Kathrin Steinbacher and Emily Downe aka Studio Desk met studying at RCA in London, and have now initiated their own (and as far as they know the only) female animation studio in London. With the devastating arrival of corona times the team decided to harness their new studio energy and bring about some positivity. They put a call out to animators from around the world to submit animations up to 15 seconds long depicting something they have experienced, seen, or thought in the midst of this strange time. They received over 140 responses and 90 finished animation submissions. With such a huge unexpected return Studio Desk decided to divide them up into three sections - this is part two.

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Studio Desk << The first film worked really well as a rhythmic upbeat, quirky, percussion/acapella style with the clips. This second film in its tone is a little “weirder”. While the first film takes us through the motivation to keep each other positive, this film shows the comical side to the roller-coaster ride or emotions, the weird things we end up doing and generally going a bit crazy.

A lot of us right now are confined to one space and it could be quite uninteresting and repetitive, but through animation you can be transported anywhere and you can re-imagine the space you are in.  Animation also in itself is expressive and so the (70+) animators telling their stories can tell you not only what lockdown looks like for them, but what it feels like.  They can make their plants talk, or humans turn into dogs, travel to the mountains, or imagine what it would be like to shave their hair off.  The audience gets to see a little of the animator’s internal thoughts and experiences where a camera would just show them sitting in their bedroom. Also not to mention the great thing about animation is you can make a film from indoors, which unfortunately a lot of live action crew are unable to do at the moment. >>

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‍The biggest challenge.
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The challenge was trying to make it work as a whole series of three films. Initially we were planning on making one film and were completely overwhelmed with the amount of submissions - something we never expected.

That's the reason why we decided to make a series of 3 films in total which we will release within a
break of 1-2 weeks in between. Our sound Designers Jan Willem de With and Phil Brookes did a great job tying the clips together though.

The highlight was to connect with other filmmakers from around the world. This is was a wonderful opportunity for us to find new amazing talents, especially now that we have just started our own studio (studio desk animation). It really is a celebration of a wonderful and diverse industry and we want to celebrate collaboration and show that supporting each other in this industry is so important, especially in more difficult times.

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CREDITS

Direction/Concept:
Studio Desk
Kathrin Steinbacher & Emily Downe

Music & Sound Design By
Phil Brookes

Additional Animation/Direction:
(Clips in order)

00:14-00:20
Animation: Olga Makarchuk

00:20-00:27
Animation & Sound: Klaas Verplancke (Art) & Arevik d'Or (Animation)

00:27- 00:30
Animation: Rohit Karandadi

00:30- 00:40
Animation & Sound Kamila Szewczuk

00:40- 00:54
Animation: Sam Lane
Sound: Wolf Woodcock

00.54 - 01:02
Animation: Luke Frangeskou

01:03-01:10
Animation: Sanjana Chandrasekhar

01:10-01:19
Animation: Faustine Berhault

01:19-01:26
Animation & Sound Kamila Szewczuk

01:26-01:35
Animation: Tetiana Kurbatova

01:35-01:46
Animation: Charlotte Cambon
Sound: Flavien Van Haezevelde, Studio BOOM

01:47-02:00
Animation & Sound: Julia Jesionek (vulva)

02:01-02:15
Animation: Capucine Gougelet

02:16-02:24
Animation & Sound: Anna Lena Spring

02:24-02:28
Animation: Katy Daft

02:29-02:43
Animation: Girls in Motion

02:43-02:50
Animation: Martha Halliday

02:50-02:53
Animation: Olive Lagace

02:53-03:05
Animation: Omar Zine Eddine El Idrissi

03:05-03:12
Animation: Chiara Sgatti

03:12-03:24
Animation: Anna Chwal

03:24-03:29
Animation: Emilia Voltti

03:29-03:45
Animation: Hana Tintor

03:45-03:55
Animation: Alara Kara

03:55-04:00
Animation: Daria Zadecka

04:00-04:07
Animation: Emmie Thompson

04:08-04:15
Animation: Sundeep Toor

04:15-04:26
Animation: Matti Vesanen

04:26-04:37
Animation: Zootghost
Sound: Sam Perkin

04:37-04:50
Animation: Kathrin Steinbacher

04:50-05:99
Animation: Zohar Dvir