One of the first things you need to think about when producing a short film is what aspect ratio you want your film to be in. We’re going to use ‘23 Degrees..’ as a way of testing our feature film pipeline for future projects so right from the beginning we have decided that we will be going to film.
This is an expensive process so in the past we have waited to see how successful the short is before we made the expensive decision to make a digital film print. However this is isn’t always the best option as there are certain choices you should make early on to increase the cinematic experience. (more…)
It’s that time of year again when the seaside village of Gortahork in the heart of the Donegal Gaeltacht turns into a film Mecca for the Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival (11th to 13th June). Having been lucky enough to have worked at Guth Gafa for the last four years (The Octonauts and Olivia the Pig stole me this year!), I have watched it grow from humble roots to one of the main film events in the Irish calendar.
This year, in addition to the documentaries, Guth Gafa are screening a series of short animations as part of their special family programmes: Tricks for Kids. Presented by Heinz Hermanns (the man behind Interfilm Berlin’s “Going Underground Festival’ held in the trains of the Berlin subway), Tricks for Kids will be showing a series of short animations told through different animation techniques.
Today was a very sad day in the studio, as the Olivia statue that has sat proudly on our shelf all through production was returned to its owner Ian Falconer, creator of the Olivia books. The stunning statue of Olivia is a one of a kind creation and was based on the books’ original illustrations. Olivia will be missed, which is why we dedicated this post to her last day at Brown Bag before she headed off to New York.
My good friend Richie Baneham deservedly won the Oscar this year for his work on the Visual Effects of Avatar. It was great fun hanging out together at the Academy Awards and seemed a long way away from where we first met at Ballyfermot Senior College.
It’s amazing to think that we shared a credit on what was our first film, and there we were nearly 20 years later at the Oscars!
Oscar nominees Darragh, Tomm Moore & Richie Baneham
It was back in September 1990 when a gang of us started the ADS (Animation Drawing Studies) class at Ballyfermot. The end result of that year was that a group of us started making a short animated film – we were mostly working on this bad boy from around March – April 1991.
Made by a young Brazilian Film maker called Guilherme Marcondes, I think its a really great piece of work mixing up animation & puppetry with photography.
A major exhibition honouring the work of legendary animator Chuck Jones opens at the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles tomorrow.
‘Chuck Jones – A Life from A to Z-z-z’ showcases iconic characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote, created or developed by Jones. (more…)
