Muddle Earth nominated for a Bafta!

CBBC’s Muddle Earth, on which I was the lead Compositor and VFX guy, has been nominated for a BAFTA!  How crazy is that?  This wonderful show that took up 18 months of my life has received some sort of industry recognition, which, humbly, I think it deserves.  Animated by a small team of amazingly talented British animators, designed by some of the best industry talent from the past twenty or so years, funded entirely by the BBC – i.e. the British Public – this show has been nominated by industry peers for a Bafta.

Well, you know, I want to say well done to all the people who worked on it.  We should be very proud.

Just to prove it, here’s the link to the BAFTA website:

http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens/2011-childrens-awards-nominations-winners,2169,BA.html#jump0

Yippee!

October Approacheth…

Too much work and not enough time.

I’m currently working at Space Digital in Manchester on a show for CBBC – which will have to remain nameless for the timebeing.

Everything’s going well, the people here are great, the work is definitely challenging and the work doesn’t seem to want to end.

Come the end of October, this will end for me.  Which is a pain, pest etc. but there’s always the next job, which starts in early December.  Factory Transmedia here I come…

Later

http://sketch.odopod.com/flash/OdoSketch.swf?sketchURL=/sketches/335283.xml&userURL=/users/17779&bgURL=/images/bigbg.jpg&mode=embed

Starting to get together ideas for a short film, about a masai warrior.  This was a quick sketch created online using odosketch.  If you haven’t ever tried it, do.  It’s top.

Doctor Who: Vampire’s of Venice

Rory Williams:  Hmmm.

There has never been a human character to enter the Tardis and say pretty much anything other than “it’s bigger on the inside”.  What does he say?

“It’s another dimension” – and with an almost malevolent expression too.  It’s only for a second, but without knowing I would say this is the face of a man who does not like the Doctor.  No, not in the he’s-nicked-my-girlfriend way, but in the I-really-hate-you-with-a-passion-beyond-anything way.

And then he backs it up with some references to FTL – Faster Than Light drives a.k.a. space-time travel – and parallel universes.  Is this a hint being dropped onto us by Moffatt?  Maybe.

And no one, no one is that boring. Even Mickey had something about him. No, I think there’s more to this guy than meets the eye.  As to seeing more than one Doctor in this episode (check out my previous post for what I mean by this) I haven’t noticed it yet, but give me a chance.

Laters

Doctor Who: Flesh and Stone – Which Doctor

Just watched this again after listening to Flashing Blade Episode 1-48.

At 7.25 minutes in on the bbc iplayer version, the Doctor leaves Amy and he’s not wearing a jacket. He then returns a few moments later with his shirt back on, and his right sleeve rolled up.  Also, if you listen to the sound, it sounds a little echoey, almost as if they are somewhere else.

So, this is something else, isn’t it?  I mean, this is a Doctor from another episode come in to tell Amy to trust him, and to remember what he said to her when they first met.  This means I’ve got to go back to the Eleventh Hour and watch it yet again.  Not to mention all of the others so far too.

It’s getting like looking for the Observer (CBG – Creepy Bald Guy) on Fringe.  And that is also touching genius at the moment.  Nuff said there, about Season 2, just in case.

Doctor Who Season 5 (ish) Episode 1 – SPOILERS!

SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!

Okay, I’m going to make this quick as I’ve got a backout blind to put up.  It’s the blitz in 1939, Derbyshire.  Confounded time circuits…

Last night, Episode 1 of the new series of Doctor Who.

Great start.  Really, great.  Matt Smith channeling a small amount of Tennant as well as reforming into his gawky college professor at the same time – maybe it’s not being used to the new legs – and the madness of RTD coupled with more natural colours, bringing Moffat’s reign in at as gentle parabola rather than a smash of a change.  Great.  Titles time tunnel effects?  No, don’t like them one bit.  It’ll take time for me to like that.  Especially the, ahem, fiery corridor.

BUT, I can’t get Amy Pond out of my head. No, not for that reason.  There’s something all together, for want of a better word, alien about her.

Amy Pond, is she human?  I’m not that sure.

1.  The beasty in the episode came through a crack in the space in her bedroom that it did not create.  Who did?  Amy or the invisible Aunt?

2. The beasty has been in prison or her house, it’s only contact with the outside world being Amelia/Amy.  How does it know about this, word probably wrong here, Pandoricle that will silence the world?  From the Aunt or from it’s psychic link with Amy?

3. Where are her parents?  We only know she was raised in Scotland.  Her “Aunt” now looking after her.

4. She is scared of nothing really.  That’s not completely normal for a 12 year old child.

5. The Doctor does seem to be quite interested in her and that crack, the contents of the monitor above the console being a wavelength superimposed over the crack. – I’m sure he knows more than he’s letting on.

6. Is she Gallifreyan?  When the Doctor questions her choice of career, she says, “You sound like my Aunt.”  Possibly a throw away line, but this is Steven Moffat after all.  Perhaps she is being hidden on Earth for some reason by a timelord as she is this pandoricle or something to do with it, maybe she is capable of causing collosal cracks in the Space Time Continuum and Earth is, as the Doctor reminds us, a level 5 protected planet.  If I was a child with this sort of power and I ended up living in England away from my home, I mnighnt accidentally open up a crack with my unbalanced emotions.

7.  All this could be bollocks and she might just be a normal girl running away from reality…  Yeah, right.

Final word.

We all know that SM wants to make Doctor Who a little more reminiscent of the classic series, but keeping the feel of the new series.  Who wouldn’t, sounds like the perfect decision to me.  And, as we all know, the classic Doctors had alien companions as well as Earth born ones.  Is this a cushion into introducing a non human companion?  Oo, I do hope so.

Muddle Earth on BBC iplayer

You can see the first episode – Footwear of Doom – right now on the bbc iplayer – oh and in HD too, seeing as everything has been produced at 1080p it makes sense!

SD –  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rkgpb/Muddle_Earth_Footwear_of_Doom/

HD – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rkgpb/hd/Muddle_Earth_Footwear_of_Doom/

Hope you like it.  All comments appreciated.

Gary

Muddle Earth airing in the UK

Well,

After a pretty full on last week, the first half of Muddle Earth is over and the first Episode to air (schedule number two) Footwear of Doom just aired on BBC1.

The next twelve episode are airing weekdays at 3.50pm on BBC1 and repeated later on the BBC HD Channel.

We all just sat down in front of the big telly and watched it.  Just before it statred, I felt as thought I might be sick, all really nervous.  Even though we have all seen this enough times to drive us crazy, the rush of seeing it actually on the box made me grin from ear to ear for the whole 15 minutes.

Give it a go.  I know it’s for kids, but there is one or two things in there that might make you laugh.

Or it that just me?

🙂

Trichrome blue

I just had the pleasure if stumbling upon this little treasure.  A piece created as a final year animation from a student of the Utrecht School of tha Arts.  It’s a beautifully executed story of a young woman who picks an odd fruit from a tree and, on opening it, finds a button that allows her to experience an imaginary world that turns her sorrowful face into a smiling one.

Lois van Baarle is someone I think we should all to keep an eye on.

How Populaire are you?

Just stumbled upon this website:

http://www.populair.eu/populair/

It’s a list of all the best websites you should ever need to go to.  Obviously, it’s missing mine 🙂 but you can’t have everything.

The web design blogs in particular are great.