I’m creating am eBook about Tony Pritchett. It’s a work in progress, which will eventually contain:
> A mix of animation, live-action, text, photographic and printed materials by Tony.
> A mix of animation, live-action, text, photographic and printed materials by myself.
> It will contain elements from Tony’s archive
> And links to further study.
< HOW THE PROJECT BEGAN >
I met Tony Pritchett by chance at an animation screening.
An animator and filmmaker myself, I was keen to keep in touch and it wasn’t long before I asked if he would mind me making a film about his work. He was a very modest man and especially enjoyed talking about others’ stuff so we decided to create a short that documented the beginnings of the British computer animation industry – from his perspective.
He gave me many a guided tour through the world of early CGI (ie. the amazing archive stored in his flat). It soon became apparent that a single-screen short film with a classical narrative was perhaps not the best way to go about things.
We decided to create a mix of experimental film and animation, photographed materials, scanned documents, audio materials, prose, technical notes and links to further study – all organised in such a way as to emulate the experience of exploring an archive.
Sticking everything into a multimedia manual seemed like a good idea for several reasons – one being that there’s loads of manuals in the archive. Even the covers alone document the evolution of computer graphics and associated technology.
Tony passed away in 2017.
I’m continuing to work on the project – which has evolved in order to acknowledge my friend’s absence. In fact – it seems to be turning into something which is very much about his absence.
But it wont be too sad. Tony was expecting it to be funny and strange – which is fine by me.
“I hope I haven’t given you mental indigestion” – Tony Pritchett.