Shall We Win An Oscar?

In March 2025, I emailed stop-motion animation director Geoff Walker and asked if he wanted to make my short story In The Room into a film. I chose Geoff because he’s won loads of awards for his animation work, but also because he’s from Manchester, and I always assume they’re the best people. Geoff also had this really cool pompadour haircut and I make far more of my decisions than I’d like to admit based off the quality of someone’s hair.

Anyway, long story short, Geoff said yes and now we’re going to win the best short animated film at the 2028 Oscars. The 100th ever ceremony.

Actually, Geoff wasn’t the only one who said yes. The team we’ve put together for this is one of my favourite ever groups of humans. We’ve got my long time work partner and personal hero Yolander Yeo doing visual identity (that’s her work above, with Gripper’s illos), superstar illustrators Karen Donnelly (yes, her of Number Nine Downing Street fame) and Paul “Gripper” Flannery. Plus, my amazing helper Blythe Caro doing social media and marketing activity.

I’m lucky enough to have been involved in a number of projects in my life and sometimes you get to be part of a team that just clicks into place and this is very much one of those. The word I used to explain it, is that things have coalesced. All of this wonderful talent and energy seems to have just congealed into one powerful blob with incredible hair, whose sole purpose is to conjure my weird little story into being and to magic it all the way to the very top.

When you’re lucky enough to witness these moments of coalescence, you note that the universe just seems to nod and fall into line. In The Room is definitely seeing this. Mackinnon and Saunders, that Northern powerhouse of puppetry excellence have been great supporters. Gel Walker who did the costumes for Fantastic Mr Fox signed up to help us. Of course she did. Buoyed by this universal nodding, we reached out to one of my all-time favourite film composers and music producers, Marius de Vries, and asked him to work with us, his reply: “This story is wild…let’s chat.” I’d tell you who we’re talking to as the voice actor for the film, but I honestly think you’d assume I was extremely drunk.

At the beginning, when me and Geoff were discussing the film, I started to ask about what we’d do with it - I’ve never made a stop-motion animation before. Do you sell it? Stick it on Youtube? Show your mum?

“Well, I guess, ultimately, you’d aim for an Oscar,” Geoff said, whilst daubing Brylcreem onto his perfect quiff.

“Ok then, let’s do that,” I said, rubbing suncream into my bald pate.

And what started as a sort of vague, ridiculous notion has now coalesced into our stated goal. We’re going to win an Oscar for the best short animated film in 2028. We’ll follow in the footsteps of other mighty Brits like Charlie Mackey, whose beautiful film The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse, triumphed in 2023. Or Nick Park, director of the peerless Wallace and Gromit films.

Ultimately, to undertake any incredible journey you have to have a grand purpose. A reason why. Frodo needed to drop a ring off at Mount Doom. Odysseus had to get home to make sure someone was feeding his dog. I want Ted to go on this journey because I think he has a lot to teach the world. Ted is very human. He’s flawed, annoying, loveable, autistic, poor, rich, funny and caring. He’s someone who life gives insurmountable problems to and although he feels like giving in, he doesn’t. He carries on hoping. And because he hopes, he somehow arrives at…well, read the story. In these dark times, I think we all need to be more Ted. We need to keep hoping and we need to celebrate the characters who show us how to hope.

Winning an Oscar is a ridiculous thing to aim for. Batshit crazy. B.A.N.A.N.A.S. Thought through logically, there isn’t a hope in Hell. It doesn’t matter how amazing one of the team’s hair is, it’s just not something that’s done by indie authors and independent productions. And if they’re from the North? Haha! Think of all the problems! The money you need! The time it takes! The talent you’d lack! You wouldn’t have a hope.

And that’s where you come in.

If you’re a subscriber to this blog, if you’ve ever read any of my writing and happen across this post - I’d love it if you would hope with me. At times during this process, we’ll probably even need you to hope for us. There’s all manner of practical things we’ll need you to do to help too - social media following, helping us find people who could fund the film, giving opinions on puppet designs. But to start with, we’d love it if you could join with us by adding your little ray of hope to ours.

So, what do you say, shall we win the Oscar?