News just in: the short film I wrote, BARZAKH, has been selected for the "UnderGround Short Film Festival 2013". Screening at 8pm August 10th in the Kino, Cork.
http://www.undergroundshortfilmfestival.com/#!underground-13/c1x9v
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
It's Official - the Creatives in Animation Network (CAN) is still growing!
Lovely piece in the Irish Film & Television Network (IFTN) e-newspaper: http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4286296&tpl=archnews&force=1
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Only a Few days to the Creatives in Animation Network's First Galway Event!!
Galway is hotting up in honour of our next network event! Okay, so the sun just happened to come out this week, but maybe it's an omen of wonderfully creative collaborative partnerships to come from this latest CAN gathering!
So I'm seriously looking forward to hosting this first CAN event in the West. If you're in the city and you want to find like-minded people who want to create animation, come along at 11.30 to the Joyce Suite, First Floor, Radisson Blu Hotel on Friday 12th at 11.30 - 1.30.
So I'm seriously looking forward to hosting this first CAN event in the West. If you're in the city and you want to find like-minded people who want to create animation, come along at 11.30 to the Joyce Suite, First Floor, Radisson Blu Hotel on Friday 12th at 11.30 - 1.30.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Making Your Wickdly Fertile Imagination Work
Definition of Bully: The Dingo
Blu bra - i.e. I fancy you
Tiger - tossing - i.e. his brother
Stars and atoms - make them listen
M - It wasn't your fault.
Every so often when I'm in the middle of a project - in this case a play - I find scraps of notes I've made for myself that make - or made - sense to me then but now, if I were to take each separately and without context, I could probably create a wholly new piece of work.
Possibly surreal, if you look at the list above.
But it makes me feel so fortunate that I am in a job that needs imagination, lateral thinking, a slight "madness of the heart and soul and tiptoe crazy on the moon" (to quote one of my characters, Eve from Salt on Our Skin).
Even so, making yourself do the work that will birth the characters, language, dialogue, visuals, relationships, stories can be hard, can be frustrating. Not least when you do get down to it and hate yourself for having wasted so much time to get there.
But is there such a thing as wasted time - are our brains ticking over, working it out, storing something magical there to reward us with? I hope so because sometimes I find myself circling the work like a nervous crow, picking it up, putting it down, doing anything else, faffing as if it were a new and lucrative art form...
Two bits of advice that have kept me sane:
1. Don't expect everything you write to be good. You have to get the abysmal stuff out of you too! If you expect to write something magnificent every time, fear will stop you from writing, allow you to procrastinate into a state of utter frustration and dislike, and the disappointment of the bad stuff you do write might discourage you from ever finishing a piece of work. Just get the words down - nobody else can.
2. Do up a schedule of small tasks, single steps that will allow you to do the writing work you want to do and keep to it (more or less) religiously, unless you get so into the writing that you get carried away, which is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.
These tasks could be to brainstorm a character, a scene, an element of the narrative; to list out the chapters and see what happens in each; to pick up something that is bothering you about the project and see where it goes; to edit one chapter, one scene, the first ten minutes of a script - or the last; anything that allows you to build up the project and prevents you from being daunted by its sheer size...
They say you can only truly enjoy freedom when it's scheduled in - which seems bizarre but think of how good that walk/ chocolate/ next chapter of the book you're dying to read will feel if you've actually made some headway into your current writing project? How good you will feel about yourself.
In other words, reward your fertile imagination by giving it space in which to grow.
Blu bra - i.e. I fancy you
Tiger - tossing - i.e. his brother
Stars and atoms - make them listen
M - It wasn't your fault.
Every so often when I'm in the middle of a project - in this case a play - I find scraps of notes I've made for myself that make - or made - sense to me then but now, if I were to take each separately and without context, I could probably create a wholly new piece of work.
Possibly surreal, if you look at the list above.
But it makes me feel so fortunate that I am in a job that needs imagination, lateral thinking, a slight "madness of the heart and soul and tiptoe crazy on the moon" (to quote one of my characters, Eve from Salt on Our Skin).
Even so, making yourself do the work that will birth the characters, language, dialogue, visuals, relationships, stories can be hard, can be frustrating. Not least when you do get down to it and hate yourself for having wasted so much time to get there.
But is there such a thing as wasted time - are our brains ticking over, working it out, storing something magical there to reward us with? I hope so because sometimes I find myself circling the work like a nervous crow, picking it up, putting it down, doing anything else, faffing as if it were a new and lucrative art form...
Two bits of advice that have kept me sane:
1. Don't expect everything you write to be good. You have to get the abysmal stuff out of you too! If you expect to write something magnificent every time, fear will stop you from writing, allow you to procrastinate into a state of utter frustration and dislike, and the disappointment of the bad stuff you do write might discourage you from ever finishing a piece of work. Just get the words down - nobody else can.
2. Do up a schedule of small tasks, single steps that will allow you to do the writing work you want to do and keep to it (more or less) religiously, unless you get so into the writing that you get carried away, which is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.
These tasks could be to brainstorm a character, a scene, an element of the narrative; to list out the chapters and see what happens in each; to pick up something that is bothering you about the project and see where it goes; to edit one chapter, one scene, the first ten minutes of a script - or the last; anything that allows you to build up the project and prevents you from being daunted by its sheer size...
They say you can only truly enjoy freedom when it's scheduled in - which seems bizarre but think of how good that walk/ chocolate/ next chapter of the book you're dying to read will feel if you've actually made some headway into your current writing project? How good you will feel about yourself.
In other words, reward your fertile imagination by giving it space in which to grow.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
IFTN Welcomes Creatives in Animation Network to the Fleadh!
Lovely article in IFTN about the event...
http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4286232&tpl=archnews&force=1
http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4286232&tpl=archnews&force=1
Monday, 1 July 2013
CAN Goes to the Fleadh!
The second Creatives in Animation Network (CAN) event of 2013 is confirmed for the Galway Film Fleadh. This, the first time the network has met outside of Dublin, will take place in the Joyce Suite, First Floor, Radisson Blu Hotel on Friday 12th July, from 11.30-1.30.
These are informal gatherings open to anyone genuinely interested in collaborating professionally and creatively within the animation industry - writers, animators, producers, directors, scribblers and illustrators. We meet and mingle, making contact with a view to following up later if we meet someone with whom we feel they might like to work.
If you want to come, please let me know at ljsedgwick@lindsayjsedgwick.com.
For more information check out the dedicated Creatives in Animation Network page on this blog.
These are informal gatherings open to anyone genuinely interested in collaborating professionally and creatively within the animation industry - writers, animators, producers, directors, scribblers and illustrators. We meet and mingle, making contact with a view to following up later if we meet someone with whom we feel they might like to work.
If you want to come, please let me know at ljsedgwick@lindsayjsedgwick.com.
For more information check out the dedicated Creatives in Animation Network page on this blog.
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