SAMSUNG BEAR

Working with The Viral Factory I edited this ad just before Christmas. There is something nice about working on a project that features snow at that time of year! Jellyfish Pictures did the VFX work and I think they have done an incredible job. I am extremely proud to be part of this project and it to have been received well having already notched up almost 15 million views.

FRANK TURNER MUSIC VIDEO

I am very proud to have worked on this music video for Frank Turner with Crush Creative. In a break from the normal way of things this video required lots of quick little pieces of animation to be intercut with live action video. I think the overall effect works a treat and hope the track does well.

HIS DARK MATERIALS AND HARRY POTTER

I have recently finished a really cool animated book trailer for the 'His Dark Materials' series by Philip Pullman which is currently being shown in cinemas before screenings of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II in the US.

With Harry Potter now having made over 1 billion dollars worldwide I think it is fair to say that the trailer must have been seen by a lot of people! A slot before Harry Potter is an incredible platform for a piece of my work and I'm pretty amazed that it is actually happening but on top of that I'm really pleased to be involved with the Dark Materials books. They are a world famous series, beloved by thousands of people and I hope that the trailer I animated does it justice!

RAINDANCE INDIE TIPS ARTICLE

Recently I had the opportunity to write an article for the Indie Tips section of the Raindance Film Festival website. It is a great honour and of course I leapt at the chance to contribute to my favourite filmmaking resource.

I decided I would draw upon my background in animation settled on an article called '7 Things Animators Can Learn From Animation'. You can read the article here.

There are a lot of things I have leant during my time in animation that I felt would translate well into the film production process, although the two processes can be very different I thought it would be interesting to try and bridge the gap. Hopefully it will prove popular and people will enjoy it!

SUDDENLY FROM SLEEP

For many months now I have been planning a short film project and now the time has come for me to reveal the details! Suddenly From Sleep will be my third short film and marks a huge leap forward in terms of the scale and ambition of the production.

It is going to be a tense thriller about a young farmer struggling with the arrival of a mysterious predator on his land. It will be mostly live action but will also feature animated sequences that will give the film a really unique look and feel. We want to produce something really special and we would love to have you come along for the journey!

Here is the film's poster that I hand painted myself.























For more information about cast and crew check out the links below and help us spread the word!

The film website: www.suddenlyfromsleep.co.uk

You can also follow the film's progress on Twitter and join us on Facebook.

FLICKER NYC

On April the 17th at Southpaw in Brooklyn, New York's only Super 8 film festival will celebrate it's 10th anniversary. This year's festival features an international line up of films including my Super 8 wonder 'Robot' which has managed to surprise me once again with another prestigious screening.

To mark the occasion IndieWire the independent film website has featured an interview with Flicker founder David Teague, you can read all about it here. In the article David talks about how the festival is put together and comments on the rise of Super 8 in a digital world.

All in all it is a great event to be part of.

LITTLE WHITE LIES FEATURE

Little White Lies have featured me as part of their Grass Roots platform, an initiative that allows up-and-coming filmmakers the chance to showcase their work.

This is very exciting since Little White Lies is a fantastic independent film magazine, published bi-monthly since 2005 it has become the home of inspirational film journalism and a wonderful example of creativity. The design for each issue is based around the theme of a single film, most recently Attack The Block and before that Black Swan which was my personal favourite and can be seen below.

















You can read the full interview with me where I discuss my career thus far and my plans for the future here.

Massive thanks to LWL for the feature and you never know, one day it just might be one of my films on the front cover!

2011 SHOWREEL

Another year brings another Showreel. I'm very pleased with the work done over the last year and I'm proud to be adding it into edit, if this year goes half as well as the last then I will surely have a 2012 showreel suitable for the end of the world!

ROBOT AT THE LONDON SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

As part of the London Short Film Festival Straight 8 are holding another Retrospective screening featuring some of the best films entered over the last decade. This time it's being held at the famous Roxy Bar and Screen on the 10th of January at 8pm.















My 2008 entry 'Robot' once again has the honour of making the selection and will be screened alongside another Straight 8 film with the audio on switchable headsets. Sound crazy?

It does indeed, but I have it on good authority that it will be a lot of fun too!

Tickets are £5 on the door which is pretty good when you consider you are getting a decades worth of Super 8 goodness.

For more information click on the event and the Roxy Bar and Screen click here.

ROBOT AT THE ICA

As part of the Rushes 2010 season the ICA have held a retrospective event in honour of Straight 8 films. From 10 years worth of shorts filmed on one cartridge of Super 8 and with no editing my 2008 film Robot made the selection which is a great honour.


















I'll always remember seeing my completed film for the first time whilst sat in the Kodak Apartment at the Cannes Film Festival (one of the quirks of a Straight 8 film is that even as the film maker you don't get to see the finished film until it's first screening.) and although I was very proud I had no idea just how long this little film would keep going!

It has now been shown all over the world at various film festivals and even in it's third year it continues to do me proud.

MONSTER festival news

It's been a crazy couple of months for my short film MONSTER. Since being screened at the CineCity festival in Brighton it has now been accepted into the Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival, the Flicker Film Festival in New York and the third Babelgum Online Film Festival otherwise known as BOFF3.



In both the Cambridge festival which takes place this month and the Babelgum Online festival Monster is being shown in competition which means it could win prizes!

In Cambridge this is in the hands of the jury where as for the Babelgum festival it is in the hands of the viewing public who can vote for the Audience Favourite award.











All you have to do is click on the BOFF picture above which will take you straight to the URL of Monster where you can vote by clicking on the little thumbs up icon on the left.

Once you've done that, why not join the Facebook group set up especially to track the fortunes of the film in this most exciting festival? To view the group, click here.

See the Cambridge Festival trailer featuring Monster below:


cambridge international Super 8 Film Festival - trailer
Uploaded by Cambridge_super8_festival. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

MOFILM: Philips - We Heart Light

My entry to the MOFILM User Generated Content competition is now online!

The competition was run in conjunction with 12 brands including Visa, HP and Vodafone amongst others. Each brand set a brief based on their core values and hundreds of people from all over the world entered, all hoping to bag the top prize... a day on set with director Spike Lee.

I chose to create a piece for the brand Philips, mostly because I liked the brief which was to 'get people to think about light in a new way and to create emotion through light.' I tricky one, but I thought there was a lot of potential to work with light in some interesting ways.





























I came up with the idea of two characters made out of light interacting with each other in different ways trying to express themselves. The light that formed the characters was to be refracted from two prisms set up in some sort of magical light experiment taking place at night.

Interesting facts:

Filming the video part of the piece actually took place during the daytime and was converted to night using computer trickery. Also , the two prisms I baught failed to refract any rainbow coloured light what-so-ever so all the rainbows were animated along with the two characters.














Unfortunatley the entry did not win. Not to worry though, I'm really happy with the finished piece and you can check it out below:




A few days later I get an email from the folks at MOFILM telling me that because I was one of the first 30 people to enter in the Philips category I am entitled to a prize and that they would be sending it to me in the post in the next few days...

So here it is!


















MOFILM Prize winner after all! Some lovely Philips white candle lights. Only problem is they've got a european mains plug and I live slap bang in the UK. Oh well.