The Final Push.

Firstly, a belated Happy New Year! Secondly, yes, it's the final push. The final semester of my animation course at the University of Wolverhampton. This next few months (hopefully!) see the completion of my first short film and the start of a good footing towards the industry.
I will begin animating within the next 2 weeks at the latest, and will keep this blog up to date with all my progress.
Once again, I will be making an animated ident for CITV. So I'll keep posting on that the same as before!

Final Film Characters

These are the young/old cupid characters for my final project at uni. Could go few a few changes before next year, but pretty happy with the designs for now.

CITV Ident

25 of us presented our finished idents to CITV's Creative Director yesterday. My ident was chosen as 1 of 5 deemed to be ready for use, so I'm very happy with that! As long as it passes their checks and they definitely want to use it, it should be put out on their channel some time next year! Fingers crossed.

Finished CITV Ident

The second CITV ident pitch is this Friday and after many hours and some serious cramps, it's finally finished.

Hopefully they'll enjoy it!

More Final Film Drawings...

Untitled Final Film Blurb

Since I haven't posted for a little while, I thought I'd update my blog with a blurb for my currently untitled final film:

"A young cupid is on his daily rounds when he discovers people in love with things they really shouldn’t be... he races to correct these problems until he finally discovers the source - a near-blind and elderly cupid working in the same area. But will he be able to confront him and end his destructive work?"

In the next week or so, I'll be working on some concept designs of my characters using my existing sketches and story boarding the film, so hopefully I'll be able to share those with you also!

Design Work

Some drawings for Dezigned2print for adverts to be featured on buses and papers in Derby/Nottingham.

FLIP International Animation Festival 2011

On Friday 28th October, I attended FLIP International Animation Festival. The festival is held annually at Wolverhampton's Light House Media Centre and this year offered a very exciting line up of guests and events!

After meeting up with friends, I headed for the Light House for the first event of the day, 'Open Shorts'. This event was a showcase of animated short films from various countries using differing styles, skills and techniques. 3 of these events were held during the day and it was a pleasure to see short animations shown and celebrated in this way.

The next event of the day was Bill Plympton's Masterclass. I've enjoyed Bill's work for a number of years so was very eager to hear what he had to say and see some of his drawings and films. He didn't disappoint and gave a very interesting talk and showed some of his most recent work including concept art and animatics. It was a pleasure hearing him describe his passion for his work and it was made obvious he meant it by how he was constantly drawing and doodling as he spoke!

The day at FLIP festival was a fantastic experience and I hope there's many more years of animation at the Light House to come!

www.flipfestival.co.uk

Still to come...

I attended the fantastic FLIP International Animation Festival in at The Lighthouse in Wolverhampton this weekend and will soon be writing a short review of Friday's events (including the Bill Plympton masterclass). Sadly I was unable to attend the Saturday, but thoroughly enjoyed my time at the festival.

www.flipfestival.co.uk

Also, it was nice to see an article about my uni's collaboration with CITV in today's Express and Star!

Pitch

The CITV pitch took place last week and everyone seemed to enjoy my idea. I got some very positive comments from CITV's Creative Director, so I'm very happy with that. The next step is for everyone to animate there ideas and present them again on 16th December. A handful will then be chosen to use on CITV. Fingers crossed!

I'm also working with Dezigned2print on some cartoon illustrations for an advertisement. This would be my first commissioned design work, so we'll see how it goes.