Top Secret Test

This is a test movie I made and uploaded to YouTube. It's private though, so you can't see it!

TXT ISLAND on Best of Animation 5 DVD

Well I had a nice birthday surprise yesterday. A big cardboard box couriered to my house with 20 copies of the new 'Best of Animation 5' DVD inside. The compilation is put together by the good people of the Stuttgart animation festival and includes their pick of ten films from the 2010 edition. There are many fine short films to be seen here and TXT ISLAND too! It's a genuine honour to have my bit of work included on this, many thanks again to Andrea and her team in Stuttgart.

Here's the DVD running order, a most international selection of world-class shorts...

'A Family Portrait' dir. Joseph Pierce
'Horn Dog' dir. Bill Plympton
'La dama y la muerte' dir. Javier Recio Gracia
'Logorama' dir. Francois Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain
'Love & Theft' dir. Andreas Hykade
'Prayers for Peace' dir. Dustin Grella
'Runaway' dir.Cordell Barker
'Sam’s Hot Dogs' dir. David López Retamero
'TXT Island' dir. Chris Gavin
'YELLOW CAKE' dir. Nick Cross

World's Most Awesomest Police Video (animation)

Well, I've been known to stay up late watching whatever captivating nonsense appears on our Freeview channels. I've noticed a whole genre of police chase action videos. The US ones are especially intriguing, blending a thrill-seeking voyeurism with a moralistic 'crime never pays' narrative. I'm really quite attracted to this idea of TV trying to have its cake and eat it too. Here's my little pastiche/tribute to the genre.

Little Flash Test Thing

Well I snatched a little moment at the end of this royal wedding bank holiday weekend to do a bit of my thing. I genuinely don't know what this is all about, but I sat down with Flash and here's what popped out...

Our Tragic Universe

Here's the latest short film I have just made for Canongate Books. This movie will be used to promote 'Our Tragic Universe' the new novel by Scarlett Thomas.

Motion Control Rotations

A couple of the many rotating objects I've been shooting for my latest CanonGate Books short film. As described in the earlier post, I'm using a geared down stepper motor which can be controlled from my PC (using a Stepper Bee motor controller card).

My initial plan was to shoot these all these rotations as stop motion, but with motor control and the Canon 550D's HD video recording, I was presented with the opportunity to shoot these as continuous live-action. I set the motor to do just over a full rotation at quite a slow speed, knowing that I'd be able to edit and time remap the footage later... This simple rig works pretty well; super-smooth results and a bunch of time saved.

Russians On The Moon

 

I just love this picture I 'found' on the BBC website. It was Yuri Gagarin Day yesterday, so the BBC website ran an article about what could have been if The Americans hadn't made it to the moon first. I really like how this illustration paints a whole alternate universe, plus it's got that Sci-Fi comic look I'm quite partial to. I'd like to see more of this, but the BBC don't seem to have credited the image. I'd welcome any links to where I can see more of this kind of thing...

Adventures in DIY: Motion Control Rig

For the next stop motion short film I'm currently making for Canongate Books, I found that I needed to shoot accurate rotations of many small three dimensional objects. This seemed like a good application for the geared stepper motor and Stepper Bee controller board that I've had lying around since my long-abandoned DIY film scanning project.

I dug the bits out, rigged up a small stand to hold a bearing and (after a bit of fiddling about with O-rings) the stepper motor drives an 8mm threaded shaft that I can attach my objects to. The stepper motor already enables pretty fine control (it's rate at 1.8 degrees per step) but with the gearing still attached, it actually takes around 700 steps to perform a full rotation.

The AutoStep software that comes with the Stepper Bee card is pretty basic but allows me to set the number of steps and duration of each step.

It all works a treat, I can shoot the rotating objects in single steps (for stop motion shooting) or allow the motor to run continuously at a controlled speed (for live action shooting).

Technically this IS motion control, albeit a simplified single motor rotation-only motion control.
Here's the rig...

DIY Motion Control Rig: Stepper motor drives gears then an o-ring drives 8mm threaded shaft. Note the Stepper Bee card with DC power cable and USB cable to host PC.

Some Little Hands Clapping Models

Here's a little 'behind the scenes' look at some of the paper / card models I made for the 'Little Hands Clapping' film. The visual idea was to make all of the elements appear to be made from the text of the book itself. 

Little Hands Clapping

For the last 3 weeks, I've mostly been making this. It's a one minute short film which will be used by publisher Canongate Books to help promote the paperback release of 'Little Hands Clapping' the latest novel from author Dan Rhodes.
I'll possibly blog a little more information about how this was made shortly...

Home Studio

Here's a little glimpse into my home studio set-up for some small scale stop-motion animation work. I'm using the Canon 550d here with Stop Motion Pro; finally a good live view-capable system is in my grasp :) This shoot is lots of quite simple things, small models made from paper etc.
I bought a couple of laboratory-style retort stands yesterday. These have a certain nerd-appeal but are also damn handy as desktop stands, small and versatile and ideal for this mini stop-mo work.
Maybe I'll post a bit more about this work once it's done.

Stuttgart 10

Back in May 2010, I was invited to Germany by the organisers of the Stuttgart Animation Festival. TXT ISLAND showed there in the International Competition programme. I was in Stuttgart for three days; here's a little montage of touristy clips. I've only just got around to putting this together over the Christmas break.

I'd just discovered that Sam's little Panasonic Lumix FX150 camera could shoot HD video (1280x720 @24fps) at this point , so I was shooting everything in 'movie mode'.


Stuttgart 10 : shortfilm by chrisgavin from Chris Gavin on Vimeo.

La Nuova Sardegna (Again)

There also isn't much else happening on the island on the 19th of September 2010, So La Nuova Sardegna again run with the Chris Gavin story :) Thanks to Nicolò Ceccarelli
for sending the clipping.

La Nuova Sardegna (Again)

The 18th September 2010 is a slow news day in Sardinia, so La Nuova Sardegna runs with Chris Gavin's visit to the AniMatti summer school. Thanks to Nicolò Ceccarelli for sending the clipping.

And in La Nuova Sardegna ...

La Nuova Sardegna runs with the upcoming visit to the island by Chris Gavin ;) Thanks to Nicolò Ceccarelli
for sending the clipping.

Lanzarote Holiday Photos

Just back from a week's holiday with the family and here are a few snaps from the trip.  I recently bought a 'new' lens for my Canon 350d stills camera. Loving this retro Pentacon 50mm f1.8. It's got a proper aperture ring  and manual everything; makes it fun to take pictures again

Several places here have the feeling of Bond film locations; burrowed out from the volcanic rock, then kitted out with pools and palm trees. This is the lagoon at the Jameos del Agua, only the King of Spain gets to swim in there.

The cave lagoon at the Jameos, featuring rare albino crabs.

El Golfo on the West coast, now a string of fish restaurants where the lava once met the sea.

There are a lotta cacti on this island. This specimen is to be found in the garden of the Fundación César Manrique; it's as big as a tree. The gallery was once Manrique's house, it's a modern building with rooms below hewn from 'bubbles' in the solidified lava: it's very impressive.

I liked this wrecked cargo ship so much, I came twice to take photos. The first time, a pesky hound was not keen to have me mooching about on its patch.

Sunset over Costa Teguise, our home from home for the week.

TXT ISLAND The Interview

Way back last Autumn whilst at the Onedotzero festival (at the BFI Southbank) I was interviewed about TXT ISLAND. I must have had a lot to say; these folks have only just now finished the editing and it's July now ;) Hardly a scoop, but here I am on the Onedotzero Vimeo channel.

Annecy 2010

Just come back from the Annecy Animation Festival. My film TXT ISLAND was showing in the 'Out of Competition' selection and had three screenings. Could only make it for the long weekend, but worth the effort nonetheless. Lots of animated short films to see, met some fine people and made it to a few parties too.

Annecy is a fine old place, a medieval town by a lake, surrounded by mountains and a river there's a river runs through it...
Like any french high street there are lots of these animated neon pharmacy signs, I'm collecting these...
The foyer of the Bonlieu Centre is the epicentre of this huge and sprawling festival. As of this year it's been going for 50 years now. Somewhere under one of those umbrellas, Nick Park is signing books etc.


Tartiflette is the local dish here. Potatoes with runny cheese on top. Reblochon seems to feature heavily in the cuisine of the Savoie.

The Argentine Film Board threw a fine party at a local bowling alley / nightclub venue. Here we see an acrobat in an over-sized hula hoop.
Followed by a fine demonstration of Argentine tango.
 

Splendid impromptu music-making at the lakeside picnic. That's David Silverman (Simpsons director) on tuba.

It's the closing night ceremony. Prizes are given and the giant balls are released.

Last morning trudge down the hill from the campsite. Head for the TGV station and as  the town awakes we bid a fond farewell to this fine city of animated festivalness..

Living the Brand

Our model wears the classic TXT ISLAND 'logo' T-shirt, seen here in black but available in many other colours at the TXT ISLAND shop.