The director has just completed a semi autobiographical narrative which at it’s core is a comment on celebrity obsession and the nature of disappointment, called 'Dear David'. Created with the intention of telling a story close to the directors heart by inviting the audience to witness first hand

embarrassing and self deprecating actions.

 

The cast for the film is a husband/wife team with Adrian Melton voicing David

Attenborough and the Director and Animator, Annie Murray, voicing the

Delusional Girl, herself.

 

The Director has produced animated work for local Melbourne band ‘The

DubCaptains’, Melbourne’s self proclaimed premiere pseudo dub reggae band.

Likewise, Annie Murray has created a unique style of ‘hyper’ cartoon portraiture

for garage surf growlers, The Reprobettes as well as country music band Raised

by Eagles and solo artists, Taylor Moss, Sian Evans and Ruby Boots.

 

Alongside music videos, the artist’s work has been showcased in the Ian Potter

Gallery (2015), Gertrude Street Projection Festival (2015), Bendigo Childrens

Festival of Hidden Creatures (Directed and Produced by Paul Fletcher, 2015) and

in Melbourne’s Annual White Night festival (2016) (‘Urban Creatures’, produced

and curated by Annie Murray, Glynn Urquhart and Milo Gluth)

 

As a side project, earlier in 2016, Annie Murray was commissioned to direct,

produce and animate a 4 minute ‘shadow animation’ as a homage to love,

romance and local Melbourne park like for up and coming bespoke jewellery

store, Filigree and Shadow in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The project used an

amalgamation of live action, real life actors, green screens, animal actors and

animation to create a unique piece for projection into the store front window.

The animation is now running live and is best viewed as the sun is setting.

 

As well as commission work the director has traveled to Japan as part of her

studies at the VCA to attend to the 2016 Hiroshima animation festival and was

honoured to be able to screen her work ‘My Companion, Altschmertz’ (2016) to

festival associates and attend symposiums by industry leaders from esteemed

organisations such as Pixar and Cartoon Network.

 

With a number of short films under her belt, Annie Murray was recently awarded

a Laurel as an official selection recipient for the 2016 New York Film Week for

her short, under camera, stop motion piece ‘You are At First Frightening’, a look

at death through an absurd and abstract lens, which was followed by the debut

of ‘My companion, Altschmertz’ at the 2016 Melbourne International Film

Festival, which also, along with ‘Dear David’,

reached semi finalist status in the Hollywood Screenings film Festival in Los

Angeles.

 

A short animated documentary’esque horror entitled ‘Nana Needles’

received a Laurel of participation for the ‘Horrifying Cinema Festival’

in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA in late 2016.

 

After being invited to speak at MIAF 2016 in the inaugural session of

the ‘Learning to Earning’ forum, the Director intends to follow up

this year with more original work in 2017. Including a project

entitled ‘Voices’ which will require face to face recorded interviews

with indigenous Australians to create a documentary style animation

focusing on issues important to this community. In the hopes of sparking debate

and unifying people to work towards a more cohesive Australia, the project has

gained some interest from director of the Melbourne International Animation

Festival, Malcolm Turner and Dean and Elder of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous

arts and culture at VCA, Richard Franklin. The project is in its research stage and

will shortly be inviting people of indigenous heritage to tell their stories. If

interested, please contact the director using the above details.

 

For the director, in conjunction with developing the project for ‘Voices’, this year

will be spent completing her final year at VCA in BFA Animation as well as

programming and running a re integration class for at risk young adults at an

inner Melbourne city school. The programme aims to engage with young adults

at risk of drug abuse and students effected by mental health issues to provide a

learning opportunity which will encourage them to peer lead and stretch their

creative muscles.