Bristol Animate Encounters Day 1

On the 18^th of September I was getting ready for a 4 day trip down to Bristol for the Animated Encounters festival. This was my third year going down to this festival but the first time that I’ll be going down on my own. This gave me the perfect chance to catch up with as many of the online stop motion twitter gang as I could, as well as some old friends who left university my first year. 

I also wanted to make something that I could hand out to people as a gift and so that the people I know online would recognise me and come say hello. I came up with the idea of making some badges 28 to hand out and 2 different designs for me to wear.

Day 1:

After leaving my house at 6am been stuck on the train tracks for over an hour I finally arrived at Bristol for 10am after getting my tickets for the day’s events I had a look around the lobby of the festival and unlike previous years they have models sets and props on display. They also had some live animation going on.

 The creator of Angry Kid Darren Walsh was animating a new Bob episode. Like angry kid this was shot using a real person wearing a helmet were the front face can be replaced with a number of different masks to create lip sync while the actor has to stay very still and get moved like a puppet. This was fascinating to watch and amazing to see it all come to life over the 4 days.

 After I looked around I got to meet up with a stop motion twitter friend and hostel room buddy Gareth Hurst. We got are passes, programs and headed over to the next screening. 

The Trials of Life

This was the second set of animations to be screened at the festival as I missed the first one thanks to the train delays. All the animations in this set were all loosely themed around the everyday lives of people and have some very hart felt emotional shorts. My highlights from this screening were: Head Over Heels, De riz ou d’Armenie, I Am Tom Moody, To the Heart of The Matter and Being Bradford Dillman

Aardman: Early Years Claymation

This was the first of 3 Aardman themed events of the day. This one focused just on the very early Claymation work of the studio. All the shorts shown in the screening are available on the Aardman classic DVD. However it was brilliant to see them on the big screen and see all the small details, With an introduction by Aardman cofounder Peter Lord  My highlights from this screening were: Next, Pib and Pog, My Baby Just Cares for Me, Adam, Loves Me … Loves Me Not, Early Bird and Not Without My Handbag.

Aardman: From Pigs to Pirates

This was the second set of the 3 Aardman events.  Like the last screening this was showing allot of the shorts that can be seen on the Aardman classics DVD. However this time they played the most recent CGI, Stop Motion and 2D shorts. It was brilliant to see a lot of these short on the big screen and there were some that i had not seen yet, as they were made after the Classics DVD. My highlights from this screening were: Stage Fright, Humdrum, Angry Kid, Fly, So You Want to Be A Pirate?, Len’s Lens and Blind Date. 

Aardman: In Conversation 

This was the third Aardman themed event of the day. Unlike the last to this was not a screening but an interview with the 3 company directors Peter Lord, David Sproxton, and the creator of Wallace & Gromit Nick Park. I have meat David and Peter before a number of times and they are very open and friendly chaps but I was most excited to see Nick Park as he hardly dose talks of this size. Although most of the stories they were telling I have heard before from books, interviews and DVD extras there was something about hearing them from the people themselves in-person that was just unbeatable. I could of listen to them tell stories all day but sadly it came to an end. When it did the 3 of them got mobbed by the fans, myself, Tommy and Gareth stood back and waited for them to be less busy.

I first got to speak to peter, were I shook his hand told him thank you for doing the talk and was great to see him again. I gave him my card and he said “I think I seen these before?” then when I gave him a Viv & Mandy badge he said “ah now yes I have seen these two before! I hope you’re doing more?” well as u can guess I felt like I was going to pass out with joy when he said he knew and remembered my work. Peter then did me this little singed drawing of Morph on my festival program, that I will be getting framed very soon. 

I then moved over to Nick Park and got to shake his hand and have a very small chat with him, I was trying not to focus too much on W&G as I did not want to boar him with just how much of a fan I am! I gave him a card and badge told him a little bit about Viv & Mandy and that he may have seem them before as I post them on the Wallace & Gromit creations site. 

He took a good look at card and said “oh thank you I will take a look over your work” he them looked at the badge and said “yes I think I may have seem them before I like their faces…very funny” well once again you can bet that i felt like I was going to freak out when Nick Park says he think Viv & Mandy are funny!  Be for I said anything daft I shook his hand and said a good night and thank you 

Here is a photo of me, Tommy and the man himself Nick Park!!

Me and Gareth when back over to Peter and we evented him to come to the after show drinks with us. To are shock he said yes and we got to have a 30 minuet chat and walk to pub with peter lord, in that time we got to hear some interesting stories and news that I can’t go into on here sadly. When we got to the pub Peter then got in a round of drinks and went to around pub chatting away. Me and Gareth stayed till bar shut and said a hearty good night to Peter and friends and made are way back to the hostel.

What a night I will never forget!!!

Viv & Mandy in the big clean up part 2 is coming!

Good news everyone! All the editing on Viv & Mandy In the big clan up part 2 is now fully completed and is all ready for its online release next week on the 12^th of April. 

I have been given the opportunity by Marc Spess form animateclay.com to have the first online screening of Part 2 during their weekly animators live chat. I will be showing parts 1 and 2 back to back, showing photos form the making of, giving out some behind the scenes information and will also be taking any questions from the viewers. 

The animateclay live chat will take place on Thursday the 12^th of April at the UK time of 2am. i hope to see some of you guys there but if you can’t as I know it is late the film will be online to everyone straight after! 

Once the film is released i have a ton of information, behind the scenes and making of images to show you all that I will be posting on here over the upcoming weeks. 

Viv & Mandy are back!

After over a year of work and waiting Viv & Mandy in The Clean Up Part 2 is now coming very soon. As you may have spotted I have not been posting much news on the making of this film. The idea behind this is that I wanted to keep as much of the story, sets and new puppets a surprise until you see the new film.

I have had a very busy time at the moment, doing the finishing touches to the final edit of the film, alongside doing all my work for university. To keep you entertained and show what is to come, here is the final trailer for Viv & Mandy in The Big Clean Up part 2. 

I hope you enjoyed the trailer and as always your comments and feedback is welcome.

Viv & Mandy to play at Flip Animation Festival!

Exiting news everyone I found out last week that Viv & Mandy in the Big Clean Up Part 1 has being short listed and will be screened at the Flip International Animation Festival on the 28^th of October!

 I’m very excited by this news and im looking for would to seeing my work on the big screen in a room full of animation lovers. I’m very grateful to the people at Flip for give this me this opportunity, thanks very much!

 

For more information about the Flip International Animation look at http://www.flipfestival.co.uk/ to book tickets and see what great things they have going on there this year.

And for anyone who is going come say hi or let me know as I want to meet as many of my online animation mates face to face this time: D

New puppets and sets:

It’s been a while since my last post so I think it’s time I give you guys an update as to what I have being up to on the production of Viv & Mandy in the big clean up part2. The first thing I’d like to say is a big thank you to everyone that watched the trailer in the last post and commented, your feed back has being fantastic.

Now with the bad news, Due to technique difficulties with the laptop I use to animate on I have not being able to animate now for 4 weeks as I’m waiting for the laptop to come back. There is good news tho, the weeks were I have not animated have in its way being good. As I have had the time now to work on the last parts of the script and get the new big main set for Part 2 completed. 

This set will show what Viv & Mandy saw at the cliff-hanger in the end of Part 1, I am very happy with the way this set looks and I hope you all will like it. As the set is a secret I won’t be show any full images off on here, but I will be showing some close ups of things that are in the set to give you a sneaky idea.

 

As well as set building I have used this time off to repair and make new copies of all the puppets that I will be animating with over the course of time on the film. Here are some images of the new waist up puppets that I have made new far part2. These puppets will be used mostly for shots were they are cleaning and walking in shots from the waste up as I can get lots of movement in to them.  I still have to make a new full lighter copy of the Viv & Mandy puppets for walk cycles; I will be making them when they are needed towards the end of the shoot. 

 

                                        Full Cast Before Reapers                                       

      New Puppets

The animation laptop should be back by this time next week and I’m very much looking for would to getting back in the studios to carry on animating on Viv & Mandy in the big clan up part 2.

That’s all for now guys, keep a lookout for more news and updates over the coming weeks.

Reshoots and Extensions:

The production of Viv & Mandy in the big clean up part 2 is coming along nicely. The First scene that IV animated are the in fact reshoots and extensions of the scenes that I worked on when I had finished part 1 and over my time at university on the hallway set. These were only 3 shots and did have some technical problems in them regarding the lighting and staging. 

      Original shot                                           reshot 

Once the reshoots were completed I carried on with the rest of the sequence, this scene will be in the middle of the film and shows a conversation between Mandy and Catherine. This is the first scene that I have completed in the film and last exactly 1minuet. 

Part 2 is going to look very different to part 1 animation wise, this is as because the FPS (frames per second)  have changed,  from been shot on ones at 12 FPS to being shot on ones and 25 FPS. This allows me to get allot more smooth and smaller movement in to the body language and lip sync of the characters.  I’m still getting used to working on 25 FPS  as when I first shot on them the puppets  looked so different to how they did in part 1. I kept on shooting more and more this way and I’m very happy with the way the animation is looking fare. 

That’s all for now guys, keep coming back for more news as I carry on with Part 2!!