The 20 best films and TV shows of 2023
The 20 best films and TV shows of 2023
THE NEW STATESMAN - Our choice of the year’s essential screen entertainment.
Something New..
An insight into Muggsborough… exciting new project with Griff and Archie Lachlan / Domestic Science coming soon…
#roberttressell
EVENING STANDARD COVER
Evgeny Lebedev’s Brave New World Podcast
Lovely to have my collage on the cover of 300,000 copies of The Evening Standard in my home town London tonight. Celebrating the launch of Evgeny Lebedev’s Brave New World Podcast.
Abercrombie & Fitch Pitch
This documentary didn’t go our way in the end but it was fun creating a series of style frames up against a short deadline. Nothing goes to waste in a collage factory though - it’ll come in handy if you never use it..
Saved by Infinite Jest
One of the most diffcult, disturbing but gripping subject matters to wrestle with as an illustrator is suicide. The artwork has to speak for itself whilst remaining almost annonymous. This is my reponse to the peice for Aeon. Massive respect to Andy Sansom for the commission and sterling Art Direction, an absolute pleasure to work with you.
“ In the surreal aftermath of my suicide attempt and amid the haze of my own processing, my best friend visited me in the hospital with a (soft-bound and thus mental-patient-safe) copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest under his arm. It was the spring of 2021. A couple months earlier, I had slipped in a tub, suffered a concussion, and triggered my first episode of major depression, and those had been the most difficult months of my life. “
Mala Chatterjee writes for Aeon / Psyche
is a philosopher, writer, legal scholar and associate professor at Columbia Law School in New York. She is also co-director of the Columbia law and philosophy programme and on the board of trustees of the Journal of Philosophy.
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In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Or text HOME to 741741 to reach Crisis Text Line.
In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14
Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
WINTER OPEN STUDIO 2023
In the coming weeks we’re opening the studio gallery and devling into the artwork vaults for our annual winter open studio.
Jackie Parsons and I will be selling original collages, Giclee prints, silkscreens and festive Cut it Out collectibles along with the odd pile of books and records…
There will also be the return of the infamous ‘What’s Wrong With Christmas’ WordSearch - Limited Edition Homegrown CutitOut Chilli Sauce - Hot Christmastide Wassail & ‘DJ Hertzbarn’ playing Audio Collage Classics.
So even if you’re not shopping come and say hello, attempt to finish the wordsearch and have a glass of something warm.
OPENING
• SAT & SUN 9th & 10th DEC 12-6pm
• THURS 14th 5-9pm
• SAT & SUN 16th & 17th DEC 12-6pm
Cut it Out Studio 9 Marine Court St Leonards on Sea East Sussex TN38 0DX
ps. There are lots of local Seasonal Arts & Music events and openings happening these 2 weekends in St Leonards & Hastings so it’s definatley worth the visit from out of town..
ZANE LOWE for BRITISH AIRWAYS
Handel Hendrix House - Mayfair London
What an honour to be invited to create work for such a magical, historical and inovative space - Handel Hendrix House in the heart of London’s Mayfair.
The story is amazing in itelf.. separated by a wall & 200 years - the homes of two musicians who chose London and changed music forever.
Working with Steers McGillan Eves I created three brand illustrations for the museum after months of reasearch and image sourcing, working directly with museum archivists and also the amazing photographs of Jimmi Hendrix taken by Barrie Wentzell. If you’re in London you’ve got to make it one if your destinations.. Handel Hendrix House
More to come soon…
Gastro Obscura - A Food Adventurer's Guide
Wraparound cover collage for WorkMan Publishing in New York.
This is so much more than a book, it’s a ongoing culinary adventure, a series of deep dives into the worlds most interesting and unusual food related phenomena, a movement. Check out their Instagram with 250K followers and a segment on CBS mornings.
“ Wonder is around every corner, and on every plate. The curious minds behind Atlas Obscura now turn to the hidden curiosities of food, which becomes a gateway to fascinating stories about human history, science, art, and tradition—like the first book, all organized by country, lavishly illustrated, and full of surprises. “
Gary Barlow Organic Wines for British Airways
The World is Yours
The World is Yours / SketchBook
DEAD STILLS
Concepts, images, tests, moments, ideas, collage sketches.. Sometimes you can create scores of images reacting to a brief, with it just not landing in the right place for the client.. Here are a selection from such a project Griff and I were aksed to work on..
Vacances '23
Pages from this summers French vacation sketchbook. Created in the evenings whilst camping in the Pays de la Loire reagion. Made with things found in ‘Vide Greniers’ and Brocantes.
EMMY PAUSE
We know our two man animation outfit ( CutitoutXGriff ) has a somewhat slim chance of pipping the likes of The Mandalorian to the post for an Emmy in Outstanding Motion Design - but we’re so stoked to be put forward nontheless..
Team Judy have already been nominated for ‘Exceptional Merit in Documentary FilmMaking’! But we’ll now all have to wait until Jan 15. 2024 as they’ve been pushed into next year. Just 5 more months with fingers crossed!
Guardian Today
Go for the Burn
The truth about inflammation: all you need to know about 2023’s hottest health topic, from causes to cures..
Inflammation is the scourge of modern life, judging by all the supplements, workouts and diets that promise to fight it. But what precisely gets inflamed, and why – and is it always a bad thing?
INTERNATIONAL MOTION AWARD (S)
I love the American Illustration Annual. Since before Art College it was the go to book (before the internet.!) to check the highest quality work. I’ve had a few peices of illustration selected over the years but it’s been equally as cool recently to enter some motion work into the now 11th edition of their International Motion Art Awards. Griff and I entered showreels from MIND TRIP (Hulu) & FREDRICK DOUGLASS: in Five Speeches (HBO). Amazed to say both were selected. The projects will be included permanently online in The ARCHIVE motion collection and presented salon-style in November at The PARTY in New York City. I’ll pop a link in when it arrives..
MASHABLE REVIEW
How 'Judy Blume Forever' uses animation to illustrate taboo topics
Directors Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok break down the cool animated collages in their new doc.
Watching Judy Blume read excerpts from her own novels aloud is one of the standout pleasures in the documentary Judy Blume Forever. And while it's delightful to hear the beloved author's interpretation of key passages from classics like Deenie, Blubber, and more, these scenes are elevated by Andrew Griffin and Martin O'Neill's fanciful animated collages.
Like Blume's work, these animated interludes are funny, playful, and especially honest when it comes to the sensitive matters of menstruation and sex. The animation depicts the former with formations of dancing tampons and pads, while literal birds and bees serve as winks at the latter.
Judy Blume Forever directors Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok knew from the start of making the film that they wanted excerpts from Blume's work to play a large role. However, they wondered how to depict them on screen.
"Judy's writing is such an important part of the film, and establishing her voice is such an important part of the film," Pardo told Mashable in a Zoom interview. "How do we want to visualize these?"
Pardo and Wolchok discovered Griffin and O'Neill's work on Showtime's docu-series Love Fraud. Their animated collages, with their tactile and nostalgic qualities, immediately reminded Pardo and Wolchok of the pitch deck they had made when they were first developing the film.
"So we reached out to [Griffin and O'Neill] and said, 'Would you be interested?' And they said, 'You know, we're not so familiar with Judy Blume's work. We're middle-aged men living in the UK who didn't read her books, but we have daughters and it sounds fascinating. Let's give it a go!'" Pardo explained. "It was a really, really great collaboration."
Griffin and O'Neill's prior collage work already greatly aligned with what Pardo and Wolchok were looking for style-wise, but for Judy Blume Forever, they also drew inspiration from the aesthetics of original Blume book covers. Pardo and Wolchok also sent them images from the film's interviews, which took place against backdrops of vintage wallpaper, to give them a sense of the film's overall look.
As for the process of getting Blume's words animated onscreen, it all began with the incredibly difficult choice of which books to choose. Out of all of Blume's novels, which were most emblematic of Blume's life?
"We wanted the books to tell a coming-of-age story of Judy, of her characters, and of her readers," Wolchok told Mashable in a Zoom interview. "So we wanted a book about childhood, a kid on the cusp, adolescence, adulthood, and beyond."
From there, Pardo and Wolchok sent Griffin and O'Neill a list of the excerpts, as well as their thoughts about what the excerpts were about, how they fit into the movie, and what tones and themes they wanted the animation to evoke. They also provided some ideas about how to visualize Blume's work, which, given its subject matter, could sometimes prove daunting.
"[Griffin and O'Neill] were a little uncomfortable at first that we wanted to see some blood on underwear," Wolchok said. "They were like, 'Can we just make the color blue instead?' We were like, 'No, that's what they use in the commercial for pads in the '80s, when you weren't supposed to know it was blood. It was that creepy blue gel.'" However, Wolchok and Pardo noted that many of the animated sequences we see in the film were Griffin and O'Neill's ideas, as they quickly became acclimated to the source material.
What's so wonderful about the animation in Judy Blume Forever is that it evokes the essence of her work without necessarily giving us a one-to-one recreation of each excerpt. As Blume reads a bullying scene from Blubber, animation takes us not just to the school bathroom where the confrontation takes place, but to the deep ocean where orcas accost a blue whale. In the film's opening sequence, which centers on a sex education class from Deenie, the mention of masturbation sends a cheeky burst of flowers blooming across the screen.
These visual metaphors help enhance our ideas of Blume's work, but importantly, they never try to supersede out own views and memories of her novels. For Pardo and Wolchok, this aspect of the animation was always a crucial part of Judy Blume Forever.
"One of the challenges with animating the work is you don't want to be too specific, because people have a really personal connection to the books," Pardo explained. "Some people have an image of what the characters look like, and we didn't necessarily want to disrupt that image."
She continued: "We want to leave people with their own personal idea. So it was more about capturing the tone and the feel of a character and the voice of the book, rather than illustrating exactly what's happening in the scene. And [Griffin and O'Neill's] style lends itself really well to that."
WIRED ITALIA
SO COSA PENSI
Exquisite deisgn in this months Wired Italia featuring two of my Analogue Illustrations.
JUDY BLUME TRAILER
4 MILLION HITS!
Here’s the Trailer for Judy. She’s one powerful lady. Can you spot of few of our bits in there…. more in April….