a reel

Finished my showreel. It is mostly made up of commercial things I've been working on in the past couple of years but also contains some clips of 'The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother' if you are interested in seeing any of that at all.

The music is by 'ok' - the same band who feature in my little 'i can't colour in' animations. Joe Paine is in that band - he is the man who has done the soundtracks for both my films.

Felix Massie 2009 showreel.

Keith Reynolds at Sundance 2009

Got back from Sundance on Friday. Saw my film twice while there and was nice to see it on 35mm. I even got to stand on stage to say hello and look like a goon.

I only managed to see two other shorts there - the rest were features. My favourites were 'Dare', 'Bronson' and 'Peter and Valdy Vandy'.

Didn't meet Scott Johnson.

I drank two Buds, ate bison rib eye steak, pancakes, pizza and a meatball sub, threw snowballs, built a snowman, sent postcards, watched Obama's inauguration, got some free boots, a free jacket, hat, gloves, socks, and crystal ashtray, went to a 7-eleven, tried a Twinky, lost my luggage, met someone who has met Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, saw Kevin Spacey, didn't see Kevin Bacon and felt left out because I didn't have a Blackberry.

20000000000000000009

Booked my flight to Sundance. Matthew Walker has booked the accommodation. We should both be there from the 17th to 22nd January.

Until then I am working on a new film idea and also going to make a showreel.

Happy new year.

Things that never made it.

This shot never made it into the final edit of '...Francis Cooper...' but it was one of my favourite backgrounds. Nevermind. I also did a spinning bike wheel and a kitchen floor. Here they all are...

Keith Reynolds homecoming

'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' is in the official selection for International Animated Shorts at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. This is not far from where Scott Johnson, the narrator, comes from. Thanks to the British Council and their grant gun I'm going to be going and so begins my quest to finally meet Scott Johnson and finally make him see the film (on 35mm film - I can't wait to see it on that).

Problem #1

1. When I put my car in with a basic unfinished house shape it doesn't work anymore.

toy car.

Finished the outside of my car and moved it around a bit. Needs lights.

composition: move car around - day 1

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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The end of Encounters Film Festival 2008

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.

Proposals again

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.