Back at Aardman!

Well, I'm so excited to be back at Aardman Animations! This is my second week storyboarding on the second series of "Shaun the Sheep". I'm here with Jay, Ashley and James, all from the feature storyboard course, and Aardman storyboard guru, Rob, who is kindly suffering us all and imparting his years of knowledge and skills when asked. As "Shaun the Sheep" has no dialogue, it is a particularly interesting storyboard challenge, as we try to find the best way to visually tell the story. And what a wonderful challenge. Of course, like all of Aardman's animations, the characters are all wonderful, and my main challenge early on has been to get into their shoes. One of the many brilliant things about Aardman is that we have models from the 1st series to hand for reference. Here's a couple of photos of myself and Ashley working hard :)

Goole Silent Movie sails to Switzerland

"Dr A D Holmes" and "The Lost Princess" screened in Switzerland at the Super8 Special 2008 on Saturday! Rain put pay to plans to screen the films outside, but neues kino was nearly full with a crowd of abot 60 people watching the program. Also quite a lot of filmmakers were there in person.

Summer animation workshops

This week I'm at the Animation Station in Banbury, talking animation workshops with 9-16 year olds. We are celebrating 400 years of the Banbury Town Charter, and together with Banbury Museum, bringing paintings of the town to life. We've had an amazing amount of publicity this week. including a live interview on BBC Radio Oxford! The films will be shown at Summerscreen festival - Best of the Fest, 7.15 at the Phoenix Picture House, Jericho, Oxford. To more information and to see a behind the scenes video, click here.

Cinema of Horror

What do Zombie Movies and Bollywood have in common? Check out John Andrews latest film performance, who played the Inspector in The Lost Princess Goole Silent Movie, and find out! Peter M Kershaw was so impressed with his acting talent, that he invited him to star in his latest short film, Cinema.

David Kendea, who played the Sea Captian, also stars. Cinema of Horror can currently be seen on the internet at Virgin Shorts.

Flippin' great flipbooks!

Sat 5 July saw the return of the Culture Shock Youth Festival in Northallerton, produced by Connecting Youth Culture, North Yorkshire County Council. This year, 160 young people made flipbooks in my flipbook animation tent during the day, making this the most successful single event I have ever staged! Here's a glimpse of the flipbooks filmed during the course of the day.

culture shock flipbooks



To see why the Utah Saints said Culture Shock is better than Glastonbury, view the highlights from 2007.

Goole Silent Movie screens at Culture Shock

It was great to see Becky, Jonny and other cast and crew members supporting Goole Silent Movie at the Culture Shock Festival in Northallerton. "Dr AD Holmes" and "The Lost Princess" played throughout the day last Saturday in Northallerton in Yorkshires biggest youth festival. I say others, because they were all wearing lots of face paint, from the circus tent, I presume, so hard to recognise! I was working at the festival in my flipbook animation tent. What a great day!

The big summer of 2008!

What a great few weeks it's been. I travelled from Aadrman Animations in Bristol to Banbury to start a Creative Partnerships programme with North Oxfordshire Academy, where we are making a series of animated films exploring the impact of climate change. Banbury is celebrating it's 400th charter this year, and the Animation Station organised a competition for children to take part in a special animated film commemorating the history of their town. The final film, which brings to life historic paintings of Banbury was premiered at a big gala celebration in the town.


Last Saturday I returned to the Arts Institute at Bournemouth for their animation alumni reunion. Great to see so many familiar faces and see everyone and the course, blossoming from strength to strength.

This Friday saw the preview screening of "Jimmy Saves the Olympics" for ASIFS Workshop Group film "Olympics Let's Fantasise". The museum rolled out the red carpet for big day and it was great to see such a high turnout to honour the young peoples work. We had a huge amount of media interest, and I spend most of Friday being whisked off for various interviews!
“Jimmy Saves the Olympics” is currently playing on the BBC Big Screen in Bradford up to 4 times per day for the foreseeable future. The film will also be screened at Bradford Animation Festival and the Co-op Young Filmmakers festival.


Saturday was the brilliant Culture Shock Festival in Northallerton, were I returned for a third year to run a flipbook animation workshop in one of the festivals great marquees. 16o young people made flipbooks, making this years workshop the biggest and best yet! As always is was a huge buzz, and an awesome event. I stayed around to listen to the closing acts, Utah Saints, and Boy kill boy, who were knockout! Utah Saints said it was better than Glastonbury! Enough Said!

Feature story training update from Aardman

Compare and Contrast! A photograph of our merry band of story trainees (Crustoids, as named by Frank Gladstone, who is in the centre of the 1st photo) on our first day at Aardman Animations - and 8 short weeks later at our found farewell night out.

The last 8 weeks have evaporated in a blur of frenzied activity and, learning - with little time for blogging of anything else. It has all been an incredible adventure, and a truly amazing experience. I feel like I've grown incredibly as an artist, and I'm eager and exited to put what I've learnt into practice. What made it all the more enjoyable, was learning along side such a wonderful group of people, many of which I am sure will be firm and good friends for years to come.

As well as being taught by the inspirational Frank Gladstone, we were treated to several special presentations, including visits by Christian Lignan (digital storyboarding procedures), Bruce Block (visual language), Steve Kaplan (comedy workshop).

For our final assignment, we worked with Aardman's editorial team, who cut our storyboards into story reels for review, along with the scratch tracks we recorded, which was incredibly fun. Seeing our storyboards timed into story reels, was an amazing and revealing experience. Seeing the pathos and rhythm they bought to it and the choices they made in removing and adding story panels.

Here's some more pics from our last training day. Happy days!

Aardman storyboad training!

I've been so busy these last few weeks doing animation workshops around the country, I've barley had time to check my email, never mind write on my blog.

However my life is going to take a exciting twist over the next few weeks as I've been accepted onto South West Screen and Aadman Animations' storyboard training programme!

I'm one of ten people taking part in ANIMATION BRIDGE: STORYBOARDING FROM START TO FINISH which has been developed in response to a need to improve the skill levels of storyboard artists working in the UK animation industry. Trainees will be taught by an international team of specialists on a programme designed by the industry for the industry. The programme is informed by an extensive R&D stage funded under a Skillset Film Skills Fund Innovation Bursary.

For my storyboard test, I was given a Wallace and Grommit sequence to interpret, which was a lot of fun to do. I was interviewed last week by a panel including course tutor Frank Gladstone, ex-Head of Training and Artistic Development at Disney and Dreamworks Animation. I'm incredibly excited (and a little terrified) to have this opportunity, which I'm sure is going to shake challenge me and inspire me to my core. I will endeavor to update my blog with progress over the next fun filled 8 weeks. I'm exhausted thinking about it! Well, better catch that train. Over and out!

Goole Silent Movie screens in Cambridge!

Congratulations to everyone on Goole Silent Movie!

"The Lost Princess", written by Rebecca Stothert & Emma Gill and directed by Rebecca Stothert will be screened in Competition at the Cambridge Super8 Film Festival!

The Cambridge International Super8 Film Festival shows the best films originated on the Super 8 format.

Goole Silent Movie, produced by Goole Town Council and Duchy Parade Films was shot on black & white Super 8 film, sponsored by Kodak and produced using optical process emulating the techniques of the silent period to produce a truly authentic historical film.

The Super 8mm film format has undergone a creative renaissance in the last five years due to the digital revolution and the re-discovery of small film by users the world over. In 2007, the first Cambridge Super 8 Festival was a hugely successful event with more than 70 films in 3 competitive programs and 2 non-competitive programs. All genres of film were represented (animation, fiction, documentary and experimental film), illustrating the diversity of the format and our film selection.

"The Lost Princess" is playing on Thursday 24th of April at 8pm in The Centre @ St Pauls Hill road Cambridge.

It must be Easter!

Last weeks ASIFA Workshop Group animation workshop at the National Media Museum was fantastic . Eight children were chosen from Belle Vue Boys, Belle Vue Girls School, and St Josephs Catholic College in Bradford to represent the UK in the production of a short animated film to celebrate the Olympics. This was a fantastic opportunity to take part in the creation of an animated film which will be used as part of a film made by young people from all over the world.
The short film titled “Jimmy saves the Olympics”, created by the group at the National Media Museum, tells the story of Jimmy, who is chosen to take the famous Olympic flame from Athens to the Olympic stadium. On route, the athletically challenged Jimmy, tries his hand at a variety of Olympic spots. His rugby skills are come against the ultimate test when an alien tries to steal the flame. Through it all, the inclusively of the Olympics is celebrated. everybody, no matter what there colour or size can feel part of the Olympics.

I'll put up some photographs and stills from the film next week, when I have a little more time. There is an interesting local press story about the project here.

This week I completed a series of workshops at Harrogate Army Foundation College, partly funded by CYC, which has resulted in an incredible short stop motion film, "Howard and the Bear", written by 15 year old Madeline Moyle. Maddy is an very talented young budding animator and I expect the film, and Madeline to do very well in the future.

Next week I'm in Swindon teaching for the University of Bath's creative arts week, "Crazy Cartoons" the for pupils in year 10.

ASIFA International film project

I am extremely excited to be delivering a very special animation workshop at the National Media Museum next week, during the Easter holidays.

Thanks to the support of the NMM and funding from First Light Movies, who fund and inspire young people, throughout the UK, to make films reflecting the diversity of their lives, I will delivering an animation workshop for ASIFA (the international association of animated film), founded in 1960 in Annecy (France) by the most famous animation artists of that time (Norman McLaren & many others).

The ASIFA Workshop Group is a global movement represented in 23 countries and on 3 continents. Every year a worldwide animation project, composed of several regional children animation workshops, is realised. The films created are presented at some of the world’s principle animation festivals.

This years theme is the Olympics. The young people in Bradford will be using animation to explore their "fantasies, ideas and messages on the Olympic Games or anything related to the games, freely within about 2 minutes." Their film will become part of an international compilation of animation, compiled in China and promises to provide a world stage for the young people to express themselves creatively. Through the process, young people will develop their drawing and animation skills, build confidence and have their aspirations raised in a fun and creative atmosphere.

There is a fascinating article of the history of the ASIFA workshop group on the ASIFA website.


I will be be publishing updates on this exciting project during the week.

"Dreams" screeing at Leeds Young People's Film Festival

The animated film "Dreams", created by year year 6 pupils at schools in Rochdale, Salford and Liverpool for Verd de Gris visionary arts project Dreams has been selected to compete in the National Young Filmmakers' Award taking place on Saturday 29th March as part of Leeds Young People's Film Festival! Congratulations to all the children who helped make such a beautiful film.





"Dreams" is screening on Saturday 29th March 2008 Venue at Vue at Kirkstall, Cardigan Fields, Leeds in the under 14's programme.


Leeds Young Peoples Film Festival features original and unseen films from around the world made both by and for young people, as well as some wonderful classics from the archive vault. There's also a fantastic line-up of workshops and masterclasses in the Film Academy and this year features some very special guests from the world of cinema.

Migraine on a roll!

After working on shots that have taken literally months to animate with the time I've had available, I felt a strong need to pick up a simple shot.



Dr Sue Lipsombe, who uses drawings as part of her treatment process gave me this drawing from Oliver, who was aged 9 at the time. The drawings cried out to be animated and I finished the shot in one day... hurray! Animating with Olivers style of drawing using a slightly naive style of animation which felt appropriate, was fantastically liberating and gave great potential for expression. This shot, perhaps more than any other, captures the power of putting these drawings into the forth dimension of movement. This is the line test for the shot, the final composition in 16:9 will have the head bigger in frame.

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Animating with Year 1

I was back at Stepney last week working with Year 1 teacher Neil Cameron as part of the Creative Partenrships Hull learning programme, "Animated Learners". The theme was houses through the ages. The children transformed a dolls house into the most amazing Victorian, modern, and future house. Here Neil puts in pace the children's amazing designs of flying cars above the house for one of the shots.

New Migraine shot

Second month of the year and a second Migraine shot. Hurrah! Although truth is, I started this shot over a year ago as well. There were a lot of passes for this shot, and I've found a couple to post. One of the first was the CGI car pass, which was rendered out of XSI in wire frame images. The aura, which sqews out of the exhust, was generated as particles in XSI. However each triangle is hand drawn animation, attached to the particles as an animated texture.

Basic shaded passes of the car and aura were rendered as a base layer, which I added detail to by hand in Photoshop, one frame at a time, to simulate the look from the original arwork. I took some libeties with the artwork, by keeping eveything black and white exept the aura, to give it tha a bigger punch.

Inglish Design

My good friend, Graham Ingle of inglish design, has just launched his webiste for contemporary and traditional furniture. Graham asked me to do the photography for the website, capturing his bespoke handmade furniture for the home, including bedrooms, studies, dining, occasional and childrens furniture. Inglsish Desing are based in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. Check it the gallery!

New Year resolution

One of my New Years resolution is to devote more time to my short film. I was so busy last year that I realised that a shot I completed in January 2008 I started animating in Jan 2007! I just kept picking it up when I got a spare minute, which wasn't too often. In fact the original design concept for the shot was created in Oct 2006. And it should be noted that Leeds based artist Brian Edmunds, who helped create the original design, got a Migraine in the process. Yikes! And yet the wait and pain, I hope, is worth it. The animation was all done in time honored drawn animation although most letters are on separate levels so I could build up a variety of cycles - there's still a heck of a lot of pencil millage in this scene. That also allowed me to have more control on the colour and compositing of the letters as well as the timing. Some elements, for example are on 1's. You'll see that the letters are spaced and balanced better in the final colour shot. You'll have probably deduced that the film is about Migraine. The colour shot is longer and starts with flashes of the scene herald the onset of migraine before the letters fire up. If you look carefully, you'll also see the cycle of the M is longer, and more refined in the colour shot. It kicked about in the line test too much for my liking. Sadly you loose a lot of the detail with the small size of these video images, but you'll get an impression of it. The shot featured in my exhibit at the Aardman talent showcase.

BioMation Aspergers film now online!

The Directors cut for BioMation aspergers syndrome is now online, and well worth a look!

BioMation is an exciting animation, sound and creative writing project for young people based in York, UK. Exploring health issues through digital art. BioMation is a collaboration between Arts Action York and York Hospitals NHS Trust, funded by the Welcome Trust.

Aardamn Talent Showcase

Exciting news this week! My work is currently being exhibited at The Aardamn Talent Showcase. The exhibition at their studios holds work from colleges, internal recommendations, people Aardman have worked witheld in the past, talent from festivals, staff and local top creatives.

As well as my animation clips, my work features storyboards, character designs and effects art, including the above artwork.