Girl get busy

Well, time flies. In the last two months Emily and I have moved house; we're now both based in Manchester, which is bad for National Rail/Megabus' profits, but good for us. It is nice to be in the same neck of the woods, and indeed the same flat!

We've been busy beavering away on animated adventures too. We are separately working on some television series. I am animating on a CBBC one, and Emily is illustrating on a CBeebies one. We've also got a couple of commissioned film projects which are almost done, so we shall certainly be shouting about them soonish. Soonish = in a month or two I guess.

But anyways, right now we have a screening coming up! Our old Poo film will be showing at Manchester's Cornerhouse cinema later this month, on the 15th, and Emily and I shall be both be there to introduce our film. The programme is called Filmed Up and features North West filmmakers. We are first on, so if you come along (and it would be lovely if you did) make sure you get there on time! That goes for me too; I don't often get to places on time. Here is a link from which you can purchase tickets and find out more: this link here!

Right, dinner time now. Here's a picture of a beaver.

Let's talk about movies

Don't forget Billy and I will be at Cornerhouse tomorrow to talk about the making of Hum. The discussion will focus in particular on the production side, and how to work with funders. There may also be babble.

You know how to get along humming

We have finished our third film! It's called Hum, and it's an abstract animation about sleep paralysis.

We developed the idea for the story after meeting with Nikky Norton, a playwright and poet based in Manchester. She's working on a big project with Contact Theatre, mixing sound, animation, illustration, theatre, poetry, and performance art, which Hum will have a part in.

That's not until next year though. In the meantime we have plans... We're pleased to announce that Hum will premiere at Exposures Film Festival at Cornerhouse in Manchester next month. The film will show on Tuesday 21^st at 5pm, along with a live action drama also commissioned by Cornerhouse at the same time as ours. Afterwards there will be a Q&A session with me and Billy (Hum's composer), as well as Mark Haig, who directed the other film. Emily can't make it unfortunately, but hopefully Billy and I will be enough. Tickets for the premiere and Q&A event can be purchased here: http://www.exposuresfestival.co.uk/programme

Hope to see you there!

What's this? What's this?

We...

have...

finished...

our...

film!

I paint the things I want to see

I forgot to put these up sooner, but last week I did my final shift on the final day of Cornerhouse's Sketch-o-matic. Here are two of my favourite sketches from the day:

The second guy came in with the cigar, and just posed for the 5-ish minutes. Very prepared. 

There's talk of the Sketch-o-matic appearing elsewhere next year, so I hope to be involved then, because I really had fun!

Their models drawn on a charcoal sketch

I think I may have forgotten to mention this...but this week I am taking part in a really cool project at Cornerhouse in Manchester. It's called Sketch-o-matic! I am one of several artists taking part, and the idea is that we have 5 minutes to draw someone who sits in front of us, in a booth. It's a bit like a passport photo booth type thing. The booth is really cool, it looks like this:

 

I did my first shift on Tuesday, and it was very fun. I sit on one side, and the sitter sits on the other. There is glass between us, but the glass is one way so they cannot see me! The put £1 in a slot, and I turn a dial as I draw so that the sitter knows when I have finished the drawing. I pop it outside, and they take it, and everyone is happy. 

I did 15 drawings on Tuesday. Here are three of them, because I only remembered to take photos of three of them...

 

 

 

I was really happy with the first one especially, of the mother and baby. I don't think I've drawn a baby on location before, in fact I don't think I've drawn many babies at all ever. This baby was especially happy and gurglely and was laughing and smiling the whole time. Each drawing took about 5-10 minutes.

I am going to be back at Cornerhouse for some more Sketch-o-matic fun this Sunday 4th from 6-7pm and again from 9-10pm, so please come and let me draw you! Here is a nice link with some more information.

When mama was moth

We finished our stop motion shoot today, and we actually managed to do all the shots we planned. We then started working on a few experimental, unplanned shots when our new strobe light broke. Stupid strobe light. However, before it broke the strobe light did help us light this linetest of a moth, which we are quite pleased with:

Here is a photo of the moth model when he is not flapping about:

I didn't enjoy making the moth much. I hate moths a lot, and to make this one I had to look at a lot of pictures of moths in close up. It was disgusting.

I'll take the high road from factory to factory

This week we've been doing some stop motion work, using the green screen studio at Factory in Manchester. I am pleased to say that I didn't mess up the oil pastel animation - well there's a bit of a funny bump, but we've decided it is part of the charm! We've been doing lots of paper cut out animation too, and some experiments with a strobe light which we are very pleased with.

Does this drawing here look scary to you? I hope it does at least a little.

I recollect the violence of the struggle

Here's another linetest from the new film...

We did this in TV Paint and comped it in After Effects. It's not done - definitely not done - but the main animation is.

An empty space to fill in

Still working on the new film, and here is a nice oil pastel drawing from it. We've decided to do a couple of sequences hand drawn with oil pastel. I've not finished the first sequence yet, but I think I'm going to need to buy some more pastels! I had forgotten how long it takes colouring by hand onto paper. The last time I did this was for my graduation film... It's straight-ahead rather than keyframe animation because I'm drawing straight into an old, found book. Hope I don't mess it up...

And here's Emily!

She's cutting out and making a paper model in this picture. Using her magic powers, Emily then makes the paper model actually glow...

Amazing. What will the paper models be in the film? They will be mountains of course.

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

Some new film artwork...it's the moon...

I think last night you were driving circles around me

Some new film artwork:

Got me a movie, I want you to know

Very happily, Emily and I have won funding to make a new film. It will be our third film, and the second to be funded, which is great. Cornerhouse, Mackinnon & Saunders and Vision & Media are the generous people helping us out. We've been working on it for quite a few weeks, but didn't want to post something until we were a bit further down the line. The film's story was partly inspired by our colleague Nikky Norton, who is a poet and playwright also based in Manchester...but the exact narrative details will be a surprise! However I will say that it is an abstract, experimental film.

I will try and post regular updates in between the actual animating, and here is the first: a little linetest. Don't blink or you'll miss it. (I probably should have put it on a loop!)