The hard to read thing on the right is a Mackinnon and Saunders Animation Award and the harder to read thing on the left is a Grand Jury Award, both from the Exposures festival in Manchester. If you could read the one on the left you would see that it doesn't have a name on it, which is because I was a joint winner with Stuck On The Edge by Jennifer Fearnley, and they clearly didn't plan for that. She kindly allowed me to keep the award which normally I would feel bad about, but she had already won two other awards and only has two hands.
Whilst there, I met Peter Saunders who was ridiculously complimentary about Heartstrings and informed me that in all the years they have been judging the award, mine is the first stop motion film that has won. I feel very honoured. Apart from this lovely rectangle of glass my prize is a tour around Mackinnon and Saunders who are currently working on the puppets for the new Tim Burton feature, Frankenweenie. I also now own Peter Saunders' business card which takes pride of place in my wallet, ruling over all the other business cards. Words cannot describe how glad I am that entered this festival.
Manchester had a huge German Christmas market, it just went on and on, and made me wonder who is left to man the markets in Germany. It was still November at the time so I was a Grinch and refused to enter in to the Christmas spirit. A giant, cute, light up Father Christmas almost made it happen but I resisted.
