Walk

Another quick little experiment. I really like how the background turned out in this one! The background was created using felt tip on paper and scanned in (12 frames repeated), the character was filled with 16mm film which I applied ink to and the character was drawn in Callipeg. Hope ya like it!

Kickflip

Now that I've finished 'Bear', I'm back creating fun little rotoscope experiments, while I wait for my next big project (I'm manifesting).

It took me a few days to get back into doing this- like I stated in my last post, I always feel pretty empty once finishing a big project and often takes me a bit of time to reset, before starting something new. I usually need a break, but one side of me just doesn't like me doing that (feels like I always need to be working on something), so often have a state where I'm semi working, but also not and the stuff I produce usually isn't the best and doesn't get published anywhere.

This piece wasn't forced and I came to it quite naturally which felt nice. I found a clip of a skater doing a Kickflip on free stock footage site Pexels. I then just started animating it in a fairly sketchy manner on my iPad using Callipeg, not especially knowing where it might end up. I've had some pieces of paper which I coloured and patterned using felt tips etc hanging around from February, which I started when I had Covid. Then I began animating 'Bear', so had them sat on my desk crying out for use ever since.

Above is one of the frames.

I scanned in one of the boldest and brightest sequences (I made a load of different ones using all sorts of colours, shapes and patterns) and used it as the background. I think I might try and come up with a few animations which I could utilise these patterns as backgrounds. Think it will be a fun little exercise and get me back into the swing of making work again. Yeah, I'm going to do that!

I then felt the skater should contrast with what we have here, so decided to put him in black and white, with very little detail. I think this clip is really eye catching and fun, which is quite a contrast to 'Bear', which is on the whole quite dark and fairly constrained.

Below is the clip:

'Bear' TRAILER!!!

Well this is fun! I've made a trailer for 'Bear' and I'm super excited for you to be able to see a little more of my film.

Up until this point, I've been fairly guarded about what I share, due to not wanting to spoil anything/ give too much away. It's an eleven minute film, so even sharing ten seconds feels like I'm showing too much, but I've purposely kept what we see here quite ambiguous.

I'm also ready to share the synopsis: A high achieving factory worker wears the head of a bear whilst outside the comfort of his home. With the bear head hampering his daily life, coupled with a growing desire to conform, he finds himself torn between his perceived safety and embracing the new.

Here's the trailer:

Enjoy!

'Bear'- COMPLETED!!

As the title would suggest: ‘Bear’ is now complete!

I can’t quite believe it- almost 11 months of work, from my initial scripting stage back in October last year, right through to completion. At some points I didn’t think this would ever happen- when I’m working on such a big thing, I often find it hard to see the end, because the task feels so big. But little by little, I kept working at it and I eventually got here.

I must admit I don’t feel especially happy just yet- maybe it needs some time to sink in. Probably. I currently feel quite empty. Which is often the case when I finish working on fairly long form projects. Perhaps in a few days when I’ve really had time to process what I’ve done, I’ll feel more celebratory about things- or at least I hope so! Or maybe I’m just dissatisfied with my achievements! But, I do feel it is the former as deep down I am extremely proud of what I’ve created.

Despite what I have said above, to create something from start to finish, with no funding and no external factors to make me make it and on this scale (just over 11 minutes runtime), alongside struggling with several (both metal and physical) health problems throughout the duration, is an extremely BIG achievement. And I must remember that. To think what I’ve created here almost on my own is quite something. I have my partner Ben and my friend Alan to thank at this point- they have both given me feedback, motivation and support throughout and I honestly can’t express my gratitude enough. Without them, the film probably wouldn’t be what it is today.

I think that’s all I’ve to say about it at the moment- I’m cutting a trailer together, so watch this space for that soon xo

04111311

It's about time I put this one up online for public consumption, especially as 'Bear' is nearly complete!

My experimental short film '04111311' is a representation through colour reflecting weather and mood, depicted over the course of 365 days.

The score was composed and performed by the fantastic Jason Williams (whom I've worked with on a number of my projects, including 'Bear').

I've been slacking 'releasing' this one, because I started writing a super loooonnnngggg and detailed blog post about it. But it was going into way too much detail, I just never got around to finishing it and I didn't want to publish the film without the blog as I thought the process might be interesting to document. So I just didn't end up posting it! But then I thought I want people to watch it, so I'm just going to publish it regardless.

In short, it's a 365 style project, where I tracked the weather for each day over the course of urm, well, 365 days and marked it with a colour depending on what the weather was like/ how I was feeling (it's all interlinked for me). I then inked the colours on 16mm film using alcohol ink and went through the lengthly process of scanning the strips in at super high res and then cleaning each image in Photoshop to remove any dust (there was a LOT) which gathered when the film was drying. Once pleased with the visuals, I handed it to my composer Jason who did an AMAZING job at scoring it.

Sorry this wasn't the super detailed post it was going to be, but at least you get to see the film now, so swings and roundabouts! Maybe I'll do one at some stage, but I'm not making any promises!!

Here's the film:

Enjoy xo

'Bear' Update 3/9

Apparently my last post was my 200th- wow! I had no idea until I happened to look at my stats this morning, but I guess that’s kind of something to celebrate. I suppose it is a fair landmark to have achieved. And so many words written!! Though I must state that I’m not trying to achieve landmarks with this blog or anything in terms of reading figures or number of posts- if I let those dictate me, I probably would have given up long ago or ended up writing things just to get clicks and/ or just for the sake of it. I think that’s why I don’t often promote my blog too much. It’s not that I don’t want people reading it (I do, and I like it when someone says that they read it), but I feel if I put an announcement with each post, then I feel I wouldn’t use the blog in the same way in which I do now. I use it as a way of tracking my progress, with a bit more detail (and somewhat a little more personal) than my Instagram posts.

I also like not restricting what I write about on here- and how it’s not specifically animation focussed- whereas my Instagram is. I mean it is largely animation focused, as that’s what I do mainly, but you know there’s football/ photography stuff, sewing, other creative ventures and just anything else I deem worthy of a blog post! It also makes me think about my work more in critical manner, which is something I feel essential if I want to keep progressing and learning (which I do). I sometimes look back over my archive and look at what I was doing several years ago and it’s interesting to see the ways I’ve improved, progressed and changed over the years. Also interesting to see what the constants are, too.

Reminiscing and analysis over, how is ‘Bear’ going? Oh yeah, first, I should give an update on my skateboarding injury for all those interested: it’s feeling a LOT better now (thankfully) and I feel almost ready to be able to go again. Though not before I’ve bought a helmet and some pads- injury is not something I’m willing to risk in future, especially as an animator.

OK, now I’m finally ready to speak about ‘Bear’! Like 4 paragraphs in on a post entitled ‘Bear Update’. But anyway, now here’s another landmark (and maybe one even more worthy of celebration): THE ACTUAL ANIMATION IS DONE!!! Done-diddly-un. I can’t believe it, I’ve almost made a film. What a journey. I still have sound design to finish and a few tweaks here and there in terms of tightening the edit etc, but everything that needs animating, has been animated! Wow.

The biggest hurdle this week was most definitely the crowd shot- one I had been dreading to be honest, due to amount of characters and the fact that I still had no reference footage for it. I had a few previous failed attempts at getting it, but this week my partner Ben and I went into the town centre on Wednesday morning and sat with my tripod for about half an hour and got everything I needed. And it came out really, really well. I couldn’t find a good piece of stock footage to use for it, so I knew filming it myself would get exactly the thing I had in mind. As the city where I live isn’t the busiest and there was never going to be a point where loads of people are walking in a big mass (or at least not at 9am which is the time we went), I had to animate each person separately and superimpose them in the TVPaint file. That was a fairly straightforward process, plus it meant I had more control and therefore could get more of a diverse range of characters- so mixing ages, genders and ethnicities. You can watch the clip below:

Other than that, I don’t think I have anymore ‘Bear’ related news. But watch this space as I’m going to make a mini teaser/ trailer type thing very soon. So stay tuned for that. And also the post where I finally announce it’s completion!!