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Two Short Nights Film Festival

Now in it’s fifteenth year, Two Short Nights Film Festival returns with a jam-packed programme of screenings and events celebrating the world of short film.

Discover inventive animation, stunning cinematography and storytelling at its finest with screenings featuring must-see films from around the globe alongside emerging local talent.

Animation Commission: Live Pitch

Responding to a set brief, watch filmmaking teams fight it out in a live pitch event to a panel of creative experts, animators and industry professionals to secure the Exeter Phoenix South West Animation Film Commission 2017.

JUDGES

Susannah Shaw

CEO at Curzon Cinema & Arts

Since November 2014, Susannah has been CEO of the Curzon Cinema & Arts in Clevedon, North Somerset, a unique independent cinema, that has run continuously since 1912. She’s tasked with raising 2.5 million to complete the building and auditorium restoration. Previously, she was director of Animated Exeter, an annual animation festival she programmed and developed since 2000, becoming Director in 2009.

In 1996 she founded the Bristol Animation Course at the University of the West of England, supported by Aardman Animations. This led to working as a Lead Evaluator for Creative Skillset’s course accreditation scheme. As well as running a production company directing films and radio programmes for the BBC, Susannah spent 10 years as a freelance camera assistant, some of which was at Aardman Animations, having started out as an assistant editor at BBC Bristol and in the distant past, an assistant animator on the series, Animated Conversations, the BBC’s precursor to C4’s LipSynch series.

Susannah is currently writing a 3^rd edition of her best-selling book, Stop Motion, Craft Skills for Model Animation.

curzon.org.uk

Chris Webster

Programme Leader for BA and MA Animation, UWE Bristol

Chris originally studied graphic design. He has spent most of his creative commercial life working in Classical 2D Animation. He began his career as an assistant animator on the classic SuperTed TV series in the early 1980’s and since that time has worked on children’s TV series, commercials, specials and feature films, working as an animator, director, storyboard artist and designer. Credits include BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs, TV Specials Under Milk Wood and Turandot and the feature film Princess and the Goblin.

Chris began teaching in 1992 and many of his students have achieved posts at the highest level in the industry working in many countries around the world. As well as leading on the design of UWE’s BA and MA Animation programmes and training courses for industry, Chris has lectured in Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, China and Singapore. Chris has sat on the juries of animation festivals in the UK and Far East and authored a number of key practice books: Animation – The Mechanics of Motion (2005), Action Analysis for Animation (2012) and Acting and Performance for Animation (2013).

bristolschoolofanimation.co.uk

Daniel Willers

Creative Director at Yellow Mouse Studios Ltd

Since gaining a Masters Degree in Computer Animation from NCCA, Bournemouth University, Daniel has worked consistently in the industry at some of the major animation studios based in London and Bristol, on VFX and 3D animated projects. Daniel has worked on films for cinema and TV as well as popular TV shows which have aired on the BBC, ITV, Netflix and Sky, many of which have either won or been nominated for prestigious awards such as BAFTA’s and EMMY’s. Daniel is currently working at Paramount Pictures on the animated feature Sherlock Gnomes a sequel to the popular 3D film Gnomeo and Juliet, due to be released in 2018.

Yellow Mouse Studios, an animation and design studio based in Devon, which specialises in digital animated visuals for business, as well as producing independent productions.

yellowmousestudios.co.uk

Venue: Studio 74, Exeter Phoenix