It’s a great month for residents of Northern California! We’ll be screening “The Girl and the Fox” five times over the next two weekends. First, at the San Joaquin Children’s Film Festival in Stockton, CA. They’ve made a lovely little page for our film on their website, where you can also buy tickets. We’ll be screening twice, on Sat. 21st and Sun. 22nd.

The following weekend will be my next in-person appearance, at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. I’ll be there for three separate screenings of the film. The main event and official competition showing is on Sunday, April 29 at 12:00 PM, as part of The Storytellers Show. That’s the show anyone reading this should attend, if interested. But also exciting is two educational screenings for local school groups. I’ll be attending those and fielding questions provided by the kiddies, hoping to inspire at least a few young filmmakers in the process.

So for anyone in the great NorCal region, please pay a visit! I’ll be giving out cupcakes, as always.

But this to me is a bizarre and depressing way to think about my art. The solution I have reached is to explore fragility; to essentially give my work a life cycle. This most recent piece made of silk, spruce and cotton thread is patiently waiting for when I release it out into the world where it will flourish in the most vivid activity of life while it is slowly battered and dematerialized into nothingness.

Ah, the sweetness of letting go.

So I have about a bajillion new festivals I need to add to our tour list and blog about, but for now let me note that the next festival screening “The Girl and the Fox” that I will be personally attending is the Los Angeles Animation Festival this Sunday, March 11th, 4:00pm at the Regent Showcase Theatre at 614 N La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90036. Tickets are… relatively cheap. Mention this blog post and receive a free autograph!*

I’m also planning on being in town for the San Francisco International Film Festival in April. It’s been a while since I’ve visited the Bay Area so that should be a fun one, too!

*The size and legibility of your autograph may vary

Moment presents a memory, soft and gentle. It is a moment of enlightened euphoria, affected by the haze of memory but with a physicality of surface firm enough to grasp onto. The choice of process reflects the necessary patience and resolve required to hold onto memories and maintain convictions. Distortion is unavoidable in both felting by hand and in the process of remembering moments. The resulting softness of the felt makes it desirable and conveys my own sense of longing for things past. (closeup)

My work from the last six months has continued with themes from my senior collection such as topography and mapping, and has introduced investigations into memory, personal relationships and how I spend my time.

If you are in the Indiana area, you can view my new work starting on the 15th at the MFA Exhibition in the Grunwald Gallery of Art.

If you can’t make it out to the UCLA campus this Saturday evening for The 39th Annual Annie Awards, I have good news for you. Several sites will be streaming a live feed of the show, showing all the presenters, winners and acceptance speeches. You can watch it on any of these sites:

• The Official Annie Awards Website [http://annieawards.org/watch-it-live/]
• Cartoon Brew [http://www.cartoonbrew.com]
• The Animation Guild [http://animationguild.org/2012-annie-awards/]
• UStream [http://www.ustream.tv/annieawards]

The show begins at 7pm PST, and if you’re a Base14 fan be sure to be prompt. I suspect the award for Best Short Subject will be one of the first presented. Excitement!!!

It’s been a long while since our last update because the company has spent the last two months relocating to Los Angeles! Not surprisingly, this is far from a simple process. But this means a lot of great things for the studio, including:

• We are now much closer to many screenings and award shows that will be featuring “The Girl and the Fox.”
• Tyler and Nate are reunited in the same city, expediting the process of completing our next film “Rain Dance.”
• The Annie Awards are this weekend and we’ll have several crew members attending.
• Most importantly we are now in the heart of the animation industry, where we can network, recruit and work with best best and brightest in this amazing art form!

It’s the biggest step for Base14 yet, and I couldn’t be happier. We all knew we’d get here eventually; honestly I’m a bit surprised it took this long. But now we’re settled in and here to stay. Hello, L.A.!

Yesterday, the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood announced the nominees for the 39th Annual Annie Awards, the highest honor in the animation industry. Included on that list? “The Girl and the Fox.” Right beside all the best studios like Pixar, Walt Disney Animation, Warner Bros. and the National Film Board, Base14 stood proudly as a candidate for Best Short Subject. As a growing animation studio, this is undoubtedly the greatest honor we have ever received.

The nomination alone is a stunning testament to our entire crew of talented artists, animators, musicians, sound engineers and producers. As director, I want to thank each and every one of them for making this vision a reality. I’ll be in LA for the Award Ceremony on Feb. 4th, and hopefully we can get a few of our other key crew members to attend as well.

Finally, as a necessity to the film gaining a new place in the spotlight, I’ve launched the official website for “The Girl and the Fox”. For now it features a modest view of the tour schedule and trailer, but will grow as time goes on. We still have about a year’s worth of festivals on our tour schedule.

Here’s to many more exciting days ahead of “The Girl and the Fox”!

Last night marked the beginning of the Savannah Film Festival, easily the best single week you can spend in the city of Savannah! As noted earlier, “The Girl and the Fox” is among one of the featured films, as a part of the Student Competition “B” programming block, and I’m all kinds of excited! This is my fourth year at the festival, and second as a featured director. “Duck Heart Teslacoil” was featured in 2009. Last year I was a blogger for “Voices of the Fest”.

I’ve got three major appearances during the week, so for those of you that are Savannah locals, be sure to come say hello:

“The Girl and the Fox” Screening No. 1
Monday, October 31st @ 11:30am
Lucas Theater

Coffee Talk – Short Films and the Festival Circuit. What Works?
Thursday, November 3rd @ 8:15am
Marshall House Hotel Lobby

“The Girl and the Fox” Screening No. 2
Friday, November 4th @ 9:30am
Trustees Theater

Also, I’m providing a fun and detailed account of my own festival experiences on my personal Twitter account, so do follow up, if you please!