Exhibition and US screening

Transformation and Revelation Exhibition- Bute Theatre.
Photo: Kirsten McTernan via T&R page

A couple of weeks ago I went to Cardiff to see a massive theatre design exhibition called Transformation & Revelation. Held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, the show was a huge amalgamation of work from theatre designers all over the country. On display were costume drawings, set designs, models and artefacts and it proved to be a very inspiring afternoon as I was modelmaking for my graduation film at the time. My good friend Chris Gylee had work on display in the exhibition, here's a picture of his design process as a storyboard. Fun stuff.

Chris Gylee explains his design process through design

Two of my films are being screened at the brand-new NW Animation Festival in Portland, Oregon, USA. The festival is run by animator Sven Bonnichsen and takes place at 5th Avenue Cinema in early June. Sven had come across my work at Stop Motion Montreal festival in Canada and had contacted me to tell me about NW. This is an exciting festival to be a part of as it's in a really great place. Coraline creators Laika are based here and it's up the road from California where other great American animators like Jamie Caliri are working. The films I have showing are The Scientist and The Omnipotence of Dream (2008) and We Weren't The First Ones Here (2010). If you are American, or indeed live in the states, you might consider going along!

Also, Fairground, a theatre company in Bristol I have done a lot of work with have a lovely new website. Check it out here.

Flowers

Don't forget the mothers!

Twins

The siamese twins of the Green Meadows Circuis, Ohio, USA

Tim Allen visit

The prolific animator Tim Allen recently visited Newport to do film surgery sessions and a talk. Tim's credits are as varied as they are extensive, from Disney's The Lion King to Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. He works predominantly in stop-motion and has worked on all sorts from commercials to series and features, most recently as a character animator on Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox.

Tim Allen inspecting a puppet with 3rd year stop-motion students at Newport

Tim joined us for a morning seminar where he went talked through our graduation films and gave excellent feedback on character performance, timing and readability of the images which was really useful at this stage. He had a great approach and genuinely seemed to care about the work and gave a really effective commentary on the films.

Tim discussing LAV (live-action video) with Tim and Merlin Crossingham on screen acting out goats for 'Creature Comforts USA' by Aardman

Later in the day he did a talk to a packed-out auditorium in the new city centre campus in Newport which included talking through various projects in detail; the practicalities of animating, the differences between shorts and features, problem solving, acting and performance. A really inspiring day with a brilliant animator and all round nice guy!

For information and visuals on my graduation film, see the blog here...
www.themanwhowasafraidoffalling.com

Newport Art Gallery Exhibition

We Weren't The First Ones Here was selected to be screened in a 7 week long exhibition of Newport Animation at the Newport Art Gallery. This exhibition marks the arrival of the new city centre campus and the return of the Film School to central Newport. The article below talks about our involvement in the exhibition and our Ffresh win.

Article and photo: South Wales Argus, Wednesday 2nd March 2011

Read the article online here

Buildings

Architecture of the mind: drawings made whilst in a department meeting

Biro, Newport, Feb 2011

Feeling Ffresh

At the closing ceremony for Ffresh Festival in Wales, we won the award for best animation with our collaborative film We Weren't The First Ones Here. The film was made in eight weeks during a project in our second year at Newport Film School. To our surprise we beat graduation film competition but luckily no one lost out; my friend Luiz Lafayette Stockler won the best animation Royal Television Society award and my other friend Ben Cady won best film of the festival.
Big thanks to everyone involved in making the film, the composer Jack Vaughan, the actors Catherine McKinnon, Adam Peck, Edith Woolley and thanks to Ffresh as well as Tom Brown and Dan Gray from Holbrooks who judged the award.
We Weren't The First One's Here can now be viewed on my website here.

Ffresh Animation Winners (from left): Helen Dallat, Kate Braodhurst, Emma-Rose Dade, Joseph Wallace, Ben Cady and Luiz Lafayette Stockler

We Weren't The First Ones Here

An old house holds memories and stories of its past inhabitants

A film I made last year with a great team at Newport Film School has been nominated for an award at Ffresh Festival in Wales. The team were: Kate Broadhurst, Emma-Rose Dade, Helen Dallat and Daisy Gould with music by Mr Jack Vaughan. Vocal talents: Catherine McKinnon, Adam Peck, Edith Woolley.

The film is being screened in the same programme as a couple of friends of mine, Ben Cady and Luiz Lafayette Stockler. For screening details go here.

A Great Big Picture of You

Back in November five illustrators, including myself, took part in a project called A Great Big Picture of You. The piece was devised by a long-term collaborator of mine Chris Gylee, along with Kate Yedigaroff from Bristol Ferment, and was conceived for Bristol Jam festival of improvisation at the Bristol Old Vic theatre.

Illustration projects Chris and I have worked on in the past have followed rule-based systems to allow for peculiar creative occurrences and this project elaborated on similar concerns.

The Process: Twenty-five disposable cameras were given out to various people all around the city of Bristol and they were encouraged to fill the camera with whatever they wanted. The photos were developed and displayed ready for us illustrators who came in on the last day of the festival having not seen the photos until then. Armed with a photocopier and two colours of paint, our aim was to make an 8ft by 12ft collaborative illustration piece in response to the photographs and we had from dusk till dawn. The results can be seen below.

The piece in progress

Joseph Wallace, Chris Gylee and Philippa Thomas at work

Private View

The final piece

detail

detail

For more info on the project click here.

Illustrators: Chris Gylee, Joseph Roberts, Laurie Stansfield, Philippa Thomas, Joseph Wallace.

Filmmaker Benjie Croce made a time-lapse film of the process.

Time-lapse film © Benjie Croce 2010

Knock knock

News of the past few months coming soon. In the mean time, a postman!