was assembled entirely from what people brought along on the night was one of the best we have ever had. Thank you to everyone who took part.

Part One:

1. Unaccompanied Lady (2004, 4 min) by Kevin Baldwin

2. Clips from The Shuttleworths (work in progress, 1’30”) by Kevin Baldwin. Kevin is making a pilot for a proposed animated sitcom.

3. Q&A

Part Two:

1. Daugavpils (2012, 2’30”) by Una Marzorati. We were delighted finally to screen this wonderful film properly, as we had had technical difficulties showing it at the April and May events.

2. Computer Love (2012, 1’30”) by Kate Jessop. I hope she will put it online soon.

I then had the piss taken out of me – quite rightly – for commenting on how much I liked the texture of these two films.

3. Sex On Wheels (2010, 0’40”) by Philip Green. To my mind, perhaps the funniest sketch Philip has ever made.

4. Goodbye, Johnny (2008, 1’50”) by Philip Green. You should be ashamed of yourself.

5. Character Voice Reels (2012, 3’00”) by Andrew Hamblin. A gallery of voices.

6. Specialised Technicians Required: Being Luis Porcar (2005, 1’37”) by Manuel Saiz. Stuart Pound brought this along: it is absolutely amazing. It is one of the best experimental videos I have ever seen.

7. The Operators’ Reel (2012, 2’00”) with sound by Tom Lowe. You can see more of Tom’s work here.

8. Sam’s Spam (2004, 4’00”) by Dennis Sisterson. Apparently Dennis was never paid for making this as his client was crook. But it’s really good.

I then asked Captain Zip to tell us what he has been up to. He told us how Julien Temple, who has just used some more of his 8mm punk footage for a new film, is a really prompt payer and after Captain posted his invoice on a Wednesday, the money was in his account on Friday;  whereas the BBC not only managed to pay him the wrong amount and are well overdue with the rest, they have also farmed out their accounts department to India. Captain also told us about his adventure filming the Royal Jubilee.

I hope to organise a new Captain Zip screening very soon. For more information about him and his films have look here, and here.

To finish, I showed an old clip of me doing a joke movie masterclass on a Channel 4 pilot called Lo-Res (1999); and had the piss taken out of me again.

9. Martin Pickles’ Movie Masterclass (1999, 4’00”). For the entire pilot, have a look here.

Thanks to everyone who showed a film, to Kevin for being our guest of honour and to our technical director Tom for sorting out the website and making it cookie-compliant (or something). It is up and running again here. Don’t forget to register on it.

Our next event will be on Tuesday 3rd July. See you then!

Love from Martin