New Experimental Video: 'SnowTunes'

Here's that snow footage again. This time I've added some experimental 'noodling' to it. All sorts of After Effects fun here; tracking the snowflakes then using AE scripting to drive the animation and create the 'musical' sound track. There's a little bit of coding here generating the tones from the tracking co-ordinates.

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Clean-up Animation'

Here's the second in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode animator Setareh Seto describes her approach to the clean-up work.

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Rough Animation'

Here's the first in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode animator Laura Nailor describes her approach to the rough animation work.

New Video: 'Making 3D Letters'

Many posts ago here I wrote about making some simple 3D letters from card. Well, I've now made a video showing how this is done in more detail.

The video demonstrates how to use Adobe Illustrator to create the letter templates, then the cutting, scoring, folding and gluing process.

I hope some readers and viewers of the video find it useful.

'Snowmotion' @96fps

Well it doesn't snow very often here in the London suburbs. So when it does happen, I shoot a little test film. Take a little break from your busy day and enjoy ... 'Snowmotion'. Shot with Panasonic GH4 camera, Lumix 35-100mm f2.8 lens, 1920x1080 @ 96 fps.

Motion Graphics for new "Hammer Horror" documentary.

My old friend Marcus Hearn has directed a new feature length documentary all about Hammer Horror films from the late60s/early70s. Fans of these classic movies should definitely look out for "Hammer Horror the Warner Bros Years" coming soon. I had great fun providing some motion graphics for this in a somewhat retro styley adding plenty of film weave, light leaks and dodgy 'opticals', all rendered in a suitably diabolic palette of red and black of course .... Mwa ha ha. Taste ze trailer here ...

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep08 'Hunting'

Here's the eighth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

'Bear Hunt' Behind the Scenes

Channel 4 have released a lovely 'Making Of' film about our work on "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" at Lupus Films. I'm really proud to have been a part of this whole thing. There's even a shot of me chatting to the book's original illustrator Helen Oxenbury as we were putting together the snow storm sequence ... 1:39-1:45 ; )

Back From the 'Bear Hunt.'

Well I've not posted much to this blog recently, and now I can reveal the reason! For the last 6 months I've been working in at Lupus Films where we have been making "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" for Channel Four TV here in the UK. The half hour animated special will be shown on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but the official trailer has been released online now, so you can have a peek at what's to come. The film is successfully delivered now, so my role as Lead Compositor is done. Back to more freelance projects now, and once again, very much available for new work ; )

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep07 'Feeding'

Here's the seventh episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep06 'Cleaning

Here's the sixth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep05 'Sleeping Places'

Here's the fifth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

New Video: CAR SHOW (Enfield Motor Pageant)

This is a mini-documentary shot in Enfield UK on Bank Holiday Monday 30/05/16.

I've been making a lot of corporate films and content for the Simon's Cat channel recently, but not really had any time to make any of 'my own stuff'. Earlier this year I bought a pre-owned Panasonic GH4, I hadn't spent much time with this camera yet, so I took it along to a local classic car show for a few hours...

I was just 'collecting' shots really, but then towards the end of my afternoon at the show I met the M.C. for the event 'Baz'. In between making announcements, he agreed to sit down with me in the commentary booth to record a short interview which I captured using my Tascam DR07MKii recorder.

In the edit, I thought it might be nice to string the footage of the show together around this audio interview, and see if the whole thing would work without any 'talking head' sync. interview at all.

Anyway, for those interested in the gear used, this was all shot on the GH4 using just one lens, the Canon 50mm f1.4 (adapted with the Speedbooster XL). I used a Tiffen VariND to keep the aperture wide open, so most of this was shot at the f1.4 stop! Everyone else is probably getting a bit tired of the 'shallow DOF' look by now, but I'm very late to the party and still wanted to see how much of this I could get with the little micro 4/3 sensor. I've probably overdone that somewhat... Also, I never had a camera with 96 fps before either, so I couldn't resist using that a lot too. All the normal speed footage was shot 4K in the UHD/25fps mode. To grade this I applied FilmConvert using pretty much the 'Fuji Provia' preset and occasional aperture adjustment on some shots.

I made this film just to 'scratch an itch' really: I wanted to shoot and edit a little project speedily and just put it out there ...

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep04 'Boxes'

Here's the fourth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting-together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep03 'Let Me In / Let Me Out'

Here's the third episode of 'Simon's Cat Logic'. This is the web series I make for Simon's Cat Ltd. Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield and cat behaviour expert Nicky Trevorrow discuss the 'ins and outs' of cat behaviour.

Music Video: 'Hopes & Dreams'

Here's a music video I've just made for singer/songwriter Joe Burch. We shot this on one rainy February Saturday a couple of weeks ago in Islington. Joe has just published this to his YouTube channel and social networks, so I'm now able to link up to it here. It was great fun shooting with Joe that day, and we had to work pretty quickly to get all of this together.

Simon's Cat Logic: ep2 gets a million views

Here's the second episode in the web series Simon's Cat Logic I put together for Simon's Cat Ltd. Launched for Valentine's Day a couple of weeks ago, this episode asks 'Do cats fall in love?'. The series features Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield together with cat behaviour expert Nicky Trevorrow and is a Simon's Cat/Cats Protection collaboration.

New Explainer Video made for IFRS

I have just delivered this short two minute explainer video for IFRS. International Financial Reporting Standards provide a way of reporting financial data that is rapidly gaining acceptance worldwide as the defacto standard for financial reporting.

Needless to say the subject matter has it's complications, but I think the client did a great job in honing their script down to the essential messages. The result is a video which explains IFRS to newcomers in just enough detail to hopefully stimulate their further interest.

Above is the link to the English language version, but I have also delivered a version with a voice-over in Spanish too.

New Video Series: Simon's Cat Logic

This is the first episode of a new series of videos I'm putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. It's a fun and factual series of videos featuring Simon Tofield talking about his work with cat behaviour tips from Nicky Trevorrow of Cats Protection.

The live action interviews were shot using the Canon C100 camera (both mark 1 & 2 models were used here), the first edit is done in Premiere then the fancy second edit in After Effects.

I hope the Internet enjoy this video, there are more to follow ...

New Promo Video for the Carpet Design Awards 2016

This is the online video I've just delivered to help promote the Carpet Design Awards 2016. The annual event takes place in Hanover Germany each January and is a showcase for all the best in contemporary carpet design. I directed, made the motion graphics and edited this promo video. The video includes video footage from the previous show which I didn't shoot.

The production was made for Hali Publications Ltd., the same firm I delivered the 'Ottoman Art' exhibition film for last year.