Valmay the Visitor from Beep Beep Beep Bleetlebox 967

Background: Contributing to the field of animation performance production, the development and management of workflows here were adapted from a large-scale production method, scaled to a smaller team and budget. Short-form animated works are often produced by a very small team, or one person, 'wearing many hats'. Thus workflows, methodologies and production management systems are often ad hoc, responding to immediate production demands. Contribution: The production methodology for this work is a scaled down version of an industrial model developed as an animator on commercially produced TV series and applied to independent animation. I was uniquely placed to bring practices from these two quite separate spaces together as my own creative practice spans both production models. Animation virtually ignores gender and sexual identity and when it is addressed it tends to fall into stereotypical representation. Valmay depicts a world not often addressed in grant funded animation, a gay subculture with a particularly Australian identity. It addresses both ideas through the eyes of an outsider, an alien a beauty queen, whose gender on earth is cast into an ambiguous space. Unable to morph, as planned, she does not present as a human female when she crash-lands in the middle of the Sydney Mardi Gras parade. Her introduction to humans gives Valmay a unique world view, with an understanding of human gender identity and sexuality informed by the culture of Mardi Gras. Selection for many GBLT Film Festivals (FF), evidences its distinctive voice around sexual identity. Signficance: Funded by a Screen Australia Animation Production grant. Flickerfest is Australia's only (US)Academy and BAFTA recognised Short FF. Screened at 20 FF inc, Tricky Women (Vienna) London Australian Animation Festival Framelines 35 (San Francisco), Sydney Animation FF, Melb. International Animation FF, Cyber Sousa (China) and Show Me Shorts (NZ).