Hasta La Ideas

12foot6, the creators of such animated gems as Dog Judo, are soon to unleash their latest project, a series of animated short films, each about personal injury…

The project began when 12foot6 recorded a series of interviews with locals in the The Clock House pub on Clerkenwell’s Leather Lane in London. Personal injuries including shootings, impalings, attacks by midgets and even someone ironing their own leg were regaled – and it is these stories that form the basis of eight new shorts.

12foot6 invited some of the UK’s top animators such as Darren Walsh and Lucy Izzard to get involved and create a film using one of the interviews. The full list of directors and film titles looks thus:

Sorry To Hear You Got Shot In A Drive-By – by Lucy Izzard
Sorry To Hear Skateboarders Got Down Your Strides – by Darren Walsh
Sorry To Hear You Snapped Your Banjo String – by Matt Oxborrow (12foot6)
Sorry To Hear About Your Ingrowing Anal Hair – by Bunch
Sorry To Hear You Impaled Yourself On The Roof Of Edinburgh Art College – by Phoebe Boswell
Sorry To Hear You Got KO’d By Tarrant – by Bill Elliott
Sorry To Hear You Got Attacked By Midgets – by Andrew Kelleher (12foot6)
Sorry To Hear You Cracked Open Your Chicken Head – by Kim Alexander (12foot6)

To launch the project, 12foot6 is putting on a screening night with a difference: the eight films have been mixed together to form a standalone 25 minute show by Addictive TV – specialists in mixing film clips in much the same way a DJ mixes music. Here’s a trailer so you can get the idea:

The show will premier at Animated Encounters in Bristol on Friday November 19, and a free screening event will take place at hip East London venue XOYO on December 2 – at which Addictive TV will also perform a live VJ set . Register for a ticket at 12foot6.com/getwellsoon – and there’s an option to submit your own story of personal injury – you might just be invited to be interviewed for a future animation as the project grows going forward…

“Yes, this is just the beginning,” says Dave Anderson of 12foot6. “People can submit their injury stories to us and Nurse Lucy Izzard will be doing more interviews in December. Once they’re done, more animators will make new films that Addictive TV will mix into the show. The plan is then to take the show to festivals in UK and to New York, Sydney and Zagreb in 2011.”