23/02/12 - 01/03/12

A date for the diary’s! 23rd February – 1st March 2012 will be an exhibition, that I am absolutely chuffed to bits to be a part of.

Uber talents; Camilla Allen, Joseph Blakey, Alex Dimond, Martin Jones, Peter Locke, Henry St Leger & Louisa Woodworth team up at last to show the world how to draw flipping cool shit.

At Bristol’s Centrespace Gallery.

Good news! Bristol’s Encounters International Film Festival will be screening “When The Dust Settles”, a short film I made in conjunction with the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons and IKV Pax Christi. The film will be screened as part of the Ani 1: “Animated Worlds” programme, and what’s best is you get two chances to go see it! Crikey. It’ll be shown on Wednesday 16th November at 10am and again on Friday 18th November at 8pm. Both will be in the Arnolfini Auditorium. It’d be lovely to see some friendly faces in the audience and Encounters is generally a really cool festival with a good selection of interesting films, so even if mine bores you to tears, there’s bound to be something else you’ll like!

Tickets can be purchased here and here for the morning Wednesday, and evening Friday showings respectively. The Wednesday screening is £5 and the Friday is £7.

So… I know this is probably news to nobody, but I’ve recently being lucky enough to be working at Aardman. It’s the sort of place you have to pinch yourself to remind you where you are sometimes. Being such huge and busy place, I got to work on loads of different things I never would have had the chance to work on normally. The commercials department is where I’ve been spending most of my time, and since I’ve completely neglected my blog whilst I’ve been there, I’ve decided to just post links to all the things I’ve worked on. Just for posterity. I tend to forget things, you see…

So in absolutely no order whatsoever…

Dir: Sumo Science
Client: Nokia

Dir: Steve Harding-Hill
Client: Swedbank

Dir: Sumo Science
Client: Hot Pockets

Dir: Tim Ruffle
Client: Taiwan Tourist Bureau

Dir: Danny Capozzi
Client: Eircom

Dir: Chopsy
Client: National Consumer Agency

Dir: Bobby Proctor
Client: Digital UK

 
I recently had the pleasure of helping to composite Sumo Science’s latest and greatest spot for Nokia’s funky new camerafono whatchamathingymabob: the N8.

Apparently it’s the world’s largest ever animation. As in, the area captured in one shot. They used a cherry picker with three Nokia’s mounted on it. It looked pretty high up. Couldn’t tell you exactly how high…… I reckon… oooh, at least 5ft. At least.

Anyways, you can watch the making of here: http://vimeo.com/27019750 . It probably illustrates the scale of it all a bit better. I found it quite strange that whilst watching the finished film, you sort of lose perspective on what you’re actually watching. It’s hard to fathom that it’s actually a full size man lying on his side whilst everything is being animated around him. Kinda weird. But ultimately an amazing achievement by everyone who worked on it. Except me. Of course.

We composited it in Nuke, with the main challenges being stabilising the shots, removing unwanted details such as guide ropes and in some instances people, creating clean plates and generally just making everything look nice!

…is a film I made in collaboration with the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, and IKV Pax Christi. An old friend; Dave Cullen, approached me over a year ago now, to ask if I wanted to help make a short animated film that clearly explained the dangers of depleted uranium and the potential health consequences for the people who have to live, and work with weapons that utilise this material. After doing some research into the subject, I immediately jumped at the chance to help out.

It was quite the undertaking. Over six months of working on it in my spare time, but I’m pleased that it came out the way it did in the end. Dave did a great job co-ordinating what his people wanted to get out of the film and my fears of producing a monster that would never be completed were thankfully never realised. It was hugely satisfying to be able to count on friends to help me out when I needed it.

Massive thants to Mark Good, Henry St Leger and Pete King for all their help on this!

Here’s something I helped out on a few months ago. It features a young journalist (Alice Calder) presenting a makeshift powerpoint presentation to help explain 4Talent and what they do. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but I think all the more charming because of it. Directed by my lovely old tutor Mark Hewis, the animation was provided by uber talents Henry St Leger and Tom Mailns. It was produced by Calling The Shots.

Director: Mark Hewis
Animation & Artwork: Henry St Leger, Tom Malins
Compositor: Me!
Producer: Jeremy Routledge

I helped out on these charming little aliens for Aardman just before Christmas. Actually, I just did the pack shot, and never got to set eyes on the cute little blighters until it was all over! The shot was more of a slog than I had anticipated. It’s all gone in a flash in the final thing. Oh animation…. a cruel, ironic mistress.

Director: Rich Webber

Not really! Apologies for the sensationalist headline. It’s the only way to get anyone’s attention these days…. It’s actually a small viral I helped out on for the 2010 Encounters Film Festival that’s held in glorious Bristol every year. Slightly old news, I know, but it’s still NEWS dammit! Geez…

Director: Chopsy

Time for an update I think! I recently spent an extremely enjoyable few months working at Aardman Animations, working on loads of different commercials for clients that included: Npower, Digital UK, National Accident Helpline and the National Consumer Agency. But I was mainly helping out on the new Wallace and Gromit tv series for the BBC: “World of Invention”. I was VFX compositor and you can see it now on the BBC iPlayer! It was a fantastic experience to work on something much loved and respected by lots of people. People even seem to know what I’m talking about if I’m asked what I’m upto! Makes a nice change. I’ll post up some links to some images and videos when I can.

I recently managed to successfully clock another year of my life, which reminded me that I still hadn’t got a card for my lovely lady’s birthday. Despite it being a couple of months ago, there was absolutely no way she was going to let me forget. So here it is.