Classic Film Odyssey

Film school really opened the door to the films of the past and I have been continuing that voyage ever since I left the school.

Here are a few that I have watched and enjoyed so far,

Attack (1956)

 The Fly (1958)

 Champion (1949)

The Cycle of Art

On my way to work this week there was a poster in the London Underground, it was for a video game that had an upcoming release. I knew instantly what the game was because of the creature on the poster. It was for a 'Aliens: Colonial Marines' and judging from the poster it focuses heavily on James Cameron's - Aliens.

The reason for the post is that the poster was setting the game up well but the main thing about it was that it mirrored a shot I had designed for Conway (our NFTS SFX film) and the reason I thought that it was great was that I had based lot's of the shots and drew the storyboard with 'Aliens' in mind. So to see a new game using a poster that referenced a shot from Conway which intern came from Aliens was proof that art indeed does imitate art.

Here are the images to compare:

Both shots are almost a carbon copy of each other, the smoke in background, the goo dripping from the mouths of the alien and the power angle.

Here is a the 'Conway' trailer that affectionately sends up 'Aliens'

Conway: Trailer

Conway: Trailer from Samuel John Joseph Walsh on Vimeo.

Bring back the pain, B*tch!

Gambit: Trailer

Finally after a whole year, Gambit is being released and will be in the cinema in November. This job came right after Mirror Mirror and I was asked to create a CG Colin Firth for a shot. I fulfilled a few roles on this, I worked as a modeller, rigger, texture artist and an animator and so was thrilled to have such a lot to do. The final shot came out really well and I'll be adding it to me reel very soon.

Cast and Crew Premier - Anna Karenina

On Sunday I was invited to attend the official premier of Joe Wrights version of 'Anna Karenina' at the world famous Leicester square Odeon cinema.

After all these years of working towards a job in the film industry and to be able to share my first credit with my fellow VFX team and the majority of the cast and crew was really a very humbling experience and was a great way to start my career in film.

The film itself was full of lavish visuals and sumptuous costumes and the cherry on the cake was waiting and watching credits and finally seeing my name scroll into view and quickly disappear.

A truly special moment.

Cloud Atlas: Trailer

Here is an extended look at the first 'Cloud Atlas' trailer. I worked as a CGI artist and animator so for me that was great.

Ernesto: Trailer

Here is the trailer for 'Ernesto' I worked on this way back in my first year of film school and have fond memories of working on it...

Directed by Corinne Ladeinde

Ernesto - Trailer from Melograni Films on Vimeo.

Anna Karenina: Trailer

At long last here is the trailer for 'Anna Karenina' has been released. This was my very first gig in the industry, I worked as a 'Pre Vis' artist for several of the action sequences.

For more info please visit IMDb Anna Karenina

Bertie Crisp: Trailer

Here is another film I worked on during by first year at the NFTS.

Directed by Francesca Adams


Bertie Crisp- The Trailer! from Francesca Adams on Vimeo.



For more information please take a look here Bertie Crisp

The Pride of Wade Ellison: Trailer

Here is an oldie, well kinda. I worked on this film during my first year at the NFTS.

Directed by Sean Branigan



For more info please visit IMDb or NFTS

Jamon: Trailer

Here is another trailer for an Animation Graduation film I worked on in my last year at the NFTS.

Directed by Iria Lopez


Jamón film trailer from iria lopez on Vimeo.


For more info please visit jamonfilm.com

Left Kick: Trailer

Here is the trailer for the Animation Graduation film I worked on at 'The National Film and Television school' during my final year.

Directed by - Jonathan Topf


Left Kick Trailer from Jonathan Topf on Vimeo.

Mirror, Mirror : Prologue

Here is the animation I worked on for the film - 'Mirror, Mirror'. The animation serves as the opening for the film and sets the back story.

Directed by Ben Hibon

Post Production - One of Us

MIRROR MIRROR / opening sequence from Ben Hibon on Vimeo.

Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White

It has been a long time since I last posted anything, nearly a year...

School is finished, it has been a very long too years and it is a great feeling to have finished. I have been working for the last seven months in Soho.

I have noticed over the last week on my ventures into London that the posters are out for the film, Mirror Mirror.

Left Kick

The final part of my two year masters is under way and I will be busy with working on a few projects and a large chunk of time will be chomped by Left Kick.

Left Kick is a graduation animation directed by Jonathan Topf. The film is being produced entirely in 3D so lots of modeling, rigging and animation.

Working with a director is pretty cool as well, instant feedback, different ideas and alterations is a refreshing way to work.

Here is Jonathan's personal site where you can familiarise yourself a little more with Cochise himself.

Jonathan Topf

Senna

The Poster says everything...

Directorial Debut

A couple of days ago I made my first real stab at directing. The current module at NFTS is MoCap and for it I decided to design a story for the mocap to sit and take centre stage. The film is very short and is essentially a character piece taking place in one set with the bare minimum of dialog.

The film takes place in a child's room and the action is simple. A father reads his son a bedtime story and the story is an extract from the battle of Waterloo where Wellington meet
Napoleon in 1815. He then finishes and says goodnight, kisses his son's forehead and leaves quietly where the little boy falls a sleep amongst a bedroom full of toys. The soldiers then come alive and fight on his table and his books, marbles, rulers and comics form the battle ground.

The motion capture data that was filmed at Centroid in Pinewood studios will drive the soldiers. I also got to direct this part as well and so I do feel incredibly attached to it as a piece of work and will be one of the greatest pieces of work I think I will ever produce.


Working with a Cinematographer on this was such a great experience and also having ability to control the shoot as a director was a blast. Benjamin Hecking was my DoP and was a massive advocate in making this much more than just an exercise in our VFX time table. His ligthing was great and he captured an amazing sense of reality with his shadow placement. The set was built by Steven Granger, after building our Conway set he once again stepped and knocked up a beautiful set that transported us and me back when we were all young and when toys were constantly on our minds. He set was full of great props and finished off with hand stippled stencils of aeroplanes.


I have also contracted an editor and a composer for this and I will know more next week but at the moment I am very happy about the possibilities for this film. I also received all of the mocap data from Centroid and couldn't resist putting a little test together...

Bertie Crisp

One of the current Graduation animations I had the pleasure of being involved with 'Bertie Crisp' has been released upon the world and here is a link to the official website where you can read about the talented cast and the director of the short - Francesca Adams.

www.bertiecrisp

Crash Pre Vis

I have turned my attention to the helicopter again after a day of rendering an other project. The pre viz of the helicopter crash is rough, very Hollywood but I think it is working and once the director (Jamie Stone) has seen it I can get some feedback to see what he likes and what he doesn't. However I did thoroughly enjoy previz(ing) it and I hope that it does stay in the final version.

Kodak

I have been invited to participate in Kodak competition this year. The director is a fellow SFX/VFX artist, Nicholas Thompson. The idea is about piracy and how it is destroying the film industry. The idea is to play out the final scene from Casablanca.

My task is to recreate the some of the background namely the aircraft and the car in which they get out of at the start of the scene. The plane in the original is stationary but in the short it will be taxi-ing in the background and starting its engines. The car will be partially built, probably just the doors, part of the roof and maybe part of the bonnet. I am unsure of the framing but I think if I build a little more than we need then it should be fine.

Film Props

The short module at Millennium FX has come to an end. It has been a great experience to see how the prosthetics side is produced and get a huge insight in how long the process can take. The module serves as a intensive short course in Prosthetics as well as a container for the SFX gags in our film. The class has been making a full head prostheses, a partial face prosthesis, finger extensions, a prop arm - complete with balsa wood bones, a large gouge that will be augmented with CG and several small wound pieces including a handful with silly glass wedged in them.

The characters also have makeshift weapons and a few pistols, I took the props on board and played around with casting the Axe and Knifes. The Axe initially didn't work which was probably to do with the fact that the A&B mixture had been out overnight and was contaminated with other chemicals in the extractor room. The knifes worked from the start but one of the molds had problems letting the fast cast mixture right to the end but I did manage to get a partial knife from it which will serve as a prop to decorate.



The Knife was coloured using a mixture of silver spray paint which was sprayed straight into the mold before the fast cast mix was poured. This gave a great base coat for applying a textured brown to the handle before I added layers of acrylic paint to try and create depth and with a coat of Shellac which gave the knife a rust colour before finally rubbing back a few layers to make to look well used.

The pistol was a simple plastic replica that (Peter Tindall) had lying around. Painted using the same technique as the Knife but more metallic in its appearance, again it had to look well used but also like 'Conway' had used it a lot. I tried to get a worn wooded look for the handle and painting the two pistols exactly the same was fun.





Finally the two main weapons were cast using a soft foam mix with piano wire threaded down the center to add rigidity and stability or they would flop. They are both soft but if you were to swing at someone it would still hurt. Painted using acrylics and shellac to create the worn down and dirty feeling. To add a little more I wrapped some scrim around the handles to make it look like they had been personalised and were used a lot for killing. Scrim is simply a soft string netting that comes on a giant roll. Paint was added to stain the fabric.

Blood's A Rover

Before the summer break I worked as a SFX assistant and a VFX artist on a fantastic book trailer. It is a competition run in partnership with 'Folyes' book shop and the idea is to advertise four of the summers biggest novels.

Full Trailer

18 Rounds...

A little gratuitous vanity here, me firing a SIGG 552. Just before the video started I had already popped off 2 rounds as singles and decided to finish the clip on full automatic. The video is very short and the short burst dispenses 18 rounds - If that was real I would be reloading every couple of minutes. The armourers said that I looked like I knew how to hold a weapon...

I HAVE UPLOADED THIS VIDEO TO SHOW FILM SPECIFICATION FIREARMS.
I WAS UNDER THE STRICT SUPERVISION OF A QUALIFIED ARMOURER.
THE AMMUNITION USED WERE BLANKS AND ALL POSSIBLE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS WERE TAKEN.

The Last Boy Scout

Part of the MA at NFTS involves an introduction to the role of an 'Armourer' in film. Even got to fire these...

SIGG 552

WALTHER PPK

BROWNING HI POWER

VFX Breakdown

The interior shot and its elements are finished, I am currently working out the render passes so I can just concentrate on the animation. It will something subtle just appearing by the door and running away when the dog is ushered out of the scene. To show companies what sort of skills you have and also compositing everything was great and I am pleased that I am showing all the different passes that are need to create VFX and integrate it into live action footage. This is a rough template for the finished render and the template for my other two shots. There is some pacing issues and I would like to hold the wipes for longer, so the viewer can clearly see the passes.

Interior Shot

After a long time working on the master shot, I have finally moved onto something new. Although I have been back and forth with tweaking the shot to iron out a few of the flaws. The new shot is an interior which is great change of pace and completely different. It's main advantage is that the shot is around 6-7 seconds instead of the massive 50 second master shot. This has been a godsend when using PF Track as previewing track points and solving is much faster and has allowed me to try new things and get results quicker and therefore I have been able to explore the software.

For this shot I wanted to create something that was real but simple, I opted for lots of wooden beams to hide the main areas where the set ended and added the start of a small staircase in the back right of the shot. I wanted to try and create a larger world scenario and make it looked like it was lived in. So far I have only added in the colour maps and the lights, I plan to use the specular maps and bump maps to give the wood a little more reality and presence in the shot. The Duke will also make an appearance as the main reason for the shot is that Abigail (Production designer) shews out a 'invisible' animal and as there is a dog in the master shot, I will composit the Duke into the shot.

Original Plate

Set Extension Plate

The above shot is my work in progress so far and its beginning to turn out the way I wanted it. I have still have work to do to make sure that there is sufficient shadow around the beams, although I think that I can get that from the occlusion pass. I am pleased with how the lighting is match the original plate and that it is given a realistic look to the beams.

Shoot Day (Two)

Shoot Day (One)

Take One Painting

Today marks the end of the first 5 weeks of the course here at NFTS and the work is beginning to pick up pace. I have been given the painting for our 'Set Extension' task and had my first production meeting - very low key but I still got to Meet my production designer, who I'll be working with over the course of this module. There is lots to do for this and will be a huge learning experience which is great and I am thoroughly looking forward to jumping in at the deep end.

The Painting is 'Scene In a Courtyard' by the Dutch artist 'Ludolf de Jongh' and is painted using oil on canvas. The painting itself is a traditional scene from Europe and exhibits an everyday occurrence which is perfect for our task. Below is the original, which is a fantastic piece of work and the second image has the 'green screen' areas indicated to show which are the sections which I will be responsible for.

Original Painting

Original with Green Screen Mask

Basically from looking at both of the images, I have been charged with the virtual creation of the background elements, the trees and the hand full of structures that can be seen poking out from behind the wall. I have a few ideas for the look of the buildings and this will be reinforced by another meeting with my Production Designer - Laura sometime next week and see the scale model they have made before the full scale set will be constructed.

I have also given myself a side project, the first thing I noticed when I looked at the painting was that there was a dog. To be honest that was the only thing that I thought about and I have decided to make him. I have begun the modelling stage, although it is proving very tricky, I am making progress and have only realistically spent about 12 hours on it. I plan on finishing him by next week so I can begin the long process of Rigging and animating him. I have been researching rigging and texturing techniques and hopefully will be ready and not let this distract me from the main goal of the set extension. Below is two screen grabs of the Greyhound/Whippet/Lurcher and I have given him the nickname of 'The Duke' - he will be beautiful.

Mr Benson

This week has been dedicated to learning about all aspects of the film industry and I have had the pleasure of being guided through this by a very talented and incredibly warm and honest practitioner - Roy Benson.

Through the week I have been subjected to clips from some of the most famous films ever made to experimental films that only Roy knew about - which was fantastic. He had such a great and refreshing approach to teaching us and I took in so much information that at the end of each session I was exhausted!

Roy Benson told us that he always wanted to get into films and he got his first chance by knocking on doors in Soho and someone gave him that chance. He has worked with many great talents and he had some many stories about the Beatles because he had worked as an editor on the film.

A Hard Day's Night

Roy also worked as a Post Production Supervisor on Rambo 4, although I hadn't seen the film, Roy showed us some of the Rushes from a few scenes and then the completed edited version to show us how much film stock is wasted and how many shots must be covered to give the editor as much choice as possible. Also treated us to a version of the final battle - I was amazed with the technical aspect of the scene and even though the piece lasts for about 5 minutes it took weeks to finish.

Rambo 4

I am so pleased that Roy gave up his time to come and talk to us for the entire week and his stories will be something that I always remember from this and if you ever read this, all I can say is...

Thank you Mr Benson

Terry Gilliam

My first week at NFTS and I was treated to an amazing master class - Terry Gilliam. As soon as he walked into the room everybody went quiet and sat in awe for about an hour. Terry talked about lots of films and picked on a few of his favourites from 'Time Bandits to 12 monkeys'. He discussed his views and opinions on Special effects in films and how he as a director approaches the use of these as visuals.

Terry gave a incredibly honest story of Hollywood and how he likes to do things his way and the pressure that directors get from the money men and studios. The whole talk was a great experience even though I didn't manage to get any questions across I learned a lot from listening to him.

National Film and Television School

I stand ready to start another chapter in my career and I am about to study at the National Film and Television School. The glimmer that once seemed nothing but a soft haze is now a tangible thing, it's taken time, time to build, time to grow but now I can walk the corridors where the greats have gone before.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

The Little Pig

I have been recently working for a advertising production house and I have been very busy. I have finished work on my first advert a couple of weeks ago. It was a traditional 2D animated advert and finished digitally and it went on to be voiced by Neil Morrissey. The process taught me a lot about advertising, how to work to the strictest of deadlines and what can be achieved with hard work,

I am now on to project number two...

MTV Shoot

A couple of Nights ago I had the pleasure of becoming a Production Assistant for a TV spot that MTV were filming.