Finished the outside of my car and moved it around a bit to see how it was going. Not perfect movement but quite like it. Needs lights.

Labels: play

Started on my After Effects car today. It is four wheels and a base so far. The front two wheels move together when you rotate them. So they can go from this:

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to this:

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and even... to this:

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Labels: play

I spent most of my last week at Encounters Short Film Festival 2008 in Bristol. Enjoyed myself as 'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' was screened in two of the short programmes and ended up gaining another special mention for the 4mations International Newcomer in Animation Award which was nice.


'The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother' also had his World Premier at the festival in the UKFC Digital Generation section but was not in competition. It was interesting to see the two films both in the same festival. I think 'Keith Reynolds' got one of his best reactions I've seen it have when I watched it on Tuesday. It's harder to tell what people thought of 'Francis Cooper', as it's a darker film in general and not as funny, but people who spoke to me before they saw it weren't too ashamed to come and speak to me afterwards so that is something.

I think maintaining an interesting blend between what is happening on screen and what you are hearing is something I need to work on. With 'Keith Reynolds' I think people like the fight scene (see preview) because of this. Looking at 'Francis Cooper' I notice scenes where the visuals don't add much or anything to driving the story and I could have thought of more interesting things to show. I had a problem with 'Keith Reynolds' in that I was contained to a side-on view of the building - with 'Francis Cooper' I was contained to six days of the week, visiting each character on each of those days - and so for my next film I'd like to make what I can show and when I can show it as unconstrained as possible.

I do think I learnt a lot visually making the film. I think in still form 'Francis Cooper' looks a lot nicer than 'Keith Reynolds' and I'm pleased with that because I didn't like reading write-ups about how ugly some people thought Keith was! Being able to feel comfortable feeling as though I can create nice visuals I can hopefully focus a bit better on what I'm going to show rather than how I'm going to achieve showing it - which should mean I can be a lot freer in what I make which somewhat helps to solve the problem I mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph.

Anyway, Encounters is over and I was happy to see 'Stand Up' by Joseph Pierce and 'Skhizein' by Jeremy Clapin win awards as I like those two films as lot. Well done.

Labels: festivals, Francis Cooper, keith reynolds, news, trips

Been mostly working on pitches at the moment. Some for developing TV seriessss and others for adverts which have been quite fun. Last Monday was the deadline for submitting a Digital Short again so I decided to do a proposal for that. Mostly as an excuse to put things in my head in a way I can look at them. I did a character design (right) and built something in After Effects to go along with it (below). I'm getting quite into using After Effects since doing Francis Cooper.... This film if it ever gets made would be more like Keith Reynolds and be set in America again. Think it was my trip to Chicago that did that. Will keep working on it on and off this week I think. I want to build a car in 3D space so will see how that goes. Trying to make good use of my time off at the moment.

Encounters Film Festival 2008 in Bristol starts today so I'll hopefully be going along to that a lot too. Err.

Labels: festivals, news, play, work

Curtocircuito Short Film Festival - Best International Animation Award (3600 €): Ex Aequo: Skhizein”, Jeremy Clapin & “John and Karen”, Matthew Walker

Special mention:
“Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight”, Felix Massie

This is the closest I've come to winning an International Award. Am pleased.

Am also pleased because, thanks to the British Council, I was able to go to the 44th Chicago International Film Festival which was great. Favourite features I saw were 'The Noise In My Head', 'Family Values', 'Gomorrah', 'Pressure Cooker' and 'I've Loved You So Long'. Was also able to see all the shorts with my favourites being 'Eyelids' by Brad Bischoff, 'Sugar' by Alex Beh, 'Standup' by Joseph Pierce, 'John and Karen' by Matthew Walker, 'The Business Trip' by Sean Ellis, 'Jerrycan' by Julius Avery, 'From Head To Toe' by Josie-Anne Lemieux, 'Self-Portrait With Cows Going Home and Other Works - A Portrait of Sylvia Plachy' by Rebecca Dreyfus, 'Peter and Ben' by Pinny Grylls, and 'Sick Sex' by Justin Nowell. Sorry - that was a long list. Here are some pictures...








Will make an effort to go to more festivals from now on.

Labels: festivals, keith reynolds, trips

The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother has another screening on December the 3rd at the Northern Lights Film Festival in Newcastle and Gateshead. There is still no preview online anywhere but, in case you missed it, there is a screenshot above this paragraph.

'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' is being screened in Chicago this Sunday at the AMC River East. At 2.15pm.

Labels: festivals, Francis Cooper, keith reynolds

Francis Cooper will have it's World premiere at Encounters Film Festival in Bristol in November. It's part of the U.K. Film Council: Digital Generation 2 screening (Fri 21 Nov 16.30 Watershed Cinema 1).

Keith Reynolds is in two screenings: Emerging Talent 2 (Wednesday 19 November 10.00 Watershed Cinema 3 and Sunday 23 November 16.00 Watershed Cinema 1) and Best of British: Made in the South West (Tuesday 18 November 20.30 Watershed Cinema 3, Thursday 20 November 10.15 Watershed Cinema 1 and Saturday 21 November 14.45 Watershed Cinema 1).

I'll hopefully have a little preview of Francis up soon along with some promotional stills.

Labels: festivals, Francis Cooper, keith reynolds

Over summer I animated a farting chipmunk (among other creatures) for some short films for a chewing gum brand in Italy (Air Action Vigorsol I think). You can watch most of them at www.cippi.net (more added every so often) or one of the episodes I worked on (in quite bad quality - sorry, not my upload) below.


Directed by Matthew Walker (award winner).

You can see the original TV spot here:

Labels: work

Forgot about this: a little dog I did for a pitch I didn't get:

Labels: work

Mix went fine. Credits went a bit wrong. Had to change the badge on the front of Emily's car. Delivered to Aardman and I think they've delivered to the UK Film Council. That's it.

Forgotten what I used to do now. Been playing Mario a lot.

Labels: diary, Francis Cooper