Museums at Night competition Win

So it was a good start to the week, they let me know on Monday that I won the Museums at Night animation competition!

Museums at Night 2010 will run from Friday 14th May to Sunday 16th May. Night owls can look forward to a weekend of nocturnal adventures as museums unlock their doors for the annual after-hours celebration.

The brief was - to produce a short animation (any technique, any style) to promote Museums at Night - our national weekend of late night museum openings. The intention of the animation is to get people to visit the Museums at Night page on the Culture24 website to find an event that they want to go to. Culture24 teamed up with animators Kanoti to select the winner from 25 entries.

Check out the Culture 24 website HERE where my ident will be appearing very soon! (And of course I will also be posting it up on my blog).

Article about my work in DPI magazine - out now!

I am really pleased with this beautiful article, about my work, just published in issue 130 of DPI magazine. Yay!

Little Big Planet for PSP

DPI magazine Taiwan

I have just found out that I am to be featured in an upcoming issue of the beautifully designed DPI magazine from Taiwan ' For the most up-to-date trends in design and innovation...' I will post it up when I get hold of a final copy. Exciting!

ICA panel

On Tuesday night I had fun being on the panel at the ICA (www.ica.org.uk) as part of the London Short film Festival. I stepped in at the last minute as a replacement for Slinky's Chris Shepherd.The discussion was about the future of UK animation and how to get into the industry. It followed a retrospective of work from over the last ten years by animation company Nexus. My fellow panel members were the lovely Chris O'Reilly, Adam and Alan aka Smith & Foulkes from Nexus, and the evening was chaired by Shooting People's James Mullighan.

Little Big Planet commercial for PSP (Playstation portable) airs

Last month I finished directing a 30 second tv commercial for Playstation's Little Big Planet on the PSP. An animated extravaganza combining lots of different techniques - pixellation, stop-motion, and CGI animation - all condensed into a short space of time.

The initial idea for the commercial from Mike Hughes at LOVE creative, was to take the hand-crafted feel of the game with all its amazing textures and materials and combine this with a very fresh, and modern approach to the visuals.

The main character Sackboy is really fun, cute and cool. Just like on the PS3 you can change his outfits and put him in various different moods as you play. This facility for customization means that he appeals to an extremely wide range of people, across different age groups. I wanted to use his charm and personality to full effect in this ad. He is cheeky, energetic and inquisitive and I pushed this in his body language and actions. There is also I hope an injection of humour and cool in the ad which mirrors the feeling of the game itself.

And by the way, if you haven't played the game - get out there and try it!  I have to confess that a few of us, in the crew, were either already hooked or became a little hooked on the game during production. I hold my hands up as one of the latter. The others of you - you know who you are!

The commercial aired for the first time on Wednesday the 18th November. But you can also see it on the Slinky website. Just click on the link top right (of my blog page).

Take a look!

It's turning chilly

I'm glad to be back at Clapham Road Studios in Stockwell, shooting a new commercial for Playstation. It's a mixture of stop-motion, pixellation and CGI and I'm really enjoying all the different elements. I'm currently wearing two jumpers and a scarf though because it's gotten a bit chilly lately.