Cinema 4D is Go...

For the last month or so, I've been spending some of my 'spare' time running the trial version of Cinema 4D. Well I liked it so much, I've now gone and bought the thing: the full 'Studio' version no-less. This is a pretty full 3D visualization, animation and motion graphics tool and I need to get up to speed with it.

I'll probably post a few images and thoughts about this as I go along, so expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing...

Adventures in Cinema 4D: Part 004

Well my trial period of Cinema 4D is nearly at an end, and I pretty much love it! This program is so much more accessible than other 3D software I have used, and it might just be 'the one' for me. There's a lot more I want to do with this...

New Spring 2014 Collection

Here's a new show reel of my directing work. I'm entering a new and somewhat exciting phase in my career now; offering my considerable film-making services direct to clients and agencies.

All of the work on this reel are projects I have directed, with quite a lot of my animation, shooting, compositing and editing in the mix too. Most of what you see are commercial jobs produced during my time with Tandem Films, although there are some freelance projects and clips from my own short films in there too.

I'm very keen to take on more work in the corporate video sector; promotional films, information films and documentary/event shooting too. If you have a video project in mind, please do get in touch an we'll develop your idea further together. Please find my contact details at the end of the reel.

TfL Film update 'Start Your Journey'

The short promotional film I made last year (co-directed with Tobias Fouracre at TANDEM) for Transport for London has been re-released today on the TfL YouTube channel. I've recently been asked by TfL to make a few updates to the film to reflect their continuing development of the tfl.gov.uk website.

Start Your Own Journey depicts a journey into London using the TfL website along the way to provide travel information whilst on the move. The film shows how the tfl.gov.uk website now offers improved functionality to mobile users including location-based information and real-time travel status updates.

The film was made using stop-motion animation to depict a symbolic journey through the city, but simultaneously through the virtual environment of travel information and real-time data. We also think that this treatment helps introduce the TfL Journey Planner as an appealing and user-friendly aid to negotiating the city.

I'm looking to make more informational and promotional web films directly for clients this year. Whether using live action film or graphical animation techniques, such films can help to convey ideas to customers and bring clarity to complex or hard-to-describe conceptual messages.

Please do get in touch if you have a commercial project in mind which might benefit from a promotional film. I've made many TV commercials and promotional films using a variety of techniques and can certainly bring an appropriate and unique treatment to your project too. More of my work in this field can be found at http://www.chrisgavin.com/p/corporates.html

16mm First Test: Kiev Alpha 16 Camera

I took my Kiev Alpha 16 down to the Thames one evening last week to get some test shots. Unfortunately the camera jammed again. However, this time the fault happened some way into the session, after I'd shot about 40 feet or so of film.

Tonight I DIY developed the film. The Film is Kodak 2210 (Black and White negative 'Surveillance ' Film). I processed the film in my home-made spiral processing tank using Ilford ID11 developer. I could see during the film washing that I had some images on the negative, but these seemed especially 'thin'. I think this is general under-exposure, not too surprising for these night-time shots. I put the film strip onto my light box and took a few stills. I'm always happy to see some kind of image for all this effort, but I'm pretty disappointed by the results here.

The focus is pretty awful, and there's probably a light leak here too. I think the focus problems are down to the dodgy eye-piece which moves about freely, making focus monitoring highly unreliable. I was hoping to be blown away by the 16mm frames (after working with so much Super 8) but this didn't really happen tonight.

The negative 16mm film as developed.

Digitally inverted to become a positive image.

Now desaturated to become proper monochrome.

More riverside architecture.

The London assembly building.

So in summary, I've tested out a 'new' camera and an unfamiliar film stock.The results and handling of the camera are somewhat disappointing, but on the other hand, this film works and can be home-processed. I've got a couple more of these 100 foot rolls left, so I'm encouraged to use this type of film again: but the camera... not so much.

I think I might keep an eye out for another 16mm film camera, maybe something Swiss next time.

Simon Draws: Rabbits

Just Released over on the main Simon's Cat YouTube channel, here's another short web video I directed/edited. This is another episode in the on-going series of drawing tutorials I make for Simon's Cat Ltd. In this episode, talented animator and artist Simon Tofield shows us how he draws the Rabbit character from his popular books and animation films.

These tutorial films appear on the Simon's Cat YouTube channel, and have also featured as 'extra content' on the DVD release too.

Adventures in Cinema 4D: Part 003

I'm looking into the C4D dynamics now, and having a little play with the materials too.

Adventures in Cinema 4D: Part 002

I found a tutorial to model some tank tracks, but I made these to my own design. I then managed to figure out for myself how to use the Xpresso editor to rig the wheels and track to move together.

Here's another one; a portable communicator of some kind.

And now it's the all-new TX2 handset from BeigeData.

Adventures in Cinema 4D: Part 001

Today I began the 42 day trial period of Cinema 4D Studio from Maxon. The evalution version lets you try out the full Studio option of the software with saving and rendering of projects enabled. The trial-version is limited by having an output resolution restricted to 800x600. I hope to use some of my 'spare' time to get to know this software and generally become more hands-on with 3D, possibly using this for some of my own projects in the future.

Maybe I'll post a few images as I go along. First-up some simple geometry in order to check out the Sketch and Toon cel-shading options here. I've also been able to make these wheels all spin around together using the Xpresso Editor to link all the movements together. Not bad progress for this session.

It's very early days yet, but I'm already finding this interface a lot easier to use and get into than Maya, I'm encouraged to find out more ...

2014 Directing Showreel

I just thought it might be time to put my showreel together again. So I've cut-in a few newer jobs and fixed the broken link to this on my 'REEL' page. These are mostly jobs I've directed whilst at TANDEM, with a couple of extracts from my own short film projects too.

'The Score' film for Mr. Plastimime

This Behind the Scenes film shows the recording session of the musical score for the new film by Daniel Greaves. This is the seventh short video I've shot/edited in the Making Mr. Plastimime series. I shot this footage in the Slovak Radio auditorium a couple of weeks ago during the 5 hour recording session with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra.

This was certainly one of the most enjoyable days work I've had in a long while. It was really inspirational to be down amongst these incredible musicians and also up in the control room to witness the scoring/recording process first-hand.

The edit for this four and a half minute video took a few days, because I used a separate audio recorded to capture the orchestra sound (for better quality) and had a lot of footage to sync. up in post.

'Cable Car' in Sony Production Awards 2014 Competition

The Sony Production Awards is a competition is open to short films made with any camera. I'm guessing there wont be many other entries shot on Super8 film. My film 'Cable Car' is on there now. If you click on this movie and watch it here, your click and maybe even your vote will be very welcome.

'Hat Trick' film for Mr. Plastimime

Here's the sixth webisode of the Behind The Scenes series I've been shooting/editing at TANDEM in support of Daniel Greaves' Mr. Plastimime project. In this episode, after a discussion with the director, we see how animator Steve Edge creates a scene in stop-motion animation.

Simon Draws: Tabby Cats

Here's another episode in the Simon Draws series of online videos I put together for Simon's Cat Ltd. In this lesson, the inimitable Mr.Simon Tofield shows us how to draw Tabby cats.

Bratislava Bound

Last Friday I had a somewhat interesting day out! I was invited by Daniel Greaves (TANDEM films) to accompany him on a trip to Slovakia to record the score for his new short film Mr. Plastimime.

The Slovak Radio building in Bratislava

The Bratislava Radio building is an immense up-turned pyramid building of early '80s vintage. It's a daring futuristic design and I really love it. Inside, there are miles of gloomy 'widescreen' corridors with concrete panelling everywhere. The auditorium was especially impressive, with an immense pipe organ taking up the entire wall behind the stage.

Composer Mike MacLennan records the piano parts for his score for Mr. Plastimime

Dan was there to supervise the recording of his film's score as composed by Mike MacLennan (Mcasso music). Mike Connaris (composer and MD of Mcasso who wrote the closing song used in the film) also attended the session. The mighty Bratislava Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Musical Director David Hernando Rico.

The Bratislava Symphony Orchestra in full effect.

My role was to document the occasion and make another Behind The Scenes video; the seventh episode in the Making Mr.Plastimime series of videos I've been making over the last year or so.

The incredible musicians of the BSO at the recording session.

I wanted to travel light (Ryan Air cabin luggage only!) and be able to move around stealthily, so I took a small bag with my Canon 600D DSLR camera, 3 lenses (11-16mm wide zoom, 30mm and 50mm) , Rode Video Mic Pro microphone and a Tascam DR-07 mkII audio recorder. I also took a Manfrotto monopod, with a small pan/tilt head and some additional monopod legs too.

I'm editing the orchestra footage this week and I think this is going to be a good episode and quite a bit longer than the previous ones. I hope I will eventually be able to share this new film at a later date , but in the meantime here I'm sharing a few stills from the session. 

Most of the previous videos I've made in this series are now publicly available online on TANDEM's Vimeo page. Here are the first 6 episodes of the Making Mr. Plastimime series.

2014 BAA prize

Every two years, at the British Animation Awards night, the cream of the UK animation 'industry' gather together for one rare night of celebration at the National Film Theatre. I was fortunate enough to be a finalist back in 2010 when my film TXT ISLAND made it into the last three in competition for the 'Best Short Film' award. Although TXT ISLAND wasn't a winner, it was great to have my film up there amongst the finalists. Professionally I can say that's been the high water mark of my career thusfar...

So it was an honour to be invited by Jayne Pilling (who tirelessly puts the whole BAA thing together) to create one of the prizes for this year's 2014 BAA awards. At each ceremony, the prizes are always hand-made artworks created by animators selected by Jayne and her team from previous winners and finalists. On the big night, the prize-winners each receive one of these unique awards rather than the usual plaque or statuette one might expect.

The brief for the design of the prizes is 'create some kind of artwork that alludes to Britishness, animation and ... sheep'. Sheep, because the acronym of British Animation Awards is of course ... BAA.

 

So here is my contribution to the occasion. I've used plastic lettering and pegboard material left-over from the production of TXT ISLAND to make this typographic artwork. I wish good luck to all participants in this year's BAAs, to the prize-winners of course, but especially the runners-up ; )

The Secret Nuclear Bunker (First Visit)

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day underground at the 'Secret Nuclear Bunker' at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex. It's a special, if rather eerie place; very evocative of the Cold War era.

I took my Nizo super8 camera, a tripod and a couple of small LED video lights and shot one cartridge of the Argenti B&W negative film down there. I found plenty of interesting things to shoot, but unfortunately encountered a jam on the second cartridge I tried to use that day. Although I was in there for four to five hours, I just ran out of time!

Anyway, this week I processed the first film cartridge (standard B&W Ilford ID11 processing) in my DIY spiral processing tank.

I then re-photographed some of the tiny 8mm film frames with my DSLR camera to get some still images like these...

Tonight I'm scanning the first 50 feet of Super 8 film frame by frame using my DIY super8 film digitizer. As I write this, the system is clicking away.

The current version of this device uses 4 stepper motors and some 3D printed sprocket wheels to drive the film and manage the feed and take-up spools. The motors are controlled by an Arduino micro-controller card and a DIY 'breadboard' circuit. The Arduino has been programmed to advance the film, trigger the Canon DSLR camera to shoot a frame, then wait a short while for the frame to be saved before repeating the process. I'm pleased to say I've finally got this capturing process automated, but it does take around three seconds to capture each frame of the cine film. If you 'do the math', that's almost four hours to scan a whole 50 feet (around 3 minutes) of film.

This process is very slow but does give very high-res images of the Super8 frames. The registration isn't perfect, but close enough to be fixed in post production using the After Effects stabilizer. Needless to say, this part of the process is very slow and tedious too.

I hope to get back to the bunker soon to shoot more footage there. Now that I've visited the place once, I'm getting a much better sense of the place and ideas for the kind of shots I'd like to come back with.

Late Adopter

Well I've finally got one of these new-fangled 'smart' phones without any buttons on. But don't be expecting to see photos of amusing pets and the stuff I'm about to eat...

Russian cine camera from the 1970s, the Kiev Alpha 16

TXT ISLAND in Cable Car Screening !

My 2009 animated short film TXT ISLAND certainly made it to lots of screenings and festivals in its day, but none so 'elevated' as this weekend's screenings at the popular Austrian ski resort of Lech.

In what looks to be a fine weekend of revelry and culture, animated short films are presented inside the cable car cabins for the entertainment of festival goers as they soar above the snow-clad mountains. I'm very proud to have had my film selected as part of this event.

The Cineastic Gondolas Festival brings together music, film and ... cable cars, a winning combination for sure; as readers of this blog will already know... I'm really quite fond of cable cars.

Simon's Real Cats

Here's another short video I've just put together for Simon's Cat Ltd. in which Simon Tofield (the creator of the Simon's Cat cartoons) tells us all about his own real cats.

We created a moving collage of Simon's drawings and photos to carry the story along. compositing/editing is done in Adobe After Effects.

Once again, music and sound mix is by Russell Pay (a.k.a.'Shrooty').