The Hits
Happy New Year Everyone, and welcome to another installment of The Hits, beginning with a bit of news.
Soothing Summer Camp
I’m thrilled to announce that Summer Camp Island is nominated for the Best Children’s or Young Teen Animated Series at the Emmy’s! As we ease ourselves into the new year, this weeks hits will all be soothing gentle beasts, beginning with this clip from Summer Camp.
Raviv and I are collaborating with The Jim Henson Company to produce an original live action puppet series called Paul the Bear!
Raviv started making short films with Paul a few years ago, and then began developing it into a show, and shortly afterwards I elbowed my way in because I love them both so much.
If you are feeling tender of spirit I highly recommend indulging in Paul’s debut performance. I basically married this bear, what a treat!
The Snowman
It is important now I have a child to prioritize how I spend my downtime, and so I recently spent it watching Hot Frosty, the newest Christmas snowmance on Netflix, which of course is a nod to the best snowmance of all, ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs. While it is no longer Christmas, Briggs never intended it to be a Christmas story, so we’re still well within our rights to watch it in January - if only to wallow in it’s tragic ending.
I just looked up the etymology of wallow and this description of the word feels very apt:
Wallow: A pool of water or mud in which animals wallow, or the depression left by them in the ground.
Oh my.
I personally find this image to be the perfect representation of the end of a love affair. Standing over a pile of your lovers things, after they have evaporated into the sky.
The Making of The Snowman
Some might say the making of video is better than the animation itself as it includes British women discussing going down the pub, scarfing down 3 beers and coming up with the idea of the snowman falling down a badger’s hole on his motorcycle.
If anyone in the UK is reading this I would like to formally submit my application to direct from’t pub.
Animation Obsessive’s Substack on the film
Where I learned this gorgeous fact:
The artists used children’s crayons that weren’t designed for animation. Held for long hours, they grew warm and soft in the hand, and had to be cycled in and out of a refrigerator to keep the consistency right.
Much like The Snowman himself.
Wendy McNaughton’s 30 days of drawing.
I started doing Wendy McNaughton’s drawing challenge to get back into the swing of drawing for the joy of it, and i’m very into it so far. The first challenge is the More / Less list, to be completed in under 10 minutes.
Here is an extract from mine. It turns out, ten minutes does not allow time for you to make sense to anyone but yourself:
Spiral Before Working
This meditative video by Lynda Barry called ‘Spiral Before Working’
Spiral before working is coincidentally is on my ‘Less’ list this year.
Hope everyone is having a good start to the year so far, i’ll see you all soon <3
Love seeing another edition of ‘The Hits’! I always put on The Snowman on Christmas and used to beg my uncle relentlessly to play “the snowman song” on the piano all year long.
Congratulations on Paul the Bear. This upcoming year seems daunting but it’s comforting to know that people are still making art that cares.
That Paul the Bear short is the pinnacle of cosy, soothing art. I can't wait for the full series! And congratulations on that Emmy nomination, SCI absolutely deserves it.