I made this whilst messing around animating in my sink. I used Rose's eyeliner to animate with, not sure if I'm in trouble for that one. Feel free to comment on it here or on vimeo, I'd like to know what you think.

Here are some images of my ferris wheel I'm making for the advert for vocational studies. It will be included as part of Birmingham with other iconic buildings, and then be used as a set for our idea.





It still might need a bit of work to make it look like a ferris wheel, such a spindles going out from the centre.

These are some weird experiments, I've been illustrating on things at the moment looking for potential to turn them into animation. The babies look like they're in some sort of guitar-womb.

Here's a scene I really liked from the recent documentary "Age of the stupid", it's brought to life by Jonathan Hodgson, the same animator that did "The man with the beautiful eyes", another of my favourite animations. This scene is so well executed and intergrated into the film, it provides some relief from the BBC-esque interview style, yet gets its message across more effectively. Not to mention being a wonder to look at.

People should go out and watch this film, it makes a change from the various shockumentaries floating around, covering issues that don't mean much.

Age of the stupid trailer

Shake the world is a non-profit documentary experiment, where people all over the world film something to do with their life for 60 seconds. How easy is that! It has to be at 12PM on April 11th, and then they're going composite parts of people's footage to make a documentary out of the world at that point in time. I was attracted to it after watching the animated adverts below, but the intructions of the idea can watched here, http://vimeo.com/3527159

I'm also currently working on a short 33 second animation for the Dante's Inferno competition that's been set by EA. Here's a quick test I did, it's incredibly short and it might not end up anything like this, but I already know a few things I'd like to try out for this piece.

1.I'll be animating on my own body
2.It's gonna be f*@£?ed up

http://dantesinferno.eagames.co.uk/

Here's the Baskerville film that I helped animate recently. It's doing the rounds at festivals all over the world now, so here's to Johnny B, and lets hope he's not spinning in his grave too fast now that someone's gone against his request and actually given him one.

With Saturday being so hectic and full of cool goings on, we decided to overdo it on the Saturday and leave the Sunday completely, otherwise we run the risk of our brains and eyes becoming runny.


MEGUNICA
Megunica demonstrates the anti-consumerist and anti-materialist values of a group of down to earth street artists that tour south American countries painting their wall murals wherever they feel an area could do with livening up, regardless of what the corrupt locl police force has to say about it. The main character, Blu, actually doesn't even show his face properly on camera. Rejecting any posibilities of becoming an overnight celebrity due to his recent, 4million views strong, much talked about, wall animation.

I could be wrong, but this is one artist that people are probably gonna go crazy over, but you can guarantee he won't be selling his sketches to the TATE next week for millions. Blu stands for something else, and he feels strongly about it.





STYLE WARS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-d_9il1Iao
This feature length film can be watched in sections on youtube for anyone interested, it provides a unique insight into the emerging street culture of 1982 The Bronx, NY. What surpirsed me the most was their attitudes to life and their work, and would go as far as saying that these guys were possibly the last great art movement. What has there been since? unmade beds?

These guys get up at midnight when the trains are going away for the night, and head on down to the trainyards, where they create things, all night until the sun comes up. Then they head on down to the hardwar store where they steal any materials they need, whereby they go back to their bedrooms and practise all over their walls ready for the next evening. Free people, using "free" materials, to create art for people for free. The movement slowly died out with the city planning taking a firmer stance on it, due to public pressure from stiffs in suits complaining about seeing it on the way to work.



VARMINTS
I had high hopes for this one, and although it was very well crafted in CG, it was ultimately a bit dull and tedious. I loved the creatures moving these huge skyscraperrs clumsily knocking into each other, it was quite obviously saying something about cities and development but then it lost me at the point where he seemed to die a few times over and the glowing acorn attaches itself to a building and becomes a giant flying jellyfish...



CODSWALLOP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTM1_PtFHzA
Seen this a few times now, but the Q&A that took place before it was interesting enough to tell about. The dialogue is taken from either of the animators thoughts, or random conversations they've overhead in the street. The concept came from a film clip where a woman is watching a train going past and she can see things happening in each of the trains windows, it's also framed in a similar way. I think the clip they saw is off Pervert's guide to cinema, might have a look for that in a bit.

Wow, tons of stuff to talk about from the first day of Flatpack festival for me. Moon dreams was an eclectic mix of animation and live action short films with a lunar theme, and I found out about director Chris Marker. HOW have I not heard of him until now? A major influence on Terry Gilliam, here's the film we saw last night, 10 years before that famous intor for monty python I might add:


Paper cinema was something else though. What a simple idea and how effective in the the way it was delivered. It involves someone at the front of the audience moving illustrations around like puppets, in front of a camera that is being projected for everyone to see. It's live animation, accompanied by a musician "Kora" to make for a unique experience. This is a badly done video I made last night. The story was taken from an Edgar Allen Poe short story.




User powered cinema idea, I did this in the dark, that's my excuse.


The films and animations shown tonight helped me sort some ideas out with my own work, as well as the help that Chris Shepperd gave me earlier on. Expect updates on how that's going very soon.
Saturday is the best day for animation though, the short documentary "Megunica" has made feel like a 5 year old waiting for christmas day again.

more photos below:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1138/3352637083_1eaac10fab_b.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1078/3352637313_ec783b053e_b.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/3352637763_3beebae0a1_b.jpg

These ideas are a starting point for my major negotiated study. I'm taking the approach of making visuals and then creating a context around them, like a lot of animators do.

Something I did on my plate when I found I'd been using my eggcup to store ink...

I've just found out that Second home are in the process of making a animation that uses dramatic scale. The test for the animation will be shown at shorts on walls this Saturday, so I can't wait see more of it. Take a look at the video below..

I can now work in HD effectively, after following tutorials and workshops on it. Might as well start sticking this logo on my work mwahahaha

Flatpack is just next week and there are so many good films, my backside will be numb for months. If anyone wants to come along to any of these as well then the more the merrier!

Megunica -doc about the street animator BLU (won't miss this for the world)

Bafta animated shorts -seeing this for varmints alone, as i love the book, and craste's stuff

One night in one city -czech animation about the inhabitants of a city, supposedly aardman-like

In a dream -doc about a philadelphia mural artist

These are the minicards we had made to help promote our installation piece. We've left these around leaflet hotspots and shop counters in Birmingham. Hopefully more people will visit but they're nice as they are, and act as a business card as well as directing people towards the piece.



We found that when people see there are a four different cards, they want all of them, so maybe a collectible cards idea is something that I should carry on doing for otehr promotional media.

I'm really pleased with the quality of them, especially the for the price. I'll be using Moo to print promotional material alot more.

Here are some shots of the installation piece finally setup in the window.
http://www.flatpackfestival.org/blog/2009/03/06/launched/

This is the animation we created for Flatpack. The idea was to create some interesting visuals that would grab people's attention as they pass by in the street, so bare in mind it is out of context slightly. It was then put in the shop window of Up and Runnning, temple street, where we made the window space look appealing as well by using bits of card etc.

The video is there until the 16th of March, so if you are around Birmingham anytime soon then feel free to stop by and have a look.


A Graveyard Romance - Flatpack 09 installation trail from Alec Chalmers on Vimeo.