New Showreel for 2013

DRUMROLL PLEASE!

Erm… Close enough.

Allow me to introduce my new showreel to y’all!

This is a long overdue update on my old showreel, which is now over 3 years out of date, and includes music videos for The Low Anthem, Efterklang, Allo Darlin’ and Liz Green, short films and commercial work.

I’m always looking for new interesting work, so if you like what you see, please get in touch.

P.s. I apologise for the use of “y’all” earlier. I’ve been watching Deadwood again.

Sobering Scent

I worked with the Leisure society last year when I made the music video for their track ‘Dust on the Dance Floor’.

The band are a really lovely group of people, and I worked again with Christian on a little viral marketing video later that year.

Since then they’ve been in the studio incubating their new album ‘Alone aboard the ark’.

The artwork for the album was created by Owen Davey, who I’ve known since my art foundation. Owen has worked on many of my videos with me, as well as providing much of the score for my documentary, Little Tibet. He’s a very talented man.

Anyway, before I start writing sonnets…

I was very pleased to get a call from Nick asking if I’d be up for creating a short teaser for the album using a segment of a new track.

Is a bear the catholic?

The track ended up being ‘The Sober Scent of Paper’, which is a beautiful ode to the tragic life of Sylvia Plath.

I knew the video would be another paper animation, but I wanted to try using origami models instead of the cut and glued models I’ve used in the past. I wanted it to appear that the models could simply have grown from the discarded lyrics, left to take life on their own.

I kind of suck at origami, but luckily Bec Boey, from The Matey Institute, is rather a master. So having enslaved her I set about dunking things in fish tanks and constructing make-shift greenscreens.

All in the name of art.

I feel I should mention my Red Lamp here, but I think I’m planing on writing an opus about it someday, so I think
I’ll wait.

In the meantime- I mean, as I was saying…

Here’s the finished video!

If you like what you see, or more importantly what you hear, head of over to Clash Music, where you can download the full track for free and read more about the band.

Laters.

New showreel coming soon.

Flipping the Bird

A well a everybody’s heard about the a bird, b-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word.

The bird is a penguin.

Moving on.

A couple of months back the wonderful people at MediaCore asked me to create a short animation about ‘the flipped classroom’; a new approach to teaching which aims to re-energise the teacher/student relationship.

I’m not going to explain it in any more depth than that, so you’ll have to watch the video below.

I hope you liked it, and I’ll be bringing you something rather more aquatic in the near future.

Walrus says, “Don’t do drugs kids.”

Sadly, by bike has been stolen, but maybe you can help.

End of the Road Festival Trailer

Another festival trailer for you all!

This time it’s for End of the Road Festival, and features yet more paper animation.

Those of you who saw my animation for last year’s festival may recognise one or two shots, but there’s a whole load of new work in there too, including some rather time consuming line-up banners.

There were also some additional icons from the festival, including the boat and disco ball (no, I will not use a ping-pong ball, I will build a sphere from paper. Okay?) and the Somerset Cider Bus.

Also a badger joins the cast of animals this year, who is currently living beside the bear over my fireplace.

No Direction Home

Today I have another animation for you – this time in pencil.

The fine people of End of the Road are starting a new festival called ‘No Direction Home’. It’s based near Sheffield, on the Welbeck estate, and is looking to be another high point of the summer.

We wanted to do a video to get people thinking about the festival,  much like the paper animation I made for End of the Road Festival last year.

Of course the difficult part with a first year festival, is that nobody really knows what it looks like. So after a few site visits to Welbeck and some extended conversations over coffee with Simon, this is what we came up with:

As you can see, a lot of lead went into creating this video, and I’m not sure when my hand’s going to stop cramping, but I have to say I’m rather pleased with it in the end.

(Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the whole ‘robbers-broke-into-my-office-and-stole-my-computer-right-in-the-middle-of-all-this’ story yet.)

One last thing! That beguiling voice you heard  belongs to Beth Jeans Houghton (& and the Hooves of Destiny), who’s album you should go out and buy immediately. And then buy a ticket to No Direction Home. And watch her play there. Whilst listening to the record on a gramaphone.

I’ll see myself out…

Liz Green – Bad Medicine

I’ve just completed a new music video, this time in stop motion!

The song is by the incredibly talented Liz Green, and is called ‘Bad Medicine’.

We were asked to put together an idea for the song a couple of months back. I had a craving to get my hands into a bit more paper animation, and thought it would suit Liz’s voice perfectly. I listened to the song on repeat until a story started to develop in my mind.

Almost all of Liz’s songs tell rather wonderful stories. She refers to them as adult fairy tales. Bad medicine was no exception, telling the story of a man neglected and worn down by the world. There was a sense of unfairness in the tone, and the lyric, “Every man wants more than he did before” which started the cogs turning. That sense of greed, and unfairness, coupled with the repeated line, “We’ve got no way out”, made it clear this would have to end in tragedy.

I wanted it to feel raw, and earthy, and above all, without end. I didn’t want to tell a story with a definite conclusion or happily ever after, but to show that pattern – a murder which would lead to another, and another…

To set the story in the Western frontier seemed a simple choice. It just fitted.

I joked that I wanted to make Deadwood in paper, and to some extent, that’s what I set about doing.

As usual with animations, it was a ridiculous schedule, without much room for sleep. There’s only so many times you can wish your hands where smaller before you have to question your own sanity. Talking to a cardboard tree as the sun came up was a definite low point, but I think it was worth it in the end. Hopefully you do too.

But of course you probably would, as you didn’t have to endure it all did you?

On that point however,  I’d like to give huge thanks to Glenn, Tobias, Clyde, Simon, Jason, Carly and Mr. K, who were all indispensable in keeping my sanity levels just about on the page.

Now here’s some clips of people messing about with paper for a while. Thanks for stopping by!