Above: a film still of main characters, Renella and Medina, from the upcoming film DEMO DAY. Can you see the hidden ghost?
In the midst of these challenging times, The Great Tit is a Bird (TGTIAB) production team has been putting the final touches on our latest film, “Demo Day,” and ramping up for the next film, “The Prototype.” This spring, new production team members Shelby Lee, Giulio Gnash, and Bryné Hadnott joined Ar, Latasha, La’Tonia, Kate and Darren to contribute to both animation and sound development.
Above: A screenshot of our final summer meeting.
Two interns from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—Kamilla Ismailova and Xinyi Liu—and NYC-area students through the Summer Youth Employment Program—Amelie Pollack, Lakshmi Segura, Renee Pao, Leilani Dore, and Sierra James —joined the animation crew for the summer. They worked on everything from creating animated textures and designing realistic lighting to developing code and mixing audio tracks. Thanks so much to the amazing spring crew and summer interns for their incredible work!
Above: recent presenters included La’Tonia, Joseph, Jordi, Ar, Alex, Kate, A.D, and Mercy. Shout-out to the animation students at Inua Kike, as well as Darren, who prepared much of the sound for the MIT event!
TGTIAB was featured at talks hosted by the Brooklyn Public Library, MIT Media Lab, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, and the Inua Kike Resource Center in Nairobi, Kenya.
And now that it’s fall, performers La’Tonia, Eric, Kate, Chris, A.D, Alex, and Mercy are contributing their vocal talents to “The Prototype,” a 1990s supervillain origin story that will move into production early next year. 😈
Happy Holidaze! 🎉🎊🎁
Check out the TGTIAB shop at Redbubble to get unique, holiday gifts with custom prints inspired by DEMO DAY. Buy a two dollar sticker for a fun way to accessorize or go all out with a framed art print!
Community News
Former intern, Amelie, is seeking new internship opportunities for next summer.
Hello, my name is Amelie Pollack and I’m a music tech student at Northeastern University. I worked this past summer on audio and music for TGTIAB! I also have experience with animation in Blender and Maya. If you are looking for anyone to help out with any audio editing and mixing, music composition, video editing, and/or 3D please reach out! I’d love to work on your projects. My email is: amelie.s.pollack@gmail.com. Examples of audio, video, and 3D work are on my website crabgraph.com!”
Interview with francheska
francheska (they/them/theirs) is a performing artist and a sexual health rights advocate for the SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender identity and Expression) community in Nairobi, Kenya. They work on community based engagement with young folks in the informal settlements of Nairobi. francheska is featured on the audio drama of ‘The Great Tit is a Bird’ as Dr. Mwanamye and Medina. They were also a cultural sensitivity consultant for the film DEMO DAY.
‘’As a sexual human rights activist in Nairobi, Kenya, I work towards creating safe spaces for my community to access sexual health services in a dignified and more respectful manner. The existence of section 162-165 of the penal code has subjected LGBTQ+ people in Kenya to violence and ostracization by their families. So the power of art has helped us to have a sense of belonging by owning and establishing our own spaces where we can have our own healthcare providers who have been trained to offer all those services. Now as a performing artist, I have been part of this success story to make these spaces more comfortable for my community. Drag art is usually performed by artists of different genders. It’s a collective of queer performance in Nairobi where we try to redefine what queer art should look and feel like. Drag art is mostly in the international arena and bringing it home to infuse it with our Kenyan culture is something that I am so passionate to continue doing. For example, the first day of June is the start of Madaraka day here in Kenya, so I performed training to be the great freedom fighter named Wangû wa Makeri. The preparations towards the performance included visiting the Nairobi National Museum with the late curator Kawira Mwirichia, famous for the “To Revolutionary Type Love” project. Along with other performers, we researched who Wangû wa Makeri was and what she embodied as a womxn who broke gender stereotype barriers. My gender nonconformity and expansiveness aligned with her experience. Our story is a queer re-imagining of our country’s freedom and how fighting against gender stereotypes was so important for wa Makeri’s character. So the struggle for independence in Kenya is something that we queered by telling stories of other freedom fighters, like Mekatilili Wa Menza. So basically, this is my work as an advocate for sexual human rights in Kenya.’’
Thanks for reading and supporting TGTIAB!