Working at Second Home Studios

Back in September / October of 2013 I had the chance of getting to do just under 3 weeks of work experience at delightful and very welcoming Second Home Studios in Birmingham. Where I got to assist on a project for CITV's Share A Story, This is a yearly competition by CITV where children get to make their own storyboard for a 30 second short. The winners are selected and local animation studios are then given a short to make in their desired format.

To find out more about Share A Story check out the in-depth article from skwigly here!

The Share A Story I got to work on is called 'My Motorbike'. Made at Second Home Studios. Written and read by 8 year old Alex Holt, Directed and Produced by Waldemar Werbel and Chris Randall.

I joined the project on the last 3 weeks of production right when the animating side started up. This was a perfect time for me to join as most of the job roles I got involved in were prop making, set dressing, help setting up shots, lighting and overall studio assistance. The job that I'm most proud of getting to do was making the characters scarf and red cape. I made 2 of etch Item as they had a habit of getting a little grubby from been used and moved around a lot to simulate the wind as he rides the bike.

One of the more amusing things I learnt was making the trees. To do this we used a number real tree branches, glued together to make the tree trunks. For the green foliage we used bunches of Broccoli screwed and glued into place. This would of never of crossed my mind but it is something I will most definitely be keeping in mind for a project as it has a brilliant look on camera. 

To read the skwigly interview with Chris and Wal on the making of My Motorbike Click here!

Check out the final short here:
 
Credits:
Written and read by 8 year old Alex Holt,
Directed and Produced by Waldemar Werbel and Chris Randall.
Animation: Ian Whittle, Chris Randall, Waldemar Werbel
Production Assistant: Omari McCarthy
Modellers: Dominic Madden-Kennedy, Abbie Williams, Charlotte Clare, Amy Dodd, Ian Whittle, Omari Mccarthy Josh Taylor, Daniel James
Post-Production: Waldemar Werbel, Jardine Sage, Frank Mansfield, Chris Randall

I hope you enjoyed It, this was great fun to work on and a brilliant team to work with, I hope to get the opportunity to work with them again! To find out more about Second Home Studios click here!

Bradford Animation Festival 2013

I had the joy of been at the 20th Bradford Animation Festival, this was my first time going and what a year I picked to go. As there was a lot happening over the week I will focus this post on my personal favourite events from the festival.

On the opening night of the festival I got to see a screening of Nightmare Before Christmas, the film was been screened To celebrate that like the festival it's the films 20th anniversary. Now of-course I have seen the film A LOT but I have never seen it on the big screen, seeing it like this was brilliant and I was amazed to see new props and details in the sets on almost every shot. Iv you ever get the chance to see it on the big screen do it! 

Independent Animator Lee Hardcastle gave a very interesting talk on how he to become a success from posting his animations on YouTube. I first noticed see Lee’s work when he posted the evil dead in 60 seconds, Pingu's The Thing and it's grate to see that he is doing so well. I Found it fascinating that he has managed to turn his crating animations for YouTube hobby into his full time job and it.s something I'm very interested in looking into my self. Take a look at some of Lee's work here.

My highlight of the festival was getting to see the brilliant Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders receive their lifetime achievement award. For you guys who may not know Ian and Peter are the owners of Mackinnon & Saunders the UK's leading stop motion Puppet makers and they could not be nicer guys.

photos from BAF Flicker

You will mostly know them from their work with Tim Burton on The Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie and with Wes Anderson on Fantastic Mr Fox. They have mostly been busy working for over 20 years on countless children's TV shows including: Bod the Builder, Bill & Ben, Postman Pat, Engie Benjy, Fifi and the Flowertots, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion and most recently Toby's Travelling Circus.

They are a true inspiration to me and it was brilliant to see them getting honoured for their very hard work.  If you have not do take look over there site here!! mackinnon and saunders

On the last day went to see the brilliant Oscar winning independent Australian stop motion animator writer and director Adam Elliot in conversion with the grate Barry Purves. I first saw Adams work when I got to see Mary & Max and Harvey Crumpet and I became fan of this unique style of film making right away.

photos from BAF Flicker

Apart from seeing his films I did not know all that much about Adam so it was grate to final get to find out more about the man behind it all. For you guys who may not have seen Adams work cheek out the Mary & Max trailer here

Before the talk started Barry and Adam were talking in the caff where I was also sat, this was where Barry spotted me came over and introduced me to Adam. I got to have a good chat with Adam and I also got to show him The Piper puppet, biggest complement he gave me was when he asked if Mackinnon and Saunders Made The Piper for me!!

Big thanks to Barry Purves for taking the photo.

The Pipers Having a good week at BAF.

My self @BeyondCraft and @catch_ch and The Piper working hard on the @skwigly animation quiz @OsgoodBAF we came 10th and I got an awesome CITV goody-bag (photo from BAF Flicker)

For my first time going to the Bradford animation festival it was a brilliant 4 days and I am very excited for BAF2014 so roll on next year and I’ll see you then!

Kernowland

Hi guys i would like to show you this grate campaign for a new animated short, Kernowland a Stop Motion Adventure, Based on the popular children's books by Jack Trelawnys and directed by my very good Friend Zeke Ares. 

I first meat Zeke in my first year at university and over his last to years we got to work on a number projects together including been the co-director on his final film Surge witch you can see below.

SURGE from zeke ares on Vimeo.
As you can see form Surge Zeke has a grate mind for details, large scale story's and directing. Zeke has spent the last year building up a team on brilliantly talented people in-order for him to bring his full vision of Kernowland to the stop motion screen.

But don't just take my word for it come and check out the crowed finding funding page 

For new and up to date news come and like the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/kernowland
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel so you can see the I believe in Kernowland videos http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyPv6w7R8ToR5oeYTFcoW8w?feature=watch

I know I speak for Zeke and myself in saying we believe there is great potential in this project so please please donate if you can and please do feel free to pass the links around!

Let's do this!
I believe in Kernowland!!

Degree show and Graduation

Now that all the hard work on The Piper was over it was time to get ready for the university Show and Tell degree show. This where all the university's Art and design departments are open to the public, so they can come and take a look around all the final year students work on display

While i was setting up my section of the degree show I came out of the animation department and I was shocked and over the moon to see that The Piper had been used on a banner to promote the animation department. It was a very amazing thing to see my characters on a 5 foot size banner and I felt very lucky that my work had been chosen.

The degree show lasted a week and was brilliant to see people's reaction to everyone’s films and hard work.

For all you who could not make it to the degree show here is a short video by Rich Lee and Alan Bennett with a nice interview with myself talking all things Piper

So now the degree show was over the next step was the big one, Graduation! This was a crazy broiling hot day and grate way to say good bye to university life but hopefully not the last time see you your mates.

Very embarrassing photo

A completely unexpected thing happened as I stood in the wings of the stage getting ready to walk on and shake the deans hand, the speaker stopped reading the names From the Stop Motion Animation and puppet making class and said and the winner of Outstanding Creative Achievement In Design: Graphics and Animation is awarded to Daniel James! Well I was of course dumfounded and did not believe it. I walked out on stage a bit like a zombie, shook the Deans hand and only when I had sat down it hit me what jus happened.

My First Class Honers degree

winning this award was truly a grate honer out of the whole university my work was selected for this award and for that I am very grateful. I would like say now a massive thank you to every on who has helped me on this project, to my tutors for nominating me and to the heads of the Arts and design department who selected me to win.

Here is The Piper and his award!

This was the icing on the cake, I can now proudly say I could not of received any higher of an achievement for my time at university. It's now time for the scary part, where I levee the comfort of education and step out into the big wide animation world.

Wish me luck :D

Animated Eden

I’d like to tell you lovely lot that this Sunday the 8th of September is Animated Eden, Cumbria's First International Short Animation Film Festival. This is a one day pilot animation festival to help raise money for next year’s much bigger festival and screenings; it will be awesome if we could get as many of you, the Animation gang to come along. 

I'm also very happy to say that my film The Piper will be getting screened as part of the festival. So to all you guys who have seen my making of posts and not seen the final film this will be a perfect chance for you to see The Piper on the big screen. 

After the screening I will be taking part in a Q&A on stage where I will be talking about the making of process for the film and taking questions from the audience. You will also have the chance to meet The Piper cast as I will have the puppets on stage with me and they will be on display throughout the day. 

If you are a stop motion animator or fan you will be delighted to hear that the incredibly talented Mr Barry Purves will be given what is bound to be a very inspiring talk all about is experience working in animation and why he still animates with puppets. Barry will also be screening a selection of his own short films. I first met Barry in 2010, in them three years I have gotten to know him very well and now regard him as a good friend. I highly recommend that you come to this talk; you will leave with a big creative buzz. 

I should also mention that the festival shop / stand will be selling The Piper crew T-shirts size medium only for £8 and badges for 50p. So if you liked The Piper and would like to support my work please come and buy one. 

So come on down or up, the festival is free, so what more could you want!! However they do ask for a donation to help run this first and future events. 

For information check out 

www.animatededen.com 

it will be grate to meet you all so if you see me walking around come and say hello, I look forward to seeing you there!

Making of The Piper part 3

Animation:

With the puppets and set completed it was time to get animating on the film. Due to story points I had to shoot a dream sequence and one of the last shots for the film first, it had to be done this way as I needed the park set to be fully clean. Once all the shots were completed I had to take a week out of animating and messy the park up, add a fence and trees. In planning my animation time sheet I had to shoot the story in chunks all facing the same camera angels. This was important to get right as the sun is setting toughout film and I was painting the background by hand as I went on.

The first two weeks of animating were with all that kids paying on the equipment in the park. These were all shot of two's at 25 fps as i wanted the kids animation to have a more classic children's tv show vibe. However the Piper himself was animated on ones this was to give him more fluid movements and allow him to play his pipe in sync, it also helps to sell the fact that The Piper is not from this world and gives him a very different feel. Here is a slide show that shows the animation process and the order I shot the film in.  

 

Editing:
Editing on The Piper was the first time i really used After effects to its full advantage, as i haven't had much experience with After Effects i asked my may friend Frank Mansfield for some advice. There were 6 main shots where I used After Effects for: rig removal, light tracking, colour correction and green screen removal.

 I edited the film as I went along, animating in the day and adding in the new shots on the night. The dead line on completing this Film was the tightest it has been for me. on the day before hand in I finished animating the final shot with the Piper and all 7 kids at 5pm and was up editing in the final shots, making the final touches, fully syncing up the music and adding in the sounds fx till 7am of the day of Hand in. I uploaded the film on to Vimeo, did the last part of the right up and handed in all my work. 

Reactions:
I had The Piper online viewable to the public for 2 days after it was completed, and in that time that feedback has been amazing! I sent the link to a large number of animation friends and here are some of their brilliant comments.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who has watched The Piper and commented on it as means a lot! To the ones who have no seen The Piper yet it will be back online once the festival runs are over.