Monday, October 31, 2005

Microscopic Milton





Microscopic Milton is so small he lives in a clock on the mantelpiece in Mrs Witherspoon's house and only his friend Douglas, a shaggy dog, knows that he is there. I fell in love with Tony Garth's quintessential English children’s series and spent some time at the production company Splash working on creating a TV special for Microscopic Milton. Despite showing excellent potential and some wonderful early work on the premise, it sadly never made it into production. These story pre-production story sketches show some early gag ideas with a parrot… and a curious crab that’s spotted Milton inside a bottle.

Thunderbirds






These effects shots for the Thunderbirds title sequence show the integration of my drawn effects elements with the computer animation. As production got busier at Nexus Productions and computer workstations multiplied, fellow effects animator Graham Bebbington and myself found our portable drawing boards frequently relocated to spare corners around the studio as the studio! Nexus directors Smith & Foulkes are a directing tour de force who challenged all of us to do our best work. They deservedly picked up an array of awards for this title sequence.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Riffs of Rage flies to Lithuania



"Riffs of Rage" is in Lithuania again this week, this time playing in competition at the Tindirindis international animation festival. Nathan, Duncan and myself had a huge amount of fun making this homage to Warner Bros cartoon shorts and its great when you see an audience share in that. Lithuania, as you can see, is a beautiful country. I must put some more stills up sometime from my trip earilier this year.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Turner Prize




The shortlisted artists for the 2005 Turner Prize have just been announced and Gillian Carnegie's sumptuous and sculptural paintings have been seized on by the tabloids for her apparently shocking 'bum paintings', described as experiments in composition, light, colour and technique. So I thought this is was a good opportunity to show some of my 'bum drawings' which incidentally claim to be none of the above!

Saturday, October 15, 2005

60 second Shakespeare


I had a lot of fun taking a couple of workshops in Hull for the BBC to aid school children to make 60 second films in one day and bring the bard to life. You can take a look at the school challenge below. I regard it as some of the best and most rewarding work I've ever done.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/shakespeare/60secondshakespeare

Friday, October 07, 2005

My 8mm Animations





This one's for Henry. I've been looking though the first animations I made when I got an super 8mm camera when I was 9 in preparation for a talk I'm giving for the BBC next week. These stills are from the very first animations I made as soon as I got the camera. The first was about a tyrannical king who controlled his subjects by fighter planes! Now I really can't remember if the next film was about a board housewife who fantasised about having romantic affairs with milkmen and a guy with a yacht, or if she simply imagined she and her husband to have more exciting lives. All the men look the same! Hum. Then I made a film in which a flying saucer (which looks suspiciously like a painted paper plate) terrorized a town. Having known me as a flatmate last year I think Henry will not be too surprised with the slightly strange themes. Of course I should say that naturally everything ended happily ever after!

Zoetrope


Zoetropes are so cool. I made one and showed it in an infant class yesterday. The were spellbound by it! I dug up this beautiful deign made in the nineteenth century in Covent Gardens and thought I'd show it here. There are so many ornate patterns, all of which have interesting and imaginative animated movements.