Monday 28 December 2009

Christmas



Hello and merry Christmas.

Here's another post and a little something we did in the last few weeks.

It's an ad we made for FrenchColwell and as you can see it gave Craig and David a chance to try something nice and fifties looking.
I'm really happy with it and surprised it only took the three of us ten days.
~
There's another ad coming in the New Year from Christian Johnson, but in the meantime we're trying to think up plot lines for a character Craig has designed.
I'm really into 'Six Men of Fortune ' by the Brothers Grimm, but as Terry Gilliam used it in 'Baron Munchausen' I'll have to keep looking.
~
SHORT FILM STUFF
The script weekend went really well. We were taken through the mechanics of scriptwriting by a script editor called Andy Ross.
He showed us how to work out what kind of script we had rather than writing one to a formula.
The most enjoyable part was probably the 90 minute speed pitching session.
On the downside I realized pretty early on that I didn't have a working ending, but on the upside that everything else did exactly what was needed.
If I timed the pitch just right I could finish before the none ending and leave on a huge cliffhanger. Which was lovely.
I think we've fixed the ending now and added a few more twists, but I'll find out in mid-January.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Hello,
Here's another post and something we worked on recently. It's called 'Age of Heroes' and was a pitch for MIP in October.
After Firestep took 'Akhenaten' over there last year they were asked to do something biblical and something classical too. They decided to work up tests on 'Theseus and the Minotaur' and 'David and Goliath'.
This time everything was put together at Newton st, apart from the sound which was added at Hullabaloo.
Working from Steve Maher's designs, Kilogramme, Christian Johnson and John Hedley modelled, textured, composited and edited the two pieces. Chris and John took on the majority of the animation.

http://www.vimeo.com/7917057










http://www.vimeo.com/7917538

We think they look pretty good and like what Vray and Z Brush can do.






Other news:

We've put in for next year's Digital Shorts through NorthWest Vision and made it to the next round.
There's a script development weekend on the 6th and 7th so I'm looking into riddles, old children's rhymes and The Golden Bough in order to firm up a tricky middle section.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

First Post

Hello this is the news blog for Kilogramme Studios at Newton st.

It's the first one so it might be best to start with a catch up for the past year. I'll try to be succinct.

PROJECTS AN
D NOTABLE ARRIVALS:
In January, after spending a few months looking for a project for them; we finally started working with Craig Knowles and David Ridges, on the animations for a DS game. It's a tie in with Disney's 'A Christmas Carol' and was made in conjunction with Sumodigital in Sheffield.
Dave and Craig fitted in seamlessly and we finished early with a few comments from Sumodigital on how smoothly things had gone.
Always nice.

A lot of credit also has to go to Claire Grey who directed with aplomb and Andy Gubba who took the role of rock.

Craig and Dave have been with us since and brought a new dimension to our design
and animation.


In May they helped me finish 'Bump' which is probably best described as an experiment in getting the sound of a brass instrument coming from within a pregnant woman. It's a bit of a curate's egg but when it works it has a certain charm and owes a lot to the people who worked on it.
http://www.vimeo.com/7792421



In October they finished their own film 'Bon Appetit' which you can peek at here: http://www.vimeo.com/7041471
It's quite the char
mer and hopefully will go down well on the festival circuit.






In March we also welcomed Sam Jones. She started on work experience and helped out with animation on 'Streetmonsters' http://www.vimeo.com/7794759



Since then she has directed our piece for the Mr. Z challenge (not available to view at the moment, but a snippet can be seen here: http://www.vimeo.com/7663604)











as well as an ad for Camps solicitors.
http://www.vimeo.com/7680607





She also brings a new dimension to our design and animation and is Tabasco s
auce to the cucumber raita and chocolate Guinness cake provided by Knowles and Ridges.