I didn't get a Blue Peter badge

There's going to be a thing about the TATE movie on Blue Peter on Tuesday 14th! Andy Akinwolere came into Aardman the other day to do some filming and talk to Sarah (who's directing it all) and I spent a few days animating Ronnie, the director, saying some stuff to the presenters; to find out what he says make sure you tune in at 4.30 to watch it! I will watch it... even though they wouldn't give me a Blue Peter badge.

Toronto Zoo Polar Bears - be sure to see them ads

Last month, maybe the one before, I spent a couple of days working on a commercial directed by Matthew Walker for Toronto Zoo. There were four spots in all but you can see the one I did below:



Was a lot of fun to do especially because it's a bit like Matt's short film John and Karen which I really like and which you can see a clip of here: http://vimeo.com/1922334

Directed by Matthew Walker, produced at Arthur Cox for Aardman animations for Lowe Roche for Toronto Zoo.

The TATE Movie Project!

For a few months this year I've been working away on the character design and animation for the TATE Movie Project website. Today is the launch day so you can go see it all and have a look around the virtual film studio at www.TATEmovie.co.uk!

To find out more about what it is all about there is a good article on Creative Review - will be interesting to see how it all turns out!

It's directed by Sarah Cox of Arthur Cox Ltd; Robin Davey did the backgrounds; and it was all put together by lots of clever people at Aardman Digital who are hopefully resting their brains for a little bit now.

Nice mention of Francis Cooper from Atlanta

Came across a nice little mention of The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother by Mark Flindall, the programming co-ordinator of Atlantic Film Festival...

A movie I recently programmed that I consider to be a great personal discovery: We definitely didn’t premiere it, not even close, but I really loved the short The Surprise Demise of Francis Cooper’s Mother. It really felt like something special, and it’s also a pretty good distillation of my personal taste in film. It’s deeply weird, animated, has cats in it, perfect narration, and the suggestion that life goes on no matter how stupid, insane or unsuitable for life we may be. Which is actually kind of an amazing statement. Did I mention it has cats?

http://www.filmfestivalsecrets.com/2010/06/programmer-profile-mark-flindall-atlantic-film-festival/

Keith Reynolds in the Animation Show of Shows!

Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight is now one of the films in the brilliant ACME Filmworks Animation Show of Shows DVDs. He's in volume 27 and you can buy a copy here! Very happy to be on a DVD with Harvie Krumpet because he's great.



And you can see a small section of the film about 3mins12seconds into this video...

Peter Peel is here

I've finally actually put my web-series on the web! Go to www.PeterPeel.com or watch it on YouTube here...


More Peter Peel at www.PeterPeel.com!

It honestly wasn't supposed to take so long but I realised that if I waited until tomorrow it would be exactly seven years since I last put something (The Pan) on Newgrounds and it made me a bit depressed. Hope you like him. He was animated in Flash and then composited in After Effects as usual. Look out for episode 2 soon (I swear).

Francis Cooper on a roof in New York

The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother is being shown on a roof in New York tomorrow (Friday). If you live in New York and aren't afraid of heights go and watch it! More details about rooftop films here and you can read a little interview they did with me here.



Where:
Open Road Rooftop above New Design High School
350 Grand St. @ Essex
Lower East Side, Manhattan

When:
8:00 Doors Open
8:30 Live Music
9:00 Films begin
11:30 After Party with FREE Radeberger Pilsner at Fontana's (105 Eldridge St.)

Mother of Many by Emma Lazenby online for a little bit

Mother of Many, Emma Lazenby's BAFTA winning short film I worked on at Arthur Cox last year is online for a little bit for the NFBC Film Festival online competition.

Watch is quick before it's too late (and if you like it click the thumbs up button on the YouTube page here to vote for it to win!)...



Some more reviews ranging from:

Stunning. Beautiful. I love it.

Truly amazing!!

Slightly difficult to watch but so are many great things. Beautiful sound and animation.

to:

Disgusting.

:o

Sigur Ros/Music Matters reviews

The Music Matters thing seemed to go down quite well. Mine got over 35,000 views from the video counts I saw so that's nice. Reviews ranged from,

"you combine the music with awesome vidoe,footage. thks greets from germany =)"

to

"I think we can all agree that this video was a letdown which made little sense."

You can't please everyone! If you missed it click here.

Why Music Matters - Sigur Rós

Before Christmas I made a short film at Arthur Cox Ltd, produced by Aardman, for the Why Music Matters campaign. The idea was to pick a musical artist from the big long list of EMI artists and say why music matters. I chose the band Sigur Rós because I had a friend in university who kissed a girl on an A-road over-pass in the rain one night, and he said it was so incredibly emotional he imagined a movie camera spinning around them both while the sparkling rain fell in slow motion and Sigur Rós played. I found that funny and wanted to show how people match their surroundings and experiences with music, and vice versa.

Here it is:

You can join the music matters Facebook page, follow them on Twitter or read more about it on the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, MojoMusic and Rough Trade Records websites.