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Congratulations to Joe Blandamer, aged 19 from Axminster, Devon, whose brilliant stop-motion film Overload has won Best Animation (Sponsored by Disney) at the Into Film Awards 2020.
Joe's film depicts what it feels like to have autism and ride on a busy train; a brilliant stop-motion animation that explores how an everyday situation can begin to feel a bit too much.
Joe made his film about autism because he is diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and wanted to make a personal film that really shows how it feels to be on the spectrum. The film took about a year of work (with some 11-hour days!), which was a result of Joe's ambitious decision to animate multiple characters at a time, to make the film busier and more intense. Having to move several characters and take multiple pictures meant a couple seconds of animating took several hours to complete.
My main aim when making the film was to raise awareness for people on the spectrum and share my own story of having Asperger's.
Joe Blandamer, Into Film Award winning filmmaker
Joe has been animating for over 12 years and has always had a love of creativity. As a child, he was constantly drawing and making comics, and when he received an old computer from his aunt at the age of 7, he taught himself how to animate.
Shortly after that he received a webcam and some Plasticine and his love of stop-motion animation flowed from there. Joe sent his animations to a local Exeter film festival, and won first prize, and then began sending his films to as many film festivals as possible.
Some of Joe's biggest achievements include getting over 2 million views on YouTube with his horror animation Inside the Human Lab, winning Best International Film by a Young Person under 18 at the Mice International Film Festival (Valencia, Spain), winning Best Young Filmmaker and Best Independent Film across all age categories at Leeds Young Film Festival and winning Best Teenage Film at St Neots Film Festival. Joe has also had his films shown in film festivals in Australia, Tunisia, Croatia, Italy and Spain.
Indeed, two of Joe's previous films have been nominated for Into Film Awards - Snap in 2017, and Twang! in 2019 - and he was a previous recipient of our Ones to Watch award back in 2016. We're thrilled to have been able to support Joe and witness the progress he's made, and if Overload is anything to go by, his filmmaking is only going from strength to strength.
The Into Film Awards ceremony was due to take place in March 2020, with David Walliams as host, but was sadly unable to go ahead as planned due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Walliams was still on hand to host our virtual ceremony, and you can see the moment he announced Overload as winner in the clip below.
