Thursday, September 14, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat Care 'Looking After Kittens'



This is the second episode in a series of 'Cat Care with Nicky' web videos that I'm directing for the Simon's Cat channel. Over the years I've been shooting and editing a lot of the 'extra' video content for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel.

Saturday, July 29, 2017

New Video: IFRS Developing Financial Standards


Here's a new corporate explainer video I made recently for the IFRS (That's International Financial Reporting Standards.) Keen readers will remember that last year I made this video for the same organization too.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Music by Stuart Hancock'


Here's another short 'Behind the Scenes' video I made for the Simon's Cat channel. In this episode, we meet Stuart Hancock, the composer who created the score for the film 'Off to the Vet'.

Monday, June 19, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic 'Body Language'


Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This episode looks into Cat Body Language.

Friday, May 12, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat Care 'Kittens'


Here's a new video I've just made (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd. This is the first episode in a new informative web series all about looking after cats.

Friday, March 10, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic 'Water'


Here's the latest episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

Friday, March 03, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Art Direction'


Here's the third in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode Art Director Isobel Stenhouse describes her approach to bringing colour to the Simon's Cat (animated) world for the first time.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

New Experimental Video: 'SnowTunes'



Here's that snow footage again. This time I've added some experimental 'noodling' to it. All sorts of After Effects fun here; tracking the snowflakes then using AE scripting to drive the animation and create the 'musical' sound track. There's a little bit of coding here generating the tones from the tracking co-ordinates.

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Clean-up Animation'



Here's the second in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode animator Setareh Seto describes her approach to the clean-up work.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

New Video: Simon's Cat BTS 'Rough Animation'



Here's the first in a series of short 'Behind the Scenes' videos I was asked to make for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel. In this episode animator Laura Nailor describes her approach to the rough animation work.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

New Video: 'Making 3D Letters'



Many posts ago here I wrote about making some simple 3D letters from card. Well, I've now made a video showing how this is done in more detail.

The video demonstrates how to use Adobe Illustrator to create the letter templates, then the cutting, scoring, folding and gluing process.

I hope some readers and viewers of the video find it useful.

Friday, January 13, 2017

'Snowmotion' @96fps



Well it doesn't snow very often here in the London suburbs. So when it does happen, I shoot a little test film. Take a little break from your busy day and enjoy ... 'Snowmotion'. Shot with Panasonic GH4 camera, Lumix 35-100mm f2.8 lens, 1920x1080 @ 96 fps.

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

Motion Graphics for new "Hammer Horror" documentary.

My old friend Marcus Hearn has directed a new feature length documentary all about Hammer Horror films from the late60s/early70s. Fans of these classic movies should definitely look out for "Hammer Horror the Warner Bros Years" coming soon. I had great fun providing some motion graphics for this in a somewhat retro styley adding plenty of film weave, light leaks and dodgy 'opticals', all rendered in a suitably diabolic palette of red and black of course .... Mwa ha ha. Taste ze trailer here ...

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep08 'Hunting'



Here's the eighth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

Friday, December 16, 2016

'Bear Hunt' Behind the Scenes



Channel 4 have released a lovely 'Making Of' film about our work on "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" at Lupus Films. I'm really proud to have been a part of this whole thing. There's even a shot of me chatting to the book's original illustrator Helen Oxenbury as we were putting together the snow storm sequence ... 1:39-1:45 ; )

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Back From the 'Bear Hunt.'



Well I've not posted much to this blog recently, and now I can reveal the reason! For the last 6 months I've been working in at Lupus Films where we have been making "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" for Channel Four TV here in the UK. The half hour animated special will be shown on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but the official trailer has been released online now, so you can have a peek at what's to come. The film is successfully delivered now, so my role as Lead Compositor is done. Back to more freelance projects now, and once again, very much available for new work ; )

Saturday, August 20, 2016

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep07 'Feeding'



Here's the seventh episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep06 'Cleaning



Here's the sixth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

New Video: Simon's Cat Logic ep05 'Sleeping Places'



Here's the fifth episode in the series 'Simon's Cat Logic' I have been putting together (directing/shooting/editing) for Simon's Cat Ltd.

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

New Video: CAR SHOW (Enfield Motor Pageant)



This is a mini-documentary shot in Enfield UK on Bank Holiday Monday 30/05/16.

I've been making a lot of corporate films and content for the Simon's Cat channel recently, but not really had any time to make any of 'my own stuff'. Earlier this year I bought a pre-owned Panasonic GH4, I hadn't spent much time with this camera yet, so I took it along to a local classic car show for a few hours...

I was just 'collecting' shots really, but then towards the end of my afternoon at the show I met the M.C. for the event 'Baz'. In between making announcements, he agreed to sit down with me in the commentary booth to record a short interview which I captured using my Tascam DR07MKii recorder.

In the edit, I thought it might be nice to string the footage of the show together around this audio interview, and see if the whole thing would work without any 'talking head' sync. interview at all.

Anyway, for those interested in the gear used, this was all shot on the GH4 using just one lens, the Canon 50mm f1.4 (adapted with the Speedbooster XL). I used a Tiffen VariND to keep the aperture wide open, so most of this was shot at the f1.4 stop! Everyone else is probably getting a bit tired of the 'shallow DOF' look by now, but I'm very late to the party and still wanted to see how much of this I could get with the little micro 4/3 sensor. I've probably overdone that somewhat... Also, I never had a camera with 96 fps before either, so I couldn't resist using that a lot too. All the normal speed footage was shot 4K in the UHD/25fps mode. To grade this I applied FilmConvert using pretty much the 'Fuji Provia' preset and occasional aperture adjustment on some shots.

I made this film just to 'scratch an itch' really: I wanted to shoot and edit a little project speedily and just put it out there ...