BAFTA win at Plug-in Media

Big and Small wins the 2009 Children's BAFTA in the interactive category.

My incredible colleagues at Plug-in Media are all shocked, but it must be real as we have photos: here are Dom, Juliet and Seb taking it in turns to hold the face of gold.

It’s been a pleasure working on such an ambitious project with this talented bunch. Fun too to make sound effects with my daughter in the bath. The Big and Small House is really an impressive world.

Production on Plug-in's next big, interactive adventure is well underway and I’m enjoying working on 3D animation. It’s another one for the BBC - due for release next March.

Brighton White Night: Future Machine

Future Machine flyer image by Mooshpie and "Toc" by Abbie Stanton

Last Saturday, Brighton entered the White Night. Night time in the city was given over entirely to experimental future visioning. A playful Autumn evening.

The Future Machine projections drew huge crowds. 42 animations in total. We've set up a Future Machine youtube group for videos of the event.

You will also find photos of the hilarious and chaotic light animation workshop on the Future Machine website. At 11pm, artist Jake Spicer took up the reigns, and he skilfully lead the assembled masses through a life drawing for animators workshop. Finally, after we had packed up the monster Projector and put it under lock and key, we got down to the Ocean Rooms for the Beatabet Collective takeover and Bunty.

We have had word from the council that they would like more animation next year. Already excited.

FUTURE MACHINE Collaboration

Sarah Bird and I pitched a BANG animation projection project to Donna Close at the Brighton Council, and we are happy to report that they have taken it up. 

FUTURE MACHINE is due to be unleashed on the streets of Brighton at this year’s White Night.

To celebrate, Abbie Stanton’s made a little animation with the beautiful Future Machine mascot she has built- it's on the BANG site. Toc is a future pod who has travelled a long way through time and space - and he’s going to be travelling all over the world in the next few months.

So, how can we imagine what is to come?

During the night of Saturday 24th October, "future" animations will be projected directly onto the façade of Brighton's Unitarian Church. I love the idea of beaming a totally diverse collection of visions onto the walls of the city. A 30 second alien attack might be followed by a utopian vision of a healed earth laden with flowers and food, metallic dystopias, pixel madness, stop motion characters, sourcing inspiration from Buckminster Fuller, Hildegard of Bingen and SunRa.

Open to BANG animators and all who want to join in, and make like Nostradamus and look to the future. We encourage working with the details of the architecture in inventive ways. You'll find more info in the open call guidelines.

Off the Path // On the Web

An update on Rachel Henson's Off the Path project. She now has a little web presence over at Word Picture Studio. There are a few videos posted up of the 2008 pilot I worked on. Also, there is news on the Flickers project at ANTI festival in Finland.

It's beautiful stuff.

Earl Grey Whistle Test

Another hour of improvised electronica to come out of the musical powerhouse that is our living room...

Earl Grey Whistle Test: Session 6

The Gingerbread Man

Sneak peek at continuity shots taken on the shoot of Freya Elliot's "The Ginger Bread Man". I was Production Designer on this Brighton shoot. It was bright and sugar-fuelled! We are all dreaming in neon pinks and yellows.

The actress in the pictures, Teresa Mock, was an absolute trooper. Early mornings and long nights for the whole team. An excellent group of creative people.

To draw, to film or to mix it all up?

Work on "Off the Path" continues. Trying to get the look of the key character down.
Not there yet, but getting nearer...

Off the Path Development

test 1




test 2

I spent the bank holiday experimenting with animation techniques in the attic. Got messy mixing traditional materials – charcoal, paint, crayon, tipp-ex – with photographic material. I've posted up two of the tests.

I’m working as an animator for Rachel Henson's Off the Path. It's designed as an installation in the woods of Stanmer Park that tells a narrative through the use of early optical and animation devices- Zoetropes, Thaumatropes, Phenakistoscope- basically, all the tropes and the scopes. Working with these kinds of devices necessitates a lot of simple looping animations.

Happy accident: all the frames of the charcoal run cycle helpfully resolve themselves into a tree….

The Look Of Life

I've always liked the 1 minute pose. As well as the obvious bonus that... well... it only takes one sweet minute, I often find the result more interesting than a 20 minute pose that has been fussed over. There's just no time for the brain to intervene and ask the dreaded question "is this good?"- you have to ride the wave and ask questions after. Finding the painter Cecil Collins' ideas about drawing and spontaneity extremely rich: particularly the exercises drawing with both hands at the same time to short-circuit stale habitual mark-making and open up to life.

Super 8 in Stanmer Park

I want to get a grainy, celluloid look for some new development work I'm doing on Rachel Henson's "Off the Path", so we got out the Super 8 camera and shot a few cartridges in Stanmer Park. The project is developed in relation to this site and Rachel's sense of walking the land as part of the creative process is rich and full of potential. The developed film is back, and I love the colour and depth. There's something of Michael Apted’s “Nell” in some of the shots, though very clearly set in the English countryside.