Late Night Work Club is Dave Prosser, Charles Huettner, Sean Buckelew, Jake Armstrong & Erin Kilkenny, Caleb Wood, Louise Bagnall, Alex Grigg, Conor Finnegan, Ciaran Duffy, Eamonn O’Neill, and Scott Benson.
Evoking the ghost of art-for-art’s-sake collaborative film-making project PSST! Pass It On, Late Night Work Club brings together many of the most talented indie animators working today and creates a platform their stories. All work was done DIY, between jobs and classes, with no funding, between September ’12 and August ’13.
Weighing in at thirty-eight minutes, LNWC’s first animation anthology, Ghost Stories is now available online and free of charge.
Each of the eleven shorts in the collection are striking, with heavy lifting on both the storytelling and visual fronts by all of the animators. My two favorites are The Jump by Charles Huettner and Phantom Limb by Alex Grigg. Huettner’s film takes a simple idea and executes it beautifully, giving us small windows into varied lives. Grigg’s film exemplifies how animation can convey a story more effectively than other visual mediums – the character’s psychological state and eponymous phantom limb visually distorting the world around it.
Additional props to David Kamp, who created the aural environments to many a ghost story.
Rather than following a Kickstarter model, LNWC created their films first and will offer HD download packs with digital goodies and limited edition Uncanny Mystery Packs as a way to give back to the filmmakers. Follow LNWC’s tumblr and twitter for upcoming film screenings and more info. Those of you in/near London – there’s a screening on Sept. 3 (tonight!)
Update: Nice interviews with LNWC fearless leader Scott Benson over at Cartoon Brew and The Creators Project!