NEW COMPOSITING SHOWREEL 2018

This 2018 showreel showcases some of my more recent compositing and motion graphics work. I have been working professionally in animation production for over twenty years. I've been employed for A LOT of that time as an animation compositor.

In around 2002 I switched from Animo and Toonz, to working in Adobe After Effects. All of the work seen here has been comped in that software. Some of the work is from larger projects at studios such as Nexus, Lupus, Tandem, Not To Scale etc. and other clips are from smaller projects I've undertaken independently as a freelance commercial film-maker.

If you'd like to hire me to work in your animation studio, or work as a director/producer for your next video, please do drop me an email at chris@chrisgavin.com

New Video: 'Secur'IT' promo video for Kaspersky

Here's a promo video Kaspersky Labs are using online to launch and promote their 'Secur'IT' competition for students. This link shows the movie as it is now published over on the Kaspersky YouTube channel.

I delivered this video a couple of weeks back working for agency 90Seconds. I helped the client to helped edit their script, then created this cut using stock images/footage.

There's also a French version here ...

The old DIY super8 film scanner project rides again !

Well I've been at home this last month and sorting through a lot of old things. High on a shelf in my studio I found a plastic box with my abandoned cine film digitizing project inside; so I dusted it off a bit and decided to see if I could get it running again.

Amazingly it DOES seem to be working!

I documented this project a bit back in the day. I stopped working on all this cine film stuff around 2014 when I had more pressing work/life commitments to attend to.

So not only have I now got it up and runnig again, but I've even made some small improvements! I've got the device working now with my newer Panasonic GH4 camera rather than the Canon 600D DSLR I was using before. I figure that the smaller micro 4/3 sensor is better for this application requiring less extreme macro magnification than the larger APSC sensor needed. Also the GH4 has an 'electronic shutter' mode which should be a lot more durable than the all-mechanical shutter on the Canon DSLR.

The electronic triggering circuit of my device needed a slight modification to trigger the shutter of the GH4. But I got it working after some web searching and a few hours of further tinkering.

So to show the world the current status of this project I've made this short video...

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic,'Missing Cats'

Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This episode looks into what do do if your cat goes missing.

New Video: 'Car Show 2018' shot in WIDESCREEN ANAMORPHIC

I took my camera to the local car show (The Enfield Pageant of Motoring) again over the weekend, and this is what I saw there ...



This time, I decided to add my anamorphic adaptor in to the mix. I've had the Panasonic LA7200 for quite a long time and used it on many of my super8 cine film projects. Super 8 is usually a 4x3 ratio format, so this 1.33X anamorphic adaptor enables 16x9 shooting instead.

When you add the adaptor to a camera already shooting 16x9 ratio then you get an even wider wider aspect ratio. So instead of 1920x1080 (16x9 HD) the adaptor enables shooting at 2560x1080. So with this adaptor I'm getting a super-wide ratio of 2.37:1.

I used my Panasonic GH4 camera to shoot this. As I love the 96fps clow-mo mode so much, most of the footage was shot at 1920x1080 FHD size rather than the 4K mode the camera is better known for. In premiere I interpreted the footage with a 1.333 Pixel aspect ratio to effectively 'stretch' the footage wider in post. I then exported at this 2560x1080 size to upload to YouTube.

New Video: 60 second smartphone photography tutorial 'Long exposures'

Smartphone Video: Schiphol to Amsterdam in 90 seconds.

Last year (2017), my cousin Steve sent me some phone footage he shot on a visit to the Netherlands. He shot views from his train ride from Schiphol airport in to Amsterdam Central station on his Iphone. Steve shot this using the 8mm app which I think does gives it a somewhat filmic quality.

Steve asked me if if I could put the clips together in some way, so I did. Here's the edit I put together...

From time to time I sometimes dabble in making my own soundtrack music and this is one of those such occasions. The 'music' here was made using Mixcraft software.

Smartphone Video: "The Signs of Midlife Crisis'

I've been playing around with my smartphone a lot recently shooting video and taking photos etc. My phone is a Samsung S7; so not the latest greatest thing, but not too shabby either. I decided to make a little short film aiming to just use the phone entirely to shoot, edit and then upload to YouTube.

I used the Samsung built in camera app to shoot and then bought KineMaster app to edit this together. I spent quite a while trying out several different editing apps, but KineMaster turned out to be the one I was happiest with. I might write more on the subject of smartphone film-making as time goes by as I think I'll be trying out more of this.

Working on Headspace Animations

For anybody reading this and wondering what I've mostly been doing this last year ... Well I've been working full-time as a freelancer at Nexus Studios in Shoreditch, helping to composite a lot of these beautiful animated short films for the Headspace mobile app. These films are mostly created as content to be seen by users within the Headspace app, but also quite a few of these are being published on the official Headspace YouTube channel now; so I feel it's OK to share a link to one of my favorite ones here ...

Test Video GH4 footage near Cliffe Pools, Kent.

Just some test footage shot this weekend with GH4 camera, Lumix 30-100mm lense and Tiffen VariND filter.

New Video: IFRS 17

Here is a new corporate video I've just delivered for the IFRS Foundation. This film introduces the new IFRS 17 financial standards being introduced in the insurance sector.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic,'Territory'

Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This episode looks into Territory.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic,'Playtime'

Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This episode looks into Playtime.

New Video: Simon's Cat Care 'Looking After Kittens'

This is the second episode in a series of 'Cat Care with Nicky' web videos that I'm directing for the Simon's Cat channel. Over the years I've been shooting and editing a lot of the 'extra' video content for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel.

New Video: IFRS Developing Financial Standards

Here's a new corporate explainer video I made recently for the IFRS (That's International Financial Reporting Standards.) Keen readers will remember that last year I made this video for the same organization too.

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Music by Stuart Hancock'

Here's another short 'Behind the Scenes' video I made for the Simon's Cat channel. In this episode, we meet Stuart Hancock, the composer who created the score for the film 'Off to the Vet'.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic 'Body Language'

Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This episode looks into Cat Body Language.

New Video: Simon's Cat Care 'Kittens'

Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This is the first episode in a new informative web series all about looking after cats.

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic 'Water'

Here's the latest 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 BTS 'Art Direction'

Here's the third in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode Art Director Isobel Stenhouse describes her approach to bringing colour to the Simon's Cat (animated) world for the first time.