Wednesday 24 March 2010

Emily is awesome

Heeeeeey, look at this:



It's a still from a commercial for the Guardian newspaper, made by Nexus Productions, directed by Celyn, and awesomely assisted by the one and only Emily Howells. Yes! If you click this you can watch it. I think the whole design is really lovely; the off-white background really makes the colours look extra gorgeous. Also I really like big dogs. Hi-fives all round!

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Hotter than a pepper sprout

Ahh, how nice! We have been selected for another festival! A Film about Poo will screen at Citrus Cel Animation Festival in April. Thank you Citrus Cel decision makers for deciding on us! Citrus Cel is in Jacksonville, Florida. I would very much like to go there one day, as two of my favourite songs are about Jacksonville, so I think it must have something good to offer. Those songs are by Johnny Cash and Sufjan Stevens: very nice.

Here is a picture of some oranges to celebrate.



Billy Payne, maestro extraordinaire, famously has a strong aversion to oranges. I hope this does not dim his joy at being in Citrus Cel. Yey!

Saturday 20 March 2010

Amazing scenes

I've clicked on many a link in my time, but this is one of the best. Two of my favourite things in life are dogs and Lady Gaga, and here they are, beautifully combined:


Jesse Freidin, photographer extraordinaire, thank you for making the world a happier place.

Thursday 18 March 2010

A Brief History of Thrillseeking

Exciting times, readers. I finished a job the other day for BBC Learning. Would you like to see it? Yes, yes, I'm sure you would. Well it's right here, and also erm, right here:


Very nice.

And lookit, some design work:



The video is based on this one here by Jamie Bell (no not that one). Jamie is doing is A levels and already has the BBC knocking at his door, so I am not particularly worried about his pension scheme. However, as he is currently in full-time education, the BBC got me to adapt and animate his original idea to fit their new one, i.e. publicising their new thrillseeking website.

It is quite funny that I animated something to do with sports and exercise and physical movement. Part of my research was googling exactly what "hang-gliding" looked like. For those of you who do not know me personally, the point I am making is that I don't seek thrills. I just draw.

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Emily and I are very, very happy because A Film about Poo won the Audience Award for 8-14 year olds at New York International Childrens Film Festival!! Hurrah!!

We were up against some really big films - some of the other winners included Cordell Barker's Runaway (Canadian!) and Studio AKA's Lost & Found. This is a lot for my mind to compute, as Barker's The Cat Came Back is one my most favouritest films ever, and Lost & Found was shown at Christmas on Channel 4! I remember Emily talking about watching it! So, considering we made the Poo film after work in the evenings and on weekends, sitting on the floor in Emily's bedroom, this really means a lot. To illustrate this, I will now post a photo which Emily took of me being happy being near a poster about The Cat Came Back:



This photo was taken in Ottawa, which the geographically-minded amongst you will recognise as not being New York. A photo from New York would probably be more appropriate at this point, but sadly there are none in existence, as we did not go.

We both really wanted to go to the Festival - for one thing it being in Noo Yoik, and Emily and I always enjoy speaking to each other in terrible New York accents. But also because the line up looked fantastic. There was a screening on scary children's animation which I really, really wanted to see. And In the Attic, which won the big award there, looked like it could be one of the best things ever made. I will endevour to check out lots of these titles on the inteweb at a later date. In the meantime, we are very, very pleased to win this one, so thank you to everyone in the audience who voted for us!

Monday 15 March 2010

Muddle Earth

During the working week, I am assistant animator on the CBBC programme Muddle Earth. It is ace, and one of the best things to ever happen to me. The series is animated predominantly in Flash, with some After Effects greatness, and the occasional bit of Maya. Anywhoo, the series is new and it debuted today! And I forgot to mention it before! Oops. It is on every day this week, on BBC1 at 3:50pm - primetime for the kiddies. The theme tune is sung. I hope it will go down in history as one of those great children's television theme tunes. Like these examples:


Or this:


Or this:


Technically, The Raccoons intro is spoken word, but, we all know it is amazing. Also, the end tune was amazing too. The Raccoons excelled itself in terms of theme tunes, and general Canadian greatness. I really do love the Canadians.

Anyway, I am really, really happy to be working on Muddle Earth. Here it is on CBBC iplayer for those of you who may wish to watch it. I animated bits of it, but I especially animated Pesticide (the grungy fairy) when she is worrying about Dr Cuddles (the bad guy who looks a bit like a jawa) and then he turns up and says "boo".

Tuesday 9 March 2010

I would hide under your porch

Billy went on the internet this evening and he discovered some online references to our Poo film, which I did not know even existed!

1. Flatpack Film Festival highlighted our screening on their blog!

2. The Sanctuary Newspaper believes we have "sage advice"!

3. Animation blog likes both Poo and The Psychiatrist! Lovely, lovely people!


I am so excited because not only do all of these people like the Poo, but none of them are blood relations/lovers/friends/paid off. Amazing. Billy also said there were some tweets relating to the film on Babelgum. I don't do tweeting, but I like their little blue bird logo, so this too is great. I feel happy, like this:




Once, at a festival, I overheard someone discussing our film, but they were slagging it off. They said it was "overrated". To be honest, this was also sort of amazing.