Mio Mao

I saw this at the Annecy animation festival and loved it. Mio Mao. It didn’t have any voiceover on the festival version and to be honest I prefered it. The voiceover is rather surplus to requirements.

Zoologic

A funny animation about a zoo from Nicole Mitchell.

Bio Bunny

Hooray! A new animation from Tony Dusko at notebookbabies

Harry and Toto: Dark and Light

Here’s a whole episode of Harry and Toto… featuring the inhabitants of Opposite Town. This episode (first broadcast on Cbeebies) is written by series creator Paul Shuttleworth from Handle and Spout.

More info on cast and crew at imdb

Films by kids

Here’s some animations by kids.

I’ll See You Under the Sea

Yellow No Monkey (by my nephew)

and finally ‘The Bullet Car’ which distills every male oriented adventure story into its essential elements.

Barton Hill Animation Festival Films 2009

The Barton Hill Animation Festival has come and gone once more. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend this year, but I’m pleased to see that the kids attending the festival have had the chance to create some more great short animations.

Trip to Planet Dangerous

Prince Harry the Brilliant and Mr Jealous Wealous

Pixilation Workshop

Anna et Froga

Here’s something I found completely randomly on YouTube. I don’t really know what they’re saying as my French requires people to speak at about 10 words a minute, but it’s something about the lottery I think! Anyway. I like it.

Synaesthesia

Midlands animation director Samantha Moore has made some beautiful films. Here is one that feels very experimental, but which shows the visual responses of some synaesthetics (people who experience one sense when another is stimulated e.g. colour when hearing sound). Not strictly a children’s animation… but it seems like something that all of us might find interesting on a purely sensory level!

Sam is currently making an animated documentary about synaesthesia called An Eyeful of Sound. There are more details on her website and film blog.

French Retro

Here’s some  kids series from the back and beyond. Do you remember a “Super Lunar Bird” called Wattoo Wattoo. Me and my siblings loved this alien bird. I can’t find an English version, so here is an original French version episode with an anti-smoking theme. It’s interesting, not least because you don’t often see smoking on children’s TV amymore.

So there you are… give up smoking by replacing cigarettes with explosives. D’accord!

Also, a film that a friend recommended from her own childhood, Barbapapa. Also a French production !

Wobblyland Wobblies Making Music

Here’s a series produced by Academy Award nominated Brown Bag Films from Dublin. It has a Mr.Men, Roobarb and Custard feel about it. Narrated by Geoffrey Palmer.

Brown Bag have been working on a new series of Noddy with Chorion. It’s about a million times better than the last Noddy series, thanks to Brown Bag’s involvement. Hopefully they’ll release some footage soon so I can feature that here!