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.

Website, the return

More things on the site updated! Haven’t I been busy. There’s a few more videos up and lots of drawings. I need to update my showreel, which will be done soon. More drawings will take a bit longer.
The sheep? We are having a call with the nice people at adelphoi tomorrow about the sound.
Tra la la.
14 sleeps.

Website

Well, it looks like I have a website now – www.daninski.com
I’ll be adding more content to it as the weeks go by, hopefully the bulk of it will be done before then. If it disapears, which it shouldn’t really do, it’s because it’s being hosted on a broken laptop under a desk. Hi-Fi.

Sheep

F5. A 30 second short about rebirth. With sheep in it. This is our current project to be finished end of January. We’re at the stage just after the animatic has been done but just before the style frame. We’re not doing it to anyone elses agenda so we’re having fun in the freedom we have. The synopsis is “The unsuspected role of sheep in the rebirth of woodland”. Yes, sheep. As a welsh boy I would normally avoid any and all sheep references in an animation but in this instance it’s an intergral part of the narrative.
I’ll explain the story and it’s origins another day, but it’s basically about growing watercress on cotton wool on a larger scale. I think everyone must have grown watercress at junior school?

A first, animation.

So little blue car is mine, I no longer need to spend so much brain on it. I’m still not drinking, having replaced it with exercise. Temparerily (sp). It’s meant that I’m just a hair away from losing a stone in weight. A two and a half pound hair.
Anyway, the short film. I’ve been trying to picture the full length of the film in my head. Mulling over how little details in the subtext of the story will been seen. Composition wise in the shots I see it as switching between ones that are framing the empty dinning room/front room and holding that composition when our protagonist enters the room. The other framing will be using angles typical of the positioning on a dentist; so over shoulder looking down, plain looking down over head and maybe portrait but at the offset angle. All the shots will never show a faces detail above the nose. This is to hint at dentistry from the start of the narrative and also to try and represent recollection that is interested in what’s happening. Interest in the details of the actions and not the faces, social relationships that faces might imply I guess. To leave that chunk of text loose.
I’d also like the female characters presence and state of presence to be indicated by a vase on the table where everything happens.
I realise this won’t make complete sense now – but it will.
I think that’s it for now.

p.s. My bike is all better now. God bless little blue bike. Yes, it’s blue like little blue car.

Car get!

Oh how patient need I be! I have a deposit on a little blue car. It’s been a deposit now for a week less one day. I’m not particularly functional when I’m being patient for exciting. I am a nightmare on Christmas eve for example, far too excited to sleep. I just lay still, muffling the thoughts of treats with staticity. Which is kind of what I’m doing now, only in a waking form. As an upright.
Today I won at the dentist. It cost £37 but the feeling of victory was value enough.
Today I realised my bike needs help. It makes a crunch with every straightened leg, the peddles rocking as if at sea. That’ll be more money spent when I really want to be saving up.
End of ramble, here’s little blue car…