Flatpack

October 12, 2018

BREVIEW: Skate Kitchen @ Midlands Art Centre 12-17.10.18

Words by Ashleigh Goodwin

Crystal Moselle’s Skate Kitchen is her sixth venture into the world of directing, and features a primarily female fronted cast, led by Rachelle Vinberg in her first feature length film. Vinberg plays Camille, an isolated teenager who enjoys nothing more than skateboarding and scrolling through her Instragram feed.

Upon following the female skateboarding collective ‘The Skate Kitchen’ closely on the platform, she attends one of their meet ups in NYC and quickly befriends them. From this Camille begins to navigate adolescence with her new friends in tow, as opposed to being alone with her mum in their suburban Long Island house.

I didn’t know what to except when going into the preview – organised by Film Hub Midlands in conjunction with Telford & Wrekin Council – having avoided researching the film until I was able to catch a screening. But I imagined it would be more of a documentary that focuses on the technical side of skateboarding. And despite this not being the forefront of the film, it was still woven successfully into the narrative to create a good balance of realism and fiction. You’re able to see that Moselle’s approach to the subject is authentic and well researched; indeed, the writer/director initially approached The Skate Kitchen girls after seeing them on the subway and was curious to know more, which is what spawned the making of the eponymous film.

At its core though, Skate Kitchen is not just a skateboarding documentary or drama piece but a modern coming of age film – one that is primarily (and successfully) directed towards females, as opposed to the relationship between them and their male peers which can often be the focus of such films. Although Skate Kitchen does touch upon this too.

Compiled of relative newcomers (apart from Jaden Smith), the cast is what makes Skate Kitchen unique and charming. The girls aren’t trying to fit into their assigned roles and the characters they play just seem like an extension of themselves, which makes sense given Moselle’s approach to the film. Due to the ease of their performances and how natural their chemistry is, it makes Skate Kitchen feel authentic and intimate, like a fly on the wall witnessing real life conversations amongst a group of girlfriends. There are no weak performances within the cast, with each member bringing a distinct personality and something individual to the film. I felt this particularly extended to Janay (Ardelia Lovelace), whose character is played with such realism it almost felt like a documentary; Lovelace is really enjoyable and interesting to watch which makes it easy to invest, emphasise, and root for her throughout.

Skate Kitchen’s strengths go further than being well cast and directed; the film doesn’t just explore the world of females occupying the typically male dominated domain of skateboarding, but goes beyond that to incorporate the classic coming of age tropes in a fresh, modern way. This makes it accessible to those in their teenage years, especially female viewers.

Topics that are typically shied away from are spoken about and shown in length; scenes where Camille discusses periods, tampons, sexuality, and family relationships are dealt with frankly and with blunt honesty – mainly from Kurt (played affectionately and charismatically by Nina Moran). It’s through this approach that Skate Kitchen does the job of expelling and diminishing stigma around such natural issues, alerting audiences to the fact that these are simply normal.

Concepts such as fractured families, finding freedom, body dysmorphia, and first loves are also shown throughout the course of the film, but none of them feel underdeveloped or skimmed over, with all of them fitting comfortably within the film’s narrative.

The only pitfall is that despite having strong themes, it didn’t feel as though there was much of a definitive plot to Skate Kitchen. There was no big, main, end goal. But this doesn’t detract too much, as the film presents itself as more of an exploration of coming of age as opposed to a succinct story about it. In a way this even works to the film’s favour, as it makes it more true to life; Skate Kitchen still ends up where it needs to.

Although I did feel this issue diminished the opportunity to develop certain narratives, especially when it came to Camille’s relationship with her mum – played by Elizabeth Rodriguez (better known from her performance as Aleida Diaz in Orange is the New Black). At the beginning of the film, Camille’s mum is a constant on screen – banning her daughter from skating after she ‘credit cards’ herself on the board. Camille disregards this and, to add insult to injury, starts travelling to New York regularly to meet up and practice with the girls from The Skate Kitchen.

Halfway into the film their mother-daughter relationship is in pieces, but it suddenly becomes secondary and fades into the background with them only reconciling briefly on screen near the end. When they do reconcile it’s still touching, and the scenes of Camille holding her mum’s hand whilst guiding her precariously down the street on her board are some of my favourites from the whole film. Yet it would have been nice to see them resolve their issues in a full scene – or for the mum’s narrative to be woven in more evenly throughout the whole film, as opposed to heavily then not at all.

This point also extends to her relationship with The Skate Kitchen girls, after their explosive falling out near the end we don’t see them make up again and it would have been interesting to see how this played out on screen. Although, again, this isn’t necessarily a negative – this approach shows how insignificant and irrelevant teenage arguments can be in the grander scheme, and how things can go back to normal. Rather than showing a scene where they make up verbally, we end with shots of all the girls skating carefree down New York streets with nothing but music, shots of their boards, faces, and the city.

Overall, Skate Kitchen isn’t a film I will be eagerly waiting to re-watch, but I think it’s an important, heart warming, and entertaining film to put on your list. Also the influx of these films – namely ones that are female written and directed, and feature a female dominated cast – are important. They show a perspective not present in a lot of mainstream films and address issues or topics that are often missing too, especially amongst a female teenage or young adult audience – an agenda the UK distribution company for Skate Kitchen, Modern Films, has been working hard to promote.

The use of protagonists from different cultural, racial, and economic backgrounds is also a strong tool in storytelling, and allows film to be more readily accessible to a wider range of people. Not only that, but through sharing female experiences via film, audiences can find solace, solidarity, education and guidance that they may be lacking in the public sphere and it opens up a dialogue for certain issues and topics.

Diversity within film has always been important and although there is still a long way to go, with films like Skate Kitchen the future of fair representation does seem a little brighter.

Skate Kitchen – official trailer

Skate Kitchen (rated certificate 15) is out on general release, with screenings at Midlands Art Centre from 12^th to 17^th October. For more details, including a full programme schedule and links to online bookings, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk/event/skate-kitchen-boarders

For more from on Skate Kitchen, visit www.skatekitchen.co.uk

For more on Modern Films, visit www.modernfilms.com

For more on Film Hub Midlands, visit www.filmhubmidlands.org

For more on Midlands Art Centre, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

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June 1, 2018July 17, 2018

BREVIEW: My Friend Dahmer 01.06.18

Words by Ashleigh Goodwin

When asking the ‘average’ person what their interests are, we’ve all heard the standard pastimes rattled off: socialising with friends and family, sporting activities, travelling, having a pint at the pub… And as I enter into the world of professionalism and small talk, I’ve realised this is a safe, relatable, and most importantly a socially acceptable list to recount in those awkward moments of introduction.

But it was after I inadvertently blurted out that my main interest were “serial killers”, with wide eyes and possibly over enthusiastic tone, in a work conference icebreaker not so long ago that I felt the pang of peer review and social acceptance. I don’t necessarily mean this is a bad interest, as I know many people who share it, but at the end of it all aren’t we all trying to fit in?

Due to this fascination, I’ve amassed bits of knowledge on Jeffrey Dahmer over the years from various sources: podcasts, autobiographies, biographies, films, interviews and documentaries. So, when I was offered the chance to sneak a first peak at the new biopic on the serial killer, My Friend Dahmer, I was genuinely overjoyed – jumping on a train from Bristol back to Birmingham to make the advanced screening at The Electric Cinema, as organised by Film Hub Midlands.

My Friend Dahmer is based on the 2012 graphic novel/memoir by American cartoonist John ‘Derf’ Backderf. Derf was an acquaintance of Jeffrey Dahmer’s throughout their time at Eastview Junior High and Revere High School from 1968 to 1978. The film adaptation doesn’t show this entire timeline or solely focus on Backderf’s friendship with Dahmer, like the graphic novel, but rather follows Dahmer throughout his four years in high school, charting his binge-drinking, the separation of his parents, his fascination for dead animal experimentation, and his desperate cries for attention to gain acceptance amongst his peers. The film shows Dharmer’s life up to the time just before his first human murder, two weeks after his graduation, ending with him picking up his first victim – hitchhiker Steven Mark Hicks.

My Friend Dahmer is also presented through the eyes of Dahmer himself, as opposed to the singular perspective of Derf in his graphic novel. Director and screenwriter, Marc Meyers, explains this switch was because “we’re all most interested in the life and descent of Jeff Dahmer. It’s the mix of Jeff’s school and home life that is the most compelling and important part of the story“.

Meyers does a great job with this film, carefully executing a cautionary tale that could have easily descended into the common pitfalls of the serial killer genre, such as glamorisation, dramatisation and desensitisation. Yet the way he captures Dahmer’s declining psyche, using subtle editing throughout the film, at times feels nothing short of masterful.

Meyers utilises all available factors, such as sound, the transition between frames, and the use of both establishing and close up shots, to create a deliberate and careful portrayal of Dahmer’s chaotic decent to the point of no return. I’ll admit, however, on occasion at the beginning the film felt slow and I was initially frustrated we were getting a lacklustre portrayal of the situation. But as My Friend Dahmer enters into its second half you realise this is a deliberate move to show the progression of Dahmer’s character and how he eventually gets to the point that he does.

During his school life, Dahmer was notorious for regularly faking seizures and mimicking cerebral palsy through speech impediments and certain ticks, in a bid to attraction attention from his peers. This worked too, as Derf and his classmates formed a “Dahmer Fan Club” due to how entertaining and interesting the found their ‘friend’ Jeffrey.

Derf, along with other peers, paid Dahmer to do “his act” at Summit Mall one afternoon; Derf has stated the event went down as “legendary”, as Jeffrey Dahmer spent around two hours terrorising shoppers by shouting in their faces, flinging their food trays from tables, and faking seizures in the middle of the complex. I felt this scene did a great job of summarising the tragedy that was Dahmer’s teenage years; the disconnect he had from everyone, his desperate need to fit in, and how he ultimately was nothing more than comical fodder amongst his peers.

Meyers could have easily set this up as a purley comical scene, but uses it as a pivotal point within the film to show the severity of Dahmer’s rapidly declining grasp of normalcy. Again, the editing is great here and shows the raw emotion by using a series of close-up frames that focus solely on a tormented looking Dahmer. Quick fades and dissolves are then used to fit the crescendo of a piano instrumental in the background, effectively building the emotion of the narrative and conveying an increasing despair without any dialogue.

However, the main highlight of the film is indisputably Ross Lynch’s performance as the younger Jeffrey Dahmer. Lynch was previously known for his work on the Disney Channel, and this departure makes his delivery even more surreal whilst showcasing the wider berth of his acting skills. Lynch manages to pin-point Dahmer’s character, not only in his immediate appearance (Lynch is virtually unrecognisable with his mop like hair and large glasses) but in his slouched posture, his introverted mannerisms, and most strikingly his facial expressions and eye contact which convey emotion in each scene without saying a word.

Meyers also finds balance in his execution of Dahmer’s character, showing the stereotypically introverted and sinister Dahmer but also his collected and composed nature in a very self-aware way. This is reflected in the story of how Dahmer called the President’s office on a school trip to Washington and arranged a meeting with his friends and Vice-President Walter Mondale. Lynch re-enacts this with a great calmness and slight arrogance – the more confident side of Dahmer gives the character further depth and an indication of his multifaceted personality, which became a vital part of the man in later life.

Lynch’s performance is also made so captivating because many of the experiences and situations Dahmer faced through adolescence are those that can be commonplace for any teenager, such as loneliness, negligence and the struggle for acceptance. This humanises Lynch’s character, as it isn’t hard to relate certain aspects of his demeanour to someone you know. Backderf even stated that Lynch’s portrayal of Dahmer will “make viewers uncomfortable because it’s so familiar.”

My main gripe, however, is that I feel My Friend Dahmer portrays the ‘Dahmer Fan Club’ to be more compassionate than was perhaps strictly true – especially judging by Derf’s own account in his graphic novel, which repeatedly stated that generally they excluded Dahmer, didn’t give him much concern, and pretty much kept him around for entertainment.

However, in the film there are a handful of scenes where members of the group question if it’s “mean how [we] treat Dahmer” and later on that they should “leave him alone”. None of this is reflected in Derf’s original recount and feels as though it has been thrown in to the film to make his peers appear more sympathetic, or to make them seem more like invested acquaintances than they were.

This is demonstrated most prominently within the penultimate scene between Dahmer and Derf in the car outside Jeffrey’s house; Derf, after disassociating himself from Dahmer due to his overbearing weirdness, hesitantly discusses heading off to college and Dahmer’s future plans. At this point in Derf’s graphic novel I was practically begging for someone to ask Dahmer ‘are you okay?’, but it never came. By introducing the disjointed, flippant interests in Dahmer’s welfare at this stage in the film adaptation it felt unnecessary, disingenuous, and took away the severity of hopelessness and isolation of the central character.

Although also towards the end of the film the narrative shows Dahmer’s former friends and his parents all leaving him, instilling the audience with a heart-sinking feeling as we expect the inevitable. The scene where Dahmer’s mother, Joyce, leaves with his brother, David, is done in such a blasé way it almost becomes comical, with Meyers using this to encapsulate the tragedy of Dahmer’s teenage relationships and how utterly alone he really was. After Joyce leaves, the scene is deathly quiet as Dahmer falls to the floor and cries. You can see the angst and conflict in Lynch’s face, so much so you could arguably mark the point where all hope is lost for Jeffrey Dahmer.

There is a further absence of any full discussion about Dahmer’s struggle with his sexuality. There are a couple of scenes in My Friend Dahmer that hint towards this inner conflict, but this could have been expanded on rather than being just an undertone as it is such a vital part in the killer’s motives and central to the whole character of Jeffrey Dahmer.

I also have a feeling the film may hold more appeal to those with a pre-existing interest in Dahmer. For those with little interest in the notorious serial killer, it may seem slow paced and potentially anticlimactic and we don’t see any of what Dahmer is most known for, so I would recommend reading Derf’s graphic novel for a bit of background.

This being said, My Friend Dahmer carries a lot for all film lovers to enjoy, such as the aforementioned performance from Lynch and the evident craft put into each scene; the colour pallet for the film is really enjoyable, recreating the era through a sepia quality and giving a portrayal of Ohio within the late-sixties that feels authentic and rich.

Overall, Meyers presents an honest look at Jeffery Dahmer’s unsettling and upsetting childhood. The film neither excuses nor sympathises with his actions, but still shows the extent to which Dahmer’s traumas and inner demons grew through the negligence of those around him, and eventually consumed him, in a process that is both fascinating and heart-wrenching to watch.

My Fiend Dahmer offers its audience a glimpse into the serial killer’s adolescence without assigning blame on certain events or situations that lead to his fate. But rather the narrative explores the factors that shaped Dahmer into the individual he became, without trying to answer the ‘nature Vs nurture’ debate – a conversation arguably best left to both the audience and wider society. Something to remember during that uncomfortable small talk at the office Christmas party.

My Friend Dahmer – official trailer

My Friend Dahmer is out in general release from Friday 1^st June – coming to both independent and mainstream cinemas across the UK. For more on My Friend Dahmer, visit www.filmrise.com/film/my-friend-dahmer

April 1, 2018April 3, 2018

ED’S PICK: April ‘18

Words by Ed King

Easter Sunday, 1^st April… There’s probably a joke in there somewhere. But with a basket of listings and entertainment based excel spreadsheets to plough through who has the time to be witty? Or hunt for Easter eggs, for that matter. Being an adult sucks.

However (…are you ready for this segue) it does allow me to enjoy all the delights of the Flatpack Film Festival without worrying about ID – actually, I’m not sure there’s too much on the programme with an age restriction but Dots & Loops are part of the festival and they brought us Lesley the Pony Has and A+ Day!, so…

Back for festival number 12, those glorious creatives at Flatpack have put on a nine day smorgasbord of celluloid, digital, and other audio/visual treats – running from 13^th to 22^nd April, in a variety of venue across the city. Too much to cram into this round up; look out for our more in-depth cherry pick in the days to come, or click here for more direct information on the full programme.

Elsewhere in the non-greenfield, Ebola flirting, footwear wrecking land of multi-stage events, we have the Birmingham Literature Festival – hop scotching from various corners of the REP to the Birmingham and Midland Institute from 27^th to 29^th April. Now old enough to drink beer in America, this year’s Birmingham Literature Festival has a focus on women in literature and publishing, alongside a weekend long programme of ‘inspiring conversations, writing and debate’. Again too much to adequately surmise, but click here for more direct info.

Following on with a female focus, Birmingham Jazz launches its Legends Festival on 27^th April – running as a series of satellite events across the city until 20^th May. This year’s linchpin is ‘Celebrating Women in Jazz’, with local artists such as Trish Clowes joining a myriad of talent from across the globe. Too much to fit into… you know the drill, click here.

Theatre comes in all shapes and sizes this month, including a couple of choice cuts on Hurst Street – with Wicked beginning its Birmingham run at the Hippodrome (4^th-29^th Apr) and The Twisted Tale of Hansel and Gretel at the Patrick Centre (4^th– 8^th Apr).

Across the duel carriageways and road works we have Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock coming to the Birmingham REP (10^th – 14^th) followed by the political see-saw of 1970’s Britain in This House (17^th – 21^st) – reminding us fear mongering comes from both sides of the aisle and a dash of vitriol isn’t a particular new idea. How times have changed… or not.

Music takes its usual fat belly slice of our monthly listings, with a few ‘big gigs’ of notE coming to the NEC portfolio – as the Genting Arena sees both Arcade Fire (15^th Apr) and Dua Lipa (17^th Apr), whilst Arena Birmingham welcomes the Manic Street Preachers (27^th Apr) back to the city.

Playing across the non-arena rooms of our musical city, the Hare & Hounds has another eclectic mix – with Kushikatsu Records presenting Shonen Knife (15^th Apr) followed Snowpoet (19^th Apr) courtesy of Jazzlines. Whilst The Glee Club sees the very welcome return of Nerina Pallot (9^th Apr) stopping off in Birmingham on the second date if her UK tour. Fingers crossed there’s a piano on stage.

The Sunflower Lounge sees Killer Wave and Outlander host their ‘Help the Homeless’ pay-as-you-feel charity fundraiser (8^th Apr) – with all money raised going to Shelter and Tabor House. Then we have Lucy May Walker playing her first headline show in Birmingham (18^th Apr) – both events well worth a stop, look and listen. And £5 of your hard earned cash, of course.

Our mobile branded venues see a bevy of acts this month too, with the O2 Academy presenting George Ezra (4^th Apr), The Vaccines (7^th Apr), Trivium (17^th Apr), The Streets (19^th Apr), Coasts (21^st Apr) and Akala (24^th Apr). Whilst the O2 Institute leads out with Walk the Moon (7^th Apr), Little Comets (14^th Apr), Aquilo (16^th Apr), Of Mice and Men (25^th Apr) and Sharon Needles: Battle Axe Tour (26^th Apr).

A special mention also has to go to the Hummingbird-Menagerie-Indie-salad days-nostalgia trip coming to the O2 Academy with Love From Stourbridge – featuring The Wonder Stuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (14^th Apr). Someone pass me my German army shirt, skateboard and a can of Red Stripe, we’re going early 90’s feral…

And if you’re committed to your anti-corporate support of live music, never fear as mac welcomes Juice Aleem & Surge Orchestra (21^st Apr) whilst Mama Roux’s serves two sides of the musical rainbow with The Herbaliser (19^th Apr) and Mallory Knox (24^th Apr)… probably not a good idea to get those dates mixed up in your diary.

Elsewhere in the city, comedy offers a relatively strong respite from those kids and their music – with The Glee Club presenting Tony Law (13^th Apr), Alun Cochrane (15^th Apr) and Craig Campbell (22^nd Apr).

Or if you just want to stand and stare, you could waste a happy hour or two at Lewes Herriot: The Glass Arcana exhibition at Artefact in Stirchley (13^th – 14^th Apr). Or watching the flyers unfold with an exhibition from the seminal 90’s ambient electro club Oscillate, at Centrala (16^th – 28^th Apr) – bearing in mind there is an end of exhibition party with HIA and POLE (28^th Apr) so you might want to do more than actually just stand and stare. Or not. Depends how you dance to Sun Electric, I suppose. Necking enough amphetamines to kill a small horse always worked for me, but vegetarian options are available.

But to end on the most glamorous of high notes (pun absolutely intended) Paul Alexsandr and Dragpunk present Candyland at The Nightingale (6^th Apr) – a choc full celebration of ‘local and national UK drag of all genders, sexualities and abilities that you’ll adore.’ Then at the other end of the April rainbow, Opulence are launching Mother’s Meeting at Bar Jester (28^th Apr) – a band spanking new ‘performance night dedicated to showing off a variety of drag and queer talent across Birmingham and the U.K.’, with special guest Charity Kase joined by a pageant of the Opulence crew on stage and Elliot Barnicle on the decks.

Birmingham can be proud for many reasons, but the cross over embrace of its drag community is one to really get those flags waving. We love covering it, and it seems the punters of Birmingham love supporting it. So, Vive la/le drag community of our fair/fairer city, alongside all who sail on these most wonderful of waters. Save some energy though, Birmingham Pride is a mere calendar page turn away.

And wait, I’ve just thought of one. A Jewish carpenter and a 6ft rabbit walk into Cadbury World…

For more on any of the events listed here, click on the highlighted hyperlinks. Ed King is Editor-in-Chief of Review Publishing, which issues both the Birmingham Review and Birmingham Preview. To follow Ed King on Twitter, click here.

December 22, 2017December 22, 2017

BREVIEW: Dots & Loops #5 @ Rose Villa Tavern 19.12.17

Words by Ashleigh Goodwin

It’s a Tuesday night, and a small crowd packs into the upstairs room of The Rose Villa Tavern in the Jewellery Quarter. A mismatched array of chairs fills most of the space, as well as a projector that hangs from the ceiling… and I am confused.

Director and animator Louis Hudson, alongside writer and producer Ian Ravenscroft, stand before the crowd and explain that they will be showing a mix of their own collaborations, along with shorts that have inspired and influenced their work. The duo make up Dice Productions – a company that boasts an extensive and award-winning body of work, with their comedy shorts and animations appearing on Nickelodeon (DuckManBoy), Channel 4 (Gregory is a Dancer) and the BBC.

The premise is simple enough and this is not what causes my confusion, but rather the eclectic content. The evening opens with Dice Production’s catalyst, Message in a Bottle (2009) – a one minute animated short based on a drawing that Hudson created when he was around sixteen. This, along with the next couple of shorts, did nothing to aid my journey of understanding. The confusion grew to bewilderment, as my brain struggled to catch up and make sense of what I was (admittedly, excitedly) watching.

I carried this dilemma with me until the fifth piece, entitled All Consuming Love (Man in a Cat), a nine-minute short, unsurprisingly about a little man named Yorkie (voiced by Kevin Eldon) navigating life stuck in the body of a household cat. At this point, I realised that I had to shove any preconceived notions aside. Usually when watching something I need time to process my thoughts, to establish an explanation before moving on. However, the format of the evening – showing shorts one after another in quick succession – just does not permit this. So, after battling with myself I surrender to the ‘just-go-with-it’ mentality, which is the point and made for an extremely entertaining evening.

Although all of the shorts’ comedy is uncontainable and indescribable, the first section is darker and more twisted, including Who I Am And What I Want (2005 – directed by Chris Shepherd and David Shirgley) and Myszochujek (2014 – directed by Kristof Babaski). Part two features assorted clips, starring Morecambe and Wise, Reeves and Mortimer and the cast of The Fast Show – creators who took a medium and distorted it to work against its predetermined rules. This is reflected in The Christmas Card (1968 – directed by Terry Gilliam), which played with the repetition of TV and its traditional conventions long before they were established, allowing a comedy format to be created; a short ahead of its time.

Rejected (2000 – directed by Don Hertzfeldt), is also in this section and demonstrates the deeper, more emotional side of comedic shorts. Rejected is a fictional frame story, where Hertzfeldt is commissioned to animate different commercial and television network segments, all of which are ultimately met with rejection. His characters run amuck, and when the intertitle states that the animator has suffered a mental breakdown his work begins to fall in on itself whilst he kills his characters. This could be described as black comedy at a glance, but once you explore the serious implications it demonstrates how much effort, time and dedication go into these works.

The final section of the evening focuses on a more child-friendly narrative, comprising of clips from children’s shows such as Danger Mouse (1982), Brillso Brothers (2008) and Hudson and Ravenscroft’s own work, DuckManBoy (2015). Despite the child-like qualities of these works, they still contain absurdities. I have seen a handful of these clips before, but never thought to analyse or breakdown their comedic properties. This is echoed by Ravenscroft, who states that we often don’t think about how much work goes into shorts and may dismiss them as “throwaway comedy”.

A great example of this is the side-splittingly funny Morecambe and Wise: The Breakfast Sketch. Hudson points out that someone will have taken the upmost time and care creating bizarre props, including a bespoke fridge that mimics the lights in a cabaret, all for a short clip.

This is reflected in their own work, Croissant (2015), which Hudson explains took around five months to make, to ensure that everything was in place to land the desired comedic effect. And the short is only two minutes long. He explains this could have been done easily over a weekend using animation, but stresses the importance of picking the correct format to convey comedy – hence the choice of a ‘live’ short, despite the laborious hours. This particular discussion is nothing short of inspiring in itself, really opening my eyes to each clip and making me appreciate how much effort goes into each frame.

My personal highlight of the evening is the segment about English comedian Rik Mayall, who is one of the first comedians I was introduced to growing up. In part two, they show a clip from Bottom (1992) and this preludes Dice’s own work Don’t Fear Death (2013) also starring Mayall as the main voice over, with Ed Bye (director of Red Dwarf 1988-91, 1997-99) as Associate Producer. The duo agree they felt they had successfully captured all sides of Mayall in the three-minute short, released three months before his death. Hearing Hudson and Ravenscroft talk so candidly about the actor, his mannerisms and genuine character, is uplifting and makes the short so much more enjoyable.

As well as feeling inspired, I come away from Dots & Loops #5 feeling educated by Louis Hudson and Ian Ravenscroft’s reflective, personal knowledge of the clips and the comedy world in general. For example, the Dice Production duo’s discussion of how repetition in comedy affects its audience is perfectly demonstrated through the four-minute Lesley the Pony Has an A+ Day! (2014). And their thoughts on the changing landscape of comedy shorts is fascinating; Ravenscroft explains that the third clip shown, A Heap of Trouble (2001 – directed by Steven Sullivan), was commissioned and aired on Channel 4 but suggested that today it wouldn’t fit a late-night slot, although may achieve millions of hits online. They discuss the changes in YouTube algorithms which make it harder to find new and inspiring content, raising interesting questions regarding the changes in formats and mediums in which comedy shorts operate and are distributed.

So, in an attempt to summarise the immensely enjoyable and eye-opening event… I was expecting to passively observe the shorts shown, as I felt I wouldn’t be able to appreciate them individually in such a short time. However, once I had wrapped my head around the unrelated narratives, it was an interesting event to be part of for many reasons – I learnt something new, was exposed to new content, and felt the importance of creativity reaffirmed.

Dots & Loops’ fifth edition also demonstrated that whilst there are absurdities and idiosyncrasies, no work is completely original; you will be able to relate it to something prior or see where the artist’s influence has come from. It also showed how genres develop and modify over time, adjusting to modern factors.

Shows like Bottom may look dated these days, but you can still break down work to see what it is that makes it entertaining. It’s then up to artists to take and develop this into something new and exciting that works within their own ideologies. And that’s exactly what Dice Productions does.

All Consuming Love (Man In A Cat) – Dice Productions

For more from Flatpack, including full event listings and project information, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

For more on Dice Productions, visit www.diceproductions.co.uk

For more on The Rose Villa Tavern, visit www.therosevillatavern.co.uk

December 18, 2017December 18, 2017

BPREVIEW: Dots & Loops #5 @ The Rose Villa Tavern 19.12.17

Words by Ed King

On Tuesday 19th December, Flatpack: Assemble present the fifth edition of their Dots & Loops event – a ‘short film night… with a comic twist’, where ‘animated people’ can explore a showcase of selected short films and productions.

Held at The Rose Villa Tavern, doors for Dots & Loops #5 will open at 7:30pm with entry priced at £4. Please note this event was previously scheduled for The Outback in Wolverhampton on 2nd Nov – for direct event info, including links to the new venue, click here.

Dots & Loops held its inaugural event at The Oobleck in October 2014, hoping to establish itself as ‘sociable evening of short films’ where Birmingham’s local film community, both industry and enthusiasts, could come together to celebrate some ‘really good work’.

Each event has been curated by a variety of film makers, animators and creatives – selecting a series of shorts from both their own portfolio, and of those that have inspired or compelled them. Previous Dots & Loops have welcomed work from Peter Millard, Simon Ellis (Soft) and Charlie Lynn (Beyond Clueless) – Dots & Loops #5 will see the return of animator/director Louis Hudson (Dice Productions) alongside writer/producer, Ian Ravenscroft (Dice Productions, BBC Three).

As cited on the Flatpack website, Hudson and Ravenscroft have ‘worked together on a number of short films’; and will be presenting ‘some of their favourite collaborations as well as a bunch of comedy shorts that have influenced them and their work throughout their careers.’

Dots & Loops #5 will be held at The Rose Villa Tavern on Tuesday 19th December – as presented by Flatpack: Assemble. For direct event info, click here.

For more from Flatpack, including full event listings and project information, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

For more on The Rose Villa Tavern, visit www.therosevillatavern.co.uk