ANIMATION
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Caption
The making of animated short Intergalactic Ice Cream When Triggerfish Animation launched the Story Lab writing contest in July 2015, Andrew Phillips put pen to paper and rose to the challenge.
22 | SCREENAFRICA | APRIL 2020
“T
wo weeks later, I found myself hunched over a keyboard at 02h00 in the dead of winter, working on my third story submission – about a Depression-era New York flea, who wants to be famous. I was cold, sleep-deprived, and slightly disturbed by newly-acquired and totally excessive knowledge of fleas. But I was deliriously happy. I’d never written for animation before that, and I haven’t stopped since,” shares the animation writer and creator from Punch Monkey Studios. While the Depression-era New York flea didn’t win the judges over, for Phillips it was the start of his love affair with animation, which eventually led him and his equally creative buddy, Howard Fyvie, to open their very own Cape Town-based animation studio.
Speaking about the partnership, Phillips says: “Whenever we got together, we’d come up with ridiculous characters and story ideas that made us laugh, so we created a legal entity to turn that childlike joy into cold hard cash.” Since then, the pair has participated and excelled in several prestigious animation competitions including winning the Turner animation pitching competition at DISCOP 2016; getting their concept optioned by Turner APAC at Annecy 2017; and, more recently, seeing the Intergalactic Ice Cream pilot screen on Cartoon Network as part of Cartoon Network’s Creative Lab. Two months before the deadline for Cartoon Network’s Creative Lab 2018, Phillips entered his creative space-inspired short, Intergalactic Ice Cream. “It started with the title. I was throwing a bunch of ideas around, and one of the things I wrote
down was ‘Intergalactic Ice Cream’. Something about that phrase just kind of hooked me,” shares Phillips. “I used it to develop what’s become a really personal project based on my experiences growing up as a perpetual new kid, an upbeat outsider, desperate to fit in. And then I wrapped that gooey emotional centre in some fun stupid things I love. Space adventures? Yes, please! Weaponised ice cream? Hell yeah! A talking chicken leg?!” Intergalactic Ice Cream is a three-minute animation short that follows Makhaya, a 13-year-old former cool kid whose after-school job is delivering ice cream across the galaxy with a gang of misfits – Sally, Milton and Chicken Leg. Their delivery job launches them into the craziest, danger-filled and dairy-fueled adventures this side of the Milky Way!
