Lock Down!

“You’ve made a choice to take, rather than tackle, your time”

March began with a packed Nude Triumphant Life Drawing and ended in lock down. It was a month of surprise, fear and a deep appreciation for those whose creativity and support gets us through the most difficult of circumstances.

We launched into March with Crystal Palace Artists’ Open House, two weekends of open studios, culminating with Nude Triumphant Life Drawing on Sunday 8th. We inaugurated the new cinema space in Cooper’s Yard with Roy posing as Jay, whose story drives the Nude Triumphant animation. We’re grateful to all the artists who captured his poses in drawings which will feature in the film.

After this packed and lively evening, events unfolded rapidly as the UK realised the Covid-19 pandemic was inevitable. We scrambled to rearrange our Nude Triumphant public programme, including the Starkers Academy Ball (Brighton Fringe, May), a season of events for Pride in London (June), and an exhibition at West Norwood Library and Picturehouse (May-July). Fortunately, it looks like we can secure new dates for all these events in the autumn.

Amid this uncertainty, we were able to fit in one-on-one painting sessions for Leo with Matthew and then Valentina. This completed the paintings for their characters Mat and Vee and gave us the chance to record some extra voice over material - just in time before lock down. There is now only one live painting session left, which will be arranged with Maya by video link.

Staying connected with our community of freelance creatives has been of great importance to us. Many have had their livelihoods wipes out over night, not least the life models who are the inspiration behind so much of our work. To recognise this, we launched #GetYaNudesOut, a social media campaign selling artworks to celebrate and support models. The campaign is live now, so search #getyanudesout on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to buy some fabulous artworks.

The rest of the month was spent driving the animation forward. Luckily for us, we’ve reached a stage in the production where the animators (Leo, Ko and Patrick) can work remotely, processing the paintings and animating them digitally. Andrew Hayes has also been developing the music ready to bring in sound designer Andy Humphreys to complete the soundtrack. It’s taking some patience - but animation always does - and we’re grateful we’re able to continue our work amidst the chaos when we know that so many others won’t be able to.

If you’ve been following this blog closely, you’ll know we’ve been working on the film for some time now, and we’re sure everyone who’s worked on anything for long enough knows it can be easy to lose sight of the wood for the trees. To make sure we’re still making sense, we shared our work in progress at a special event with London Animation Club on Monday 30 March. Rather than cancel the scheduled event in the Green Man pub, we were delighted when organiser Martin Pickles and technical director Tom Lowe organised a live stream event through LAC TV. Producer Abigail Addison, writer Roy Joseph Butler and director Leo Crane were joined by an audience of 64 artists, animators, students and enthusiasts, whose 109 comments gave welcome constructive feedback.

Check back in next month for more news and updates. Until then, stay safe and #keepcreating.