London Animation Club presents Abductees At 30 + subsequent work from Paul Vester (18)

An event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Abductees, Paul Vester’s documentary following five parallel accounts of alien abduction, using a variety of animation styles and techniques. The film boasts a remarkable array of contributing animators and is rightly regarded as one of the greatest animated documentary shorts ever made. Beautiful, funny, haunting and not a little frightening.

The film is accompanied by a contemporary Channel 4 TV documentary about the film’s production and followed by a selection of Paul’s subsequent work. The screening concludes with a Q&A with Paul and producer Irene Kotlarz.

London-born filmmaker, animator and installation artist Paul Vester studied at the Central School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London and worked as a designer, animator and director for several London production companies before establishing his own studio, Speedy Films, in 1972. French TV commercials and the Arts Council of Great Britain financed his film Sunbeam (1980). British and U.S. TV commercials financed his next film, Picnic (1987). With Abductees, made for Channel 4 (1995) he was an early pioneer of the of animated documentary form. In 1997 he moved to Los Angeles where he worked for Rhythm & Hues and Klasky Csupo before teaching for 17 years in the Experimental Program at CalArts. His next film, In the Woods (2008) was made with a Guggenheim Fellowship. This was followed by two installations, Prototypes For a Clock 1 & 2, looping video installations that mark time passing by counting forwards in cycles of random lengths. He is currently working on a short piece celebrating a composition for player piano by Conlon Nancarrow; this will be screened in the show as a work-in-progress.

Abductees: short film (Paul Vester, UK, 1995)

Secret Passions: C4 documentary (Paul Madden, UK, 1995)  

Snake Attack: MTV sting (Paul Vester, UK, 1989)

Bubblicious, Inkspots: TV Ad (Paul Vester, UK, 1993)

Hershey, Tastetations: TV ad (Paul Vester, US, 1997)

Xerox, The Printer that Thought it was a Copier:  TV ad (Paul Vester, US, 1998)

Geico, Gecko: TV ad (Paul Vester, US, 1998)

Oasis - All Around the World: music promo (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris/Paul Vester, US, 1998)

Drew Carey Green Screen Show: TV clip (Paul Vester, US, 2003)

In the Woods: short film (Paul Vester, US, 2008)

Nancarrow: composition for player piano (Paul Vester, UK, work in progress)

London Animation Club is a monthly event for animators and people interested in animation in the capital, created and curated by Martin Pickles. Club members and regular guests meet and present their work in informal surroundings conducive to talking and sharing ideas. Our guests range from well-known figures, such as Phil Davies, the producer of Peppa Pig, and Peter Firmin, the co-creator of Bagpuss, through to award-winning independent animators like Emma Calder, along with experimental filmmakers and academics, with much in between. In 2024 we started doing special events at the Garden Cinema.