Eye Candy
Hungry Hungry Eat Head from Bren O'Callaghan on Vimeo.
It's tough when you're in competition with 2098 shows in 265 venues in a city that for a month each year becomes home to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Tough, but not impossible. Thanks to Hudson-Powell, Joel Gethin Lewis and the leap of faith required by City of Edinburgh Council who were very polite about my asking if they wouldn't mind if we beheaded their citizens and placed them in a giant cartoon for the afternoon.
After this, our beta launch, we went on to delight the city of Liverpool during AND: Abandon Normal Devices Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture. If you too can find a way to step into your daydreams and earn enough to get by, I definitely recommend it. Read more about Hungry Hungry Eat Head here.
Tales of Two Cities
With an OCD fury not seen since the woman in the Shake 'n Vac advert ground her Valium and mixed it with a glug of Bacardi, I've been plugging the cracks in this site and pasting up former production duties with a vengeance. My personal favourites A Wall is a Screen now have a page to themselves, as do the rapidly expanding MegaPhone team - flying the flag for those of us who see no reason why computer games should progress beyond the Atari era. Once upon a festival, The Light Surgeons conjured up a storm in a Gothic salon and The Royal Opera House treat us to no fewer than twelve outdoor relays in the past five years.
Into The Woods
You can never have enough magic capes, as I discovered earlier last year. Shamefully I have only just got around to documenting this particular project for the Big Screen Liverpool from Charlotte Gould in partnership with moves, although thanks are also due to my friend Mandy Tolley for creating the most intensely red cloak with the biggest button I have ever seen. Yes, even bigger than Kirsty Allsopp's secret cache.
Grizzly Ice
It's not enough just to make roast potatoes anymore. No, they have to be parboiled, lightly beaten roast potatoes basted in duck fat with thyme and flaked white truffle. So it's no great surprise to discover that crudely lumpen snowmen have been ousted this year as my admittedly talented neighbours created a near-life size render of a polar bear. I was going to build one myself, but I don't think I'll bother. *Sniff*
Bella Bella!
Thanks to old friends, new friends and the generosity of An Outlet and staff in providing a snug location for our festive re-staging of one of my favourite projects from this year, Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema presents Gregory's Girl. I'm still not tired of it and laugh all the harder for silently mouthing the script in advance. The Tunnock's range of Scottish playground snacks were enjoyed by all (well, me), whilst the experience was enhanced by my friend Maria knocking over her drink as I shouted the cue "Number six!", which she followed up by loudly exclaiming "Sh*t!"
It turns out she wasn't too far from the truth..!