Drawn & Written by Edwina Ashton
Animator David Jacobs
Narrator Ole Hagen
Animation Assistant Sarah Rose Allen
Sound Designer Kit Poulson
Extra sound Mirabel Poulson

With thanks to:
Alex Baker, Hugh Rycroft, Liz Murray, Ren Pesci, Clara Ursitti and Merrie Ashton.

The film follows the daily habits of a removed, particular gentleman elephant living in a lakeside hotel. A boiled egg, leads Mr Panz to meditate on his childhood tutor, continental travels and his love for nature. As he sets off into alpine meadows the narrative fades to ambient sound. Panz carries a butterfly net, but it is uncertain whether the hunt is successful. He returns to the hotel, his thoughts opaque. At dinner a beetle scuttles unmolested across his tablecloth.

Panz’s regular habits and arcane interests present a character who despite being an elephant has a slight and diffident relationship with the world. The film explores the borders of stasis and faltering action, the narrative voice and the noise of the world, and how Mr Panz’s precise systems of understanding are distorted by flows of remembered experience.

Edwina Ashton’s drawings and videos create oblique narratives. They explore idiosyncrasy, often through the use of creatures given human attributes. She sets a tone in which life is negotiated not on an epic scale but through accumulated minor actions; petulant commands ignored, meditations which slide into sleep, domestic tasks which become the focus of life rather than enabling it.

The characters, props, plants and animals were drawn on paper using biro, coloured pencil and marker pen, scanned, adjusted in Photoshop and then placed in scenes made of composite wallpaper and drawings.
They were animated using Maya and After Effects.
The sound was montaged from domestic field recordings.

Sarah Rose Allen - Animation assistant: Sarah Rose Allen is a sculptor and filmmaker. She graduated from City and Guilds Art School in 2009.

Ole Hagen – Narrator: Ole Hagen, a Norwegian polymath and artist filmmaker, studied at Goldsmiths and teaches at Birmingham.

David Jacobs - Animator: David Jacobs graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2009 and is currently studying at the National Film and Television School.

Kit Poulson – Sound Designer: Kit Poulson is an artist and writer who often works with sound.

Mirabel Poulson – Extra sound: Mirabel Poulson is a grunting baby. She provided sound effects for a variety of Mr Panz’s activities.

Alex Baker – Post production: Alex Baker is an artist working with video, sound and drawings.