Shorter Reel

On the advice from workmates I've chopped my reel down.



I was hoping to get some of the shots I worked on last/early this year for "Wonders of the Solar System" and "How Earth Made Us" on the BBC but haven't had a reply from Prime Focus World yet!

Busy times at Aardman

For those who don't know (ie my non facebook buddies) I've been at Aardman Animation now for over 4 months working on their next stop motion picture, so sorry for the delay (and thanks to old Uni mates for kicking my ass into saying what I've been up to in the last year or so) in updating, but I've been pretty busy working.

All I can say is it's been awesome so far, working with some seriously cool people who really know what they're doing in the film making process, enough so that Matt Groening and Miyazaki send there own personal drawings to them to say how much they love their films too! And I get to hang out with Wallace and Gromit in the flesh / plasticine sometimes.

Since then the two BBC series I worked on at Prime Focus "How Earth Made Us" and "Wonders of the Solar System" have both been aired, and gained record viewing figures. Here's the trailer for Brian Cox's "Wonders of the Solar System"(he's a bit of a secret hero of mine, watch the extras on "Sunshine" - he gives a great commentary on how he worked with Danny Boyle on making a fictional film as real as possible):-

Nominated for the British Animation Awards

I found out this week that I've been nominated as part of Lipsync Post Graphics Team in the top three entries for the British Animation Industry Awards (BAA's) in the Best TV/Film Graphics category.

Here's a link to the news and sequence for Animal Planets rebranding where I animated the dog, meerkat and shark (which you can also see on my reel):-

News Item


Sequence

January 2009 Showreel

Here's the new showreel then for January, on my work colleague Milan's advice I'm shifting out the old student character animation, which is after all over a year old, and putting on the Squirrels that I've done in the past week or so. Not much of a change as I think I'll be waiting a while for clearance on showing stuff I've done at Prime Focus World.



Shots 1-6 Solomon Kane Mirror Sequence - All Demon Character Animation and Roto Animation of stunt performers interacting with CG.

Shots 7-10 Hellboy 2 - Weapon Replacement and Particle Animation, as well as Roto Animation of Hellboy character for shading and lighting.

Shot 11 Animal Planet Ident Dog - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 12-13 Jungle Book Test Nag - All character animation including lipsync and basic lighting setup

Shot 14 Animal Planet Meerkat - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 15 Jungle Book Test Kaa - All character animation and lighting setup.

Shot 16 The Sting - Personal Character Animation (squirrel rigs provided by highend3d).

Shot 17 Solomon Kane Castle - Crow Background Animation

Shot 18-22 Hellboy 2 - Weapon Replacement and Particle Animation, as well as Roto Animation of Hellboy character for shading and lighting.

Shot 23 Keepy Uppy - Personal animation, Max Rig supplied by highend3d.

Show 24 Cartoon - Personal Character Animation, Max Rig supplied by highend3d.

"The Sting" - New Character Animation

Well, it's been ages since I did any character animation, as I've been animating planets for nearly 5 months now at Prime Focus World so I thought I'd revisit an exercise from my post grad.

The dialogue is from the film classic "the Sting", which any fans of Hustle on the Beeb will know half-inched it's first series plot from! It's two of my favourite actors talking, in Robert Redford as the younger, brasher and in this clip angrier Johnny Hooker, and Paul Newman as the wiser Henry Gondorff.



I tried to give Redford (blonde squirrel) a more animated set of poses due to his frustration at this stage. Newman (grey squirrel) was more laid back, hence his languid animation style, i also wanted to throw in a bit of background animation for him with the coin toss. The lighting is a bit overcooked at the moment, but I should get a new version out on Monday. Hopefully that includes the whole film, Youtube and Adobe Premier don't seem big fans of the Sorensen compression I used on the Quicktime so the anim cuts slightly short at the end.

Check out the trailer to the film (the original dialogue is used at 35 - 40 secs):-



I love these guys as actors, there's something about them on screen and the aura they had. Paul Newman was more than just an actor, but raced cars at a championship level including le mans, and was a man of principle to the point he was put on Richard Nixon's dangerous enemies list during the McCarthy investigations. He made a mean salad dressing too. Rob Redford again is a great actor, but also a director (A River Runs Throught It is worth 2 hours of anyone's time) and also politically engaged.

As a double act, for me, they are THE greatest all time on-screen partnership, as they'd also prove in Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.