The Boys of Horror

If I was on some TV talent show, I'd say the last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster. My Nana died a couple of weeks ago, and although it was a long time coming, and ultimately a relief as she was so ill for so long, it's still hit us all hard, especially after the funeral was done. On a positive note, Our Paul asked me to be the godfather for his new baby, which is brilliant, and has given everyone the chance to do awful Marlon Brando impressions, which is no bad thing.

So, it was great to go away last weekend and get my head together, locked in a flat with no heating or hot water in Whitby watching horror films with the Boys of Horror...

Boys of Horror embark on Whitby's inaugral manned Space mission. L-R: Matt, Steve, Chris, John

Whitby is great, and our flat was about 500 yards from the centre of town. We did all the touristy bits; got soaked on a boat trip, climbed the 199 steps up to the church on the hill, and me and Chris went to the Dracula experience - only £1.95 for one of the most shoddily put together exhibitions ever! That's not to say it wasn't absolutely fantastic. Imagine if you had a job lot of old mannequins, and some sensor lights from Wilkos. Then you decided to turn your tiny 2 up 2 down terrace into a leading attraction, you could build this show for about 150 quid and just watch the money roll in. It's essentially the key scenes from Coppolla's Dracula set up in different rooms, which light up when you go in. Nothing about the original story, Stoker or other interpretations, just a few dummies dressed up, with the added bonus of the ghost face killer from Scream jumping out at you (which I think was cut from the original Dracula) now and again, the worst Summer Job in the world.





As I said though, it was great, I'm going to open up my garden as the Honey I shrunk the Kids experience by leaving some Lego and Playmobils on the lawn.

The highlight of the weekend though was watching a rough cut of Steve's film, Mum and Dad. It was, even in its rough state, a great piece of low-budget British horror. I can't wait to see the finished version, as it's already so powerful and shocking. The acting is really good, and it doesn't do the usual characters for 20 minutes, running around for 70 minutes plus tacked on potential sequel scene, it's got strong characterisation and story developmnet throughout.

I also bought myself a Whitby Lucky Duck. I've decided to document Duck-related luck, to see if it works, and so I can get my letter in the window of the lucky duck shop.



Me and Matt have gone into competition to see who's luck works best - he has joined Match.com, I have bought a small piece of duck shaped glass. Surely my wishing on an inanimate object has more chance of bringing luck than practical life altering steps? We shall see...

Must get back to Whitby soon, there's still a fortune teller and a victorian photo studio I have to waste cash on...

Cartoons and Compost

I've just spent the day in the garden, tending my veg patch! It's quite a laugh this amateur gardener business, although my hatred of slugs and snails has reached epic proportions - there has never been a wronger thing, what is the point of them? They're just big lumps of congealed phlegm with stomachs. Stomachs that, if they come anywhere near my tomatoes, will be squished into the path!

Here's some pictures of my feeble green fingered attempts;





I made an animatic from the storyboard for the new film the other day - it looks good. I also modelled the main character in MAYA, which also looks good. We're going to work with limited props and sets, so that it feels like a soundstage - Robert Fuest at Bradford talked about the concessions to budget they had to make for The Final Programme. They would hang window frames and set a table in a blackened space to create rooms. I like that idea. There's a temptation to add detail in CGI, but I'd rather have Pocoyo than Gollum anyday... Here's a few sketches from the storyboard;






Oops, that one looked a bit rude didn't it? Errr...




I've also been getting back into Flash in quite a big way, mainly because of my teaching at Loughborough. I've been building, with one of my classes, a virtual version of the building where they work. I'll post a link once it's up. In the meantime, I'm working on this virtual map for the Harris in Preston. It's just a prototype for now, but I'm excited by the possibilities it opens up. Hmmm..., I can feel a little project coming on.

Rednecks and Wrongness

On Friday, Me and Chris visited the set of Steve's new film, Mum and Dad. It's his first feature and contains some of the wrongest things you could ever hope to see.

It was amazing going round the set. The art direction is brilliant, every room looks horrible, in the best way. We saw some shots that the stills photographer had taken, and they looked really good, even if they were pictures of hardcore gore.

It's weird the hidden places in a city though, the house they are shooting in is massive, and set back from the road - the thing is, it's about 300 yards from my house and I'd never even realised it was there. Maybe I should keep accidentally turning up at 1 o'clock, so I can get fed! - It was strange, I was stood talking to Steve in one of the sets, and John Turrell (one of the runners) came up and asked if I ate meat. I told him er....no, and thought what a strange question, maybe he thought the gore might be too much for my delicate herb munching constitution. About 20 minutes later, he returned with a big sandwich and salad. Bargain! At the lunch break everyone was sat in the garden having a lovely lunch and cups of tea, while inside the house was a den of bloody wrongness. It reminded me of that brilliant picture of Colin Clive and Boris Karloff having tea on the set of Bride of Frankenstein, with Karloff in full on monster gear.

(I just realised I've broken blog rule one here - 'Nobody wants to know what you had for your tea', but to be honest, I can't say anymore about the shoot in detail, because it would ruin the surprise/shock/revulsion)

I took loads of photos on set, but I'm not going to publish any, lest I give the game away, except this one, which I took in the darkness while Steve explained to Chris the workings of Dad's tool room with the aid of a torch...



I'm really pleased the film seems to be going well, and everyone is into it. You can find a detailed day by day account of the shoot at Steve's blog. I know Steve wouldn't ever say it, but I was speaking with Chris afterwards an we're both really excited and confident that Steve is onto something really good here - a genuinely good piece of British horror that will probably reignite some tabloid panic about video nasties! Which is great, because that's exactly what makes people go and watch...

Last night, in a moment of uncharacteristic spontanaeity, I went to Rock City to see Hayseed Dixie. They were fantastic, and amazing musicians. It was humbling to see people who play so well, and make such a brilliant racket. I always liked listening to Hayseed Dixie on the radio or whatever, but I worried that they were just essentially a novelty band, like a bluegrass Barron Knights, and that it'd get quickly boring. It didn't though, it was excellent, as well as funny and raucous - they kind of reminded me of a bluegrass Pogues, in that it was noisy, wild and punk as you like. Best bits - You shook me all night long, Walk this way, and I don't feel like dancin'.

A spooky story about a great man

We're busy organising the John Grace conference at work and on Thursday, we had a really spooky moment. John died in March 2004, but his presence still affects us every day, and the conference has really brought home how much we miss him. Me and John used to talk about spooky things all the time, he was a real fan of anything Fortean, and talked at length about past lives and extraordinary people and phenomena.


When I joined the University, I was still really interested in all forms of ghostly electronic communication, mainly because of the EVP stuff I'd used on 'Angels' and a pitch I was working for an animated documentary about an EVP researcher.

John was convinced that his illness and suffering was part of the cosmic plan, and that this was only a part of a longer set of lives and forms, something I have to say I was a little uncomfortable with, but fascinated by, and we'd share ghosty, psychic and mediumistic stories throughout the days.

A few days after his death, I went back into work and as I sat at my desk, I heard John's monitor spring to life. I looked round and true enough the monitor was on, and on the screen, the cursor was moving around, clicking open emails, documents and folders. I was absolutely petrified! I backed out of the office and nearly ran to the other side of the building where Andy's office is. Luckily, rather than run into Andy's office burbling lke Shaggy trying to explain to Fred that there's a ghost behind him, I looked through the window, and saw that Andy was using remote desktop to access John's computer! I skulked off, releived that I hadn't made a first class idiot of myself. I think it took me about 6 months to admit that to Andy!

The other day, we had another spooky moment. Me and Andy have both become slightly obsessed with Pocoyo, and Andy has been talking to Zinkia for the book he is writing about CGI, as well as filling his office with Pocoyo vinyl toys. Anyway, on Thursday, we were talking on the phone about images for the booklet for the conference, and as we spoke, Andy began to sift through the backup of John's hard drive, looking for Portland Bill images. Suddenly he stoppped, I thought the phone had got cut off cos he went completely silent. Then, after an interminable pause, he said 'I don't believe it'. He had discovered three script outlines by John for Pocoyo from 2003! The format was the same, except the character names were different (Pocoyo was the same). None of us knew anything about it till that moment. Were the scripts ever commissioned? Did John create Pocoyo? We were in a real tizzy, and I guess we'll never know what actually happened. The thing is, one of the reasons Andy loves Pocoyo is because he always says 'John would have loved this', as he was a brilliant pre-school writer; Pablo and Zoo Lane are still on now.

I don't quite know how to finish this (and I've wanted to blog about John for some time), but without sounding mawkish, those spooky stories are SO John and seem to ensure his presence is a constant in the Fairbairn. I'm not suggesting for a minute that he is haunting us, which would be crass, but it's a seductive notion, and one that he would have found delicious. What I think it has done is made us determined to fight to continue the legacy of his work, which was the inspiration behind the Animation Academy and this conference.

McWrong

This was parked outside work today, just on the edge of campus where thousands of students walk every day.

How wrong is that? You might as well save those tuition fees, and just get straight on down to McD's at 16 (if you're a bit posher, try Pret). You'll need those fees for the buckets of Clearasil you'll need to get the grease out of your increasingly disappointed face.

Predictive Text

My brother gave me a fancy phone at Xmas, with Flash Lite player on it, and I've started making some little experimental games/novelties on it.

The first thing I made (and am going to develop it with nice graphics etc.) was a little wish machine, essentially a randomly selected response to a question. It was basically to work out what Flash Lite can do, and to re-learn old-school Flash programming, rather than fancy stuff it can do now.

I've always been fascinated by oracles and seers, and the idea of predicting the future, and especially in January, there's a wealth of fortune telling fun to be had. One of the highlights of miserable old January is Mystic Meg's guide to your year ahead, which is in the News of the World. Mystic Meg is the absolute queen of Horoscopes, her predictions are absolutely ludicrous, but they are brilliant! What I like is that she is always really specific, suggesting that for instance, every Taurean in the country will be linked romantically to a soap star in May, or that a meeting in a butchers will unearth a 'hidden family mystery'. I'd love to be around to see that! I know it's complletely made up, but I love it, and it gives you a bit of time to dream of that lottery win, or the soap star linked romance. I think that, whether it's Horoscopes or not, or how pragmatic we are, we've all got a bit of wish in us, and we'll focus that on almost anything, from Meg, to lucky coins, to a specific set of lottery numbers. So this little oracle I'm making is a tiny, personal digital version of that.

I like the idea of having your own personal teller on your phone, like a magic 8 ball that you can call upon when you like. I'm going to make a series of them, using similar programming methods that you seen on Horoscope sites, like star sign compatibility etc. While they are clearly a trick, they are seductive and powerful in a way, and tap into our need to glimpse the future and to wish for better things.

Besides, if I make a load of them, and expel the magic, maybe I'll begin to live like a Human Adult Male, rather than walking around with my head in the clouds like some kind of dreamy goon. Or maybe not. I still think the Internet is magic, even after four hours staring at PHP code in Notepad.

In the real world;

We closed the shop today, handed the keys back and everything. It was a bit sad, but I've really enjoyed it, so I'm really glad we did it. Hopefully it'll be a success in Cardiff, when Nicola and Stuart get back from travelling. Here's Stuart, travelling;



Went home for my Mum's 60th birthday last weekend, which was nearly cancelled after a nasty virus tore through the family. Luckily, my Mum recovered in time and we had a great time, made even better by an ageing DJ who looked like Jack Duckworth with a skinhead. We're taking my Mum away in March to a nice cottage in Wales for a week, the first time we've been away as a family since me and Paul were teens. It'll be weird, but I'm already looking forward to doing Poster Art kits and playing Frustration as it tips down outside.



At work, I'm busy organising this conference, a memorial to my old boss, John Grace, who is sadly missed since his death in 2004. I'm eternally grateful to have been able to spend at least some time with the creator of Portland Bill, Reboot and Pablo. At his funeral, his friend played the theme from Portland Bill on guitar, it was amazing, in a very sad way. Anyway, you can find out more about it at http://www.animationacademy.co.uk

So Much I Want To Say

Hello! Long time no blog.

I've been really busy the past few weeks, finishing up my MA, and I'm glad to say that finally it's all over.

It's been the usual mad rush to get everything finished the way I want, and inevitably ended up with many late nights, typing in the darkness, and the usual computer problems that only appear when you've got a deadline to hit.

Digital Me is finished, and I'll be launching it officially next week as the MA exposition. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, and the interviews have gone really well, I'm so grateful to all the people who took part. It's been quite a ride making the project, looking back on ten years of work on the Internet, and realising how important it's been in all my work.

It's also made me think long and hard about 'me on the web', which is why I've not blogged for a bit, because thinking about why we blog and who for has raised a lot of questions - is this blog a sketchbook, is it a portfolio, or is it a diary? I think I've used it for all those things. I've certainly used it as a portfolio, I've begun giving the URL to people who are interested in my work. I've used it as a sketchbook too, and a little bit as a diary. I've avoided mostly talking about my personal life, as I'm not sure how appropriate or interesting it is to talk about your life on the Internet. At the same time, I think the Internet invites honesty, so maybe it's important to reveal at least some aspects of yourself. Hmmm, I'm really not sure.

Nicola and Stuart

One of the main reasons I haven't blogged for a little while is a personal one. Nicola and Stuart, who are two of my closest friends, have moved away. It's hit me quite hard, harder than I though it would and I miss them terribly. I feel a bit lost wihout them to be honest, and a bit lonely too. Every time I tried to write a blog post about doodles or Second Life, what I really wanted to write about was that, but I felt uncomfortable about putting that out there. My draft folder on Blogger is full of draft posts of what I wanted to write!

So there. I've said it. I'm sad about Nicola and Stuart moving away. Next week, back to doodles and adventures in Second Life.

A couple of weeks ago, I started a new job as research associate at Animation Academy at Loughborough University. It's great! We've been doing loads of motion capture, but so far I haven't been brave enough to don the Lycra suit with the ping pong balls on, need to do some sit ups first! I'm going to start blogging the work there as I go, because it's really interesting and we're doing so much stuff. We've also got some great students coming through, and I'll post links to their films if they let me.

I think that's all I have to say for now, I'm off to begin Christmas shopping, as my Mum keeps reminding me how close it is.

By the way, the title of this post is from the title of a video broadcast performance by Mona Hatoum. Isn't that very arty of me?

Oops

Hi. Sorry for not posting for a while - It's been a really busy time. I've decided not to aim to complete 'The Trouble with Flying' before September 1st, as I don't think it's anywhere near formed enough. I'm a bit embarrassed that I said that's what I'd do, as time was clearly against me, and what with holidays, wedding season and the Eye Candy event, it just proved impossible - the major factor is that the computer I have in the shop (the one I'm writing on) is rubbish, and the thought of trying to run Second Life (let alone edit) on it is enough to make it weep.

Anyhow, my holiday in Abersoch was great - I've been going there since I was a kid, and I still love it as a grown-up. One day I'd love to go and live there, but since it's turned into holiday homeland for the Cheshire set, I'd need at least a quarter of a million pounds just to get a bedsit over the corner shop! Not a joke, I'm sad to say. We have a caravan which has been on the same site for nearly 40 years now, and that's about as close as I can get. Matt gave me his old mobile the other week which has a camera with a panorama feature on it, and I took loads of pics, which I'll post soon. I went there with Alan (my friend from since I was about 16), and his wife Emma - they're about to have a baby. Alan was excited about showing me a scan of the baby. Normally, at this point, you have to grit your teeth and feign interest as they show you a smudge which you can't make sense of, but this scan was spectacular - it was like a baby made in MAYA, really detailed and everything. One day, you will be able to design your child in MAYA and get it printed out in Rapid Prototyping. Mine would look like Pocoyo. Probably.

Anyway, back to cartoons. Ricard is back from his trip, and we are about to make episode 1 of the story - to be honest, I've been waiting ages to get onto it, but Ricard has been really busy - the plan is to get it into the Machinima Film Festival in New York in November. Of course, I expect Ricard to be furnishing me with a first class ticket to attend.

Back soon with a proper post, including Love and Rockets, Peanuts, and Why I'm sorely tempted to go and work with Monkeys - in the meantime, why not read this

Getting to know you...

Sometimes, it's a bit difficult to talk about the work I'm making, cos I don't want to spill every bean, sometimes I'm sworn to secrecy, and sometimes I don't know how to fully articulate where I'm going or how I'm arriving at the results I'm arriving at.

However, I'm currently working on some new characters for a range of projects, and have been thinking about that quite a lot.

I read an interview with Jon Burgerman the other week (who did a great talk at our latest 'Loving your Work' event at Eye Candy), and he talked about how a doodle can sometimes take a long time just to get right. It's easy to think that a doodle is a doodle, and the time it takes to come out of the pen is the entire time of the process attached to it. But in a way, it's like casting/acting and wardrobe all at the same time - it takes a while to find the character you want. It's a bit like that thing where hammy old actors talk about how they 'always start with the shoes, darling' - I kind of always start with the heads. I guess it's then that you can see the person you are trying to bring to life. My heads are always really simple - kind of playmobil style spheres in a way with contour lines on them. I like the simplicity of it, and the kind of deadpan expression. - It's oddly naturalistic, in that animation characters are so often exaggerated to express a stereotype, but these simple heads are more like real life because most people spend most of their time with their faces fairly straight. The deadpan face somehow allows you to look deeper to understand the character.

I read so many animation and cartooning books that say things like - a posh lady walks like this, a fat man is this kind of character etc., and it drives me mad. Animation so rarely gets beyond first impressions. - So, if you strip the face of all the cliches, potentially you can give more depth. I hope so!

For the Second Life project, I was working to a brief, and had to 'characterise' to personality types. It was a fight to get across the need not to give the whole character away from first impressions, but Ricard had seen the characters from 'Angels', so we were able to reach a point where the characters were enough 'mine' and enough 'his' to work well.

I'm currently working with another film-maker, Mark Devenport, to develop a new cartoon, set in a primary school, a kind of Peanuts meets Bash Street Kids, by way of Last of the Summer Wine, and last night I started some character design for a new short called 'In Spite of all the Damage I've Done', which is a really simple story, a kind of sequel (I think) to Angels, based around a Be Good Tanyas track.

The most exciting new project though, may be a new fictional blog I'm working on. I was trying to find a way to loosen up the whole animation process, which is in a way linked to my thoughts about live art and spontaneous animation. The idea is to be able to develop characters and stories 'live', through creating a blog by a fictional character, who just happens to be a cartoon.

The blog allows for slower development of character, from 'Hi, Welcome to my Blog' to 'Yesterday, my heart got broke', and allows me to sneak in narrative ideas that can be developed, or abandoned as I work out what works. I don't know what the blog will lead to, whether I'll pull strands out to turn into scripts, or whether I'll just let it go where it wants to go for it's own sake. The idea is to give me a space to work through animation and illustration ideas, and post them within a context. -I've written a few pieces to start the story, and I'll post the URL when it's set up.

Oh, yes - last night I accidentally came up with a new idea for a short, I can't tell you much about it for now, but it involves a Golem. - I was doodling and one of my standard monster characters came out (I generally ignore the standard monster character, it's like my phone doodle), but this time I thought it looked really nice, especially when I drew a Victorian magician next to it, which looked a bit like the Pringles man. From then, it was a simple case of a bit of common insomnia, and the seed of a new film was sown.

In real life...
I moved house last week; cheated by watching sneak preview Lost while babysitting (therefore destroying tonight's TV); and as you know, went to see Douglas Coupland, which was good, but ruined by a rubbish interviewer, who didn't even touch on the big themes of Coup Land. Oh, and Be Good Tanyas announced their new album! - It's been a long wait, nearly as long as the wait for the Breeders 3rd album.

The best things in life...

Ok, not a post about machinima, but these are the things that get me out of bed in the morning.

Steven and Jeanie have both posted about favourite films on their sites, so I thought I'd add my own (and couldn't resist adding some more). I know this must appear as a fairly self-indulgent exercise, but Steve has a theory that the films you make subconciously project or at least give a glimpse of a world view. I guess it's the same for what you watch in many ways - not necessarily the content, but the way a film is structured/shot/edited - How many times have you said, 'oh (insert name here) would love that' - it's not entirely based on the subject matter - otherwise a good few people I know would be serial killers. I think we watch, or at least make favourites of, the films/books/songs/pictures that mirror our selves, or at least allow us to access that part of ourself.

AfterLife: this is genuinely the most affecting film I have ever seen. It's truly beautiful, and I could watch it for ever. It's about a halfway house between this world and the next. It uses documentary stories and non-actors, and is filmed in the most amazing way. It has stayed with me ever since I saw it, and if you watch it, I hope it does the same to you. I had to get it on import, from amazon.com.




Be Good Tanyas: Be Good Tanyas make me so happy! Check out www.begoodtanyas.com - it will make you happy too...



Peanuts: Peanuts is brilliant, but you know that already!