Monday, August 31, 2009

TXT @ the NFT for 1.0


TXT ISLAND will be shown next week at the NFT Cinema on London's Southbank as part of the upcoming Onedotzero Festival. A festival preview clip can be seen here. As well as a couple of screenings throughout the week (wed 9th sept & sun 13th sept) as part of the 'Craftwork 09' programme, the film may get some further international screenings by way of Onedotzero's touring programmes.

P.S. Thought I'd better add a TXT ISLAND page to the www.chrisgavin.com website. So back into Flash; and though it's been a couple of years I've added a new TXT ISLAND button and accompanying page.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Born On The 28th of August


TXT ISLAND will get it's first international screening (and in competition too!) at the 'BornShorts' Festival at the end of this month. Bornholm Island off the coast of Denmark hosts the festival, TXT ISLAND will screen during the Animation show at the Scala Cinema on Friday the 28th August.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

An 8mm Journey

Well, it's 2 months after our wedding and the Super8 film from the day is finally back in the country. The film has been on a long journey but here are the nerdy details...

My friend Ellis borrows my Nizo S800 camera on the day and shoots one roll of Kodak 64T Super 8 film. I send this to Bart at Blue Cine Tech here in London and he sends it on to Andec Filmtechnik in Berlin for processing. I get the film back by post then send it (with a USB memory stick) over to Uppsala Bildteknik in Sweden. Uppsala Bildteknik telecine the film using the FlashScan HD machine and return the film reel and the memory stick with one big Quicktime file. I then do a bit of AE noodling with some mild de-graining and levels settings.

Et Voila! Here are a couple of still frames from that very movie...





For the very curious, I might well follow this up with a post about the telecine service used.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Big Brother, No One Is Watching You!

I notice with some ranting smugness that nobody is watching Big Brother at all this year.


A long time back, Channel Four had built itself a hard-won reputation for edgy, innovative and unpredictable programming; they even used to fund lots and lots of film and animation production. Yet witness the endless freak-show of wife-swapping makeover reality programming they carry these days.

Well, it seems the game's well and truly up now. Lets hope there's anyone left at Channel Four HQ with some new ideas they're going to need something to fill that rather large void...

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Awards Night Report

Well a fab night out with some TANDEM friends at the Rushes Soho Shorts Awards night last Thursday (July 30th). This year, the event was at the Curzon Cinema, a much classier event than on previous occasions; the change of venue being a definite plus. It was great to get an invite as a finalist director. 'TXT ISLAND' was up against two other animated shorts, 'This Way Up' and 'This is Where We Live'.

After the jury deliberated (and probably cogitated too) they chose 'This Way Up' as the winner. Well done to Smith and Foulkes, congrats to all the folks at Nexus.