Sunday, Sunday, here again, in tidy attire.

This week has been a sunny week, it wasn’t meant to be but it has. We’ve actually been having a few pitches come in recently but they’ve been slow ones. Animation isn’t just about patience in craft but also patience in career. Do I mean patience at all? I guess patience has a goal at the end, a trajectory of varying somewhere. The way things seem to be is that you are blindly moving along until goals are dropped into view. Illuminating a path like a dot-to-dot illustration. Illustrating a path that has no straight ahead or line of sight, no single vector. I think that because there is no rhythm to these points of focus it can make thing difficult, but not to discount the variety and unpredictability being a good thing.

Of course that is only comment on the commercial side of what we do. I really do love that side of things and especially the people we work with on that side of things. But of course that isn’t the only thing we do.

The short is still slowly forming. Really slowly at the moment, but it is still definitely there. It weighs down the flesh slightly just about the eyebrows.

Lovely.

Also, my relationship was five years old yesterday

Bren Hystlen is now online

So motionographer have now put the film online! Huzzah! Here’s the page it’s on, feel free to write something nice about specifically our film because we worked stupid hard on it. And here’s a direct link to the video. Well wasn’t this an informal post with little to no rambling! Oh… Um. Here’s a picture of my daps, I’ve managed to wear a peddle mark into the bottom. Also, t.o.m. is now avaiable to view in the ‘eye looks’ section of the site. I’ll put Bren Hystlen up there too at some point. I really need to swop out the quicktimes for youtube links as it really slows down the page as it is. It shalt be done.

Henry dreams of horse

We just watched a thing about Henry the VIII, he loved to ride horses and fell off one and got fat. This steered the doodle I was doing, as I watched the programme, into someone being haunted by dreams of horses. Obviously.

A sign

Hurray! We have a pitch! Which is of course excellent, but a little frustrating because the ‘team’ is divided by vast distances and limited technology. This makes creative conversation a little slow and unsparkly. Sparkle tends to last as long as the warmth from an exhaled breath in the coldest of school mornings. Sparkle doesn’t lend itself to long distant travel. But saying that we had a conference call with each other which came up with some cool stuff. Tomorrow holbrooks will be reunited, then a dense period of work. Then we’re done.
The holbrooks’ site is still there, nothing has gone wrong yet, I swoped in some nicer images for the lo-res ones that were there so it’s a little nicer on the eyes now.
Uuum, what else… Oh, Bren Hystlen still isn’t up on the motionographer site, so isn’t up on our site concequently. It can’t be long now can it? It’s all uploaded and primed on vimeo, I just need a sign.
Another plus is it’s been sunny for ages so lots of peddling has been done. Although my bike chain keeps slipping now when I’m going up hill. Why does that happen now? Google will tell me. Google or Dan Cresswell.
Here’s a doodle of someone waiting…

t.o.m. officialy online

Yep, the holbrooks’ site now has content. It’s not quite all done yet, some images need replacing with hifi eye friendly images. Some nips and tucks need nipping and tucking. But it’s definitly a functioning website now. Excitingly it also features a copy of our short film ‘t.o.m.’ as well as lots of other examples of our work. Woop woop! We also have a bit of pitch work so I’ve been writting stuff out at speed. We have a really nice idea I think but I’m not sure how to implement it in animation. It’s a nice idea though, makes me smile a little.
Right now I believe Tom and Dave should be going to F5. There’s a photo of them a few posts back remember, so be sure you memorise it for stalking fun. I’m hoping the sheep short, which is actually called ‘Bren Hystlen’, is recieved well there. So yeah, come have a look around here for t.o.m.

Yakkidy shmackidy blah blah blah

It’s a Saturday morning. Early Saturday morning. By all accounts I should be asleep. I’m not uncomfortable, I’m on the floor but not uncomfortable. There is a layer of cushions between me and the uncomfortable on the floor. They’re soft, I have a warm duvet. Clean sheets. It’s dark. I can hear the road outside but only just enough so that it sounds like a retarded tide lapping on a flag stone shore. I should be asleep. But instead I’ve let my mind wander, and when I let my mind wander I end up daudling in my thoughts all night. What a load of bollocks.
Time to get up.
Anyway! What I’m meant to be saying is… Congratulations to a friend of mine from foundation days, he got married yesterday and had a big party in a converted church with a skiffle band and a tap dancer. It was fun! Here’s the first dance.

Holbooks site

Well the new site is complete! Well, when I say complete I mean it’s not really. It’s almost complete. It has skeleton that is there and online, sans the meat. The meat’ll be added as soon as we know how to. We’ll know how to on Tuesday because it’s a bank holiday weekend for baby on the cross day. But it will all be done just in time for F5 RE:PLAY! That’s where the long awaited premiere of the sheep short is happening. So hopefully we’ll get plenty of hits and interest. You can see the teaser trailer for the shorts commissioned for the event here.
Co’director Tom Brown and our dearest friend David Surman are going to be accompanying the film to NYC so you should keep an eye out for them. I’ll include a photo of them both at the end of this incase, by some astronomical odds, someone is reading this and is going to F5. If that’s you feel free to stalk them. You have my permission. Seriously you do.
Whilst we’re talking about F5 I have to thank Eliot at 48v for he is going to be helping out with the super short notice DVD reproduction!
So yeah, hopefully it’ll become less quiet when F5 gets underway. It’s not been a good week for cycling either, just wind and rain. To be honest I can live with the rain. It’s not cold rain. The wind on the other hand is a pain.
So sunshine or less quiet please!
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Gray.
Aged 31 and 1/3.

P.S. Here’s a photo of Tom and Dave. They should be leaning against walls looking all broody.

*sigh*

Well. The last month has been incredibly quiet, to say the least. Notable points would be that the Holbrooks website is being revamped so that it’s nice and presentable for the premiere of the sheep short at F5. I think we’re also going to put a nice, high quality version of t.o.m. on there too as an online premiere typed affair. Being quiet work wise has meant that I’ve been out on my bike a lot, which was good until I read I could be doing my winky some horrific disservice. So I got a new seat that cares for it. That’s how quiet these last few months have been. I’m writting about bike seats and winkle.
Actually I’ve also been looking about to try and get some illustration representation. So if anyone us looking at this, and they do that, then take a look at the pencil lines section of the site! Simple.
I’ve also been playing with qrcodes too.
Well, let’s hope all this finacial stuttering ends soon.
I should really gather all the teeth stuff together to story board it, it’s all everywhere at the moment. Terrible.

Sheep short complete!

Well. After a truely mental final stretch the short got completed in 3 weeks. That included many all nighters and a campbed in the studio. I invested in the smaller cintiq model for the project, which made my bank account weep a little but sped up elements of the animation process no-end. Unfortunately we can show the finished thing now until the motiongrapher F5 festival thing. Not even a screenshot.
Boooo. So it won’t be up anywhere until mid-April.
So normal service has resumed; a pitch, short film stuff and seeing how we can fully exploit the little mouse story that Holbrooks did with Ste Curren.
I’ll end this post with a picture done on my new equipment and a reminder of how cute little mouse and red balloon are… 

Olde drawing

There’re some olde drawings up in the drawings bit of the site now. Next stop? Updated showreel… Hopefully.
This photo is my current veiw. It’s my co director at holbrooks concerntrating hard. We’re currently doing a style frame for the sheep short.