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.
I wrote the idea of a young alien orphan called ‘Scrotch’ who created his own friend through experimenting with his toy chemistry set. It was part of a much larger idea but we had to boil it down to a 2 minute idea in order to have a hope of making it after studying animation for a mere 5 months. Remember this was the days before digital so everything had to be created by hand, we drew, painted and cut out every frame, shot it under a 16mill camera & edited on a Steenbeck.
It was great fun making this film and obviously a huge learning curve for all of us. That Summer we watched the film in front of an audience at the Galway Film Fleadh where we won 2nd Prize for New Irish Animation – competition was not so fierce in those wide eyed days 
- A young Richie posing at breakfast at the Galway Film Fleadh in 1991.
From then on we were hooked and a lot of us have stayed in the animation/ design industry.
Ryan McElhinney went on to work at Fox studios in the USA but now lives in London and is a great designer, check out his work.
Simon Rogers continued to paint and is now a conceptual artist at Dreamworks - check out some of his work on his blog.
So here’s the final film, please remember we were young… and be gentle on us
15 comments so far
LOVE IT!! I especailly enjoyed the Coprophagic lizard creature 30 seconds in, dont think I’ve ever seen that in any animated short before!!
17 May 2010
3:01 pm
Thanks Aaron, i Had to wiki ‘coprophagic’ but now I’ll know exactly how to use it in a sentence when the opportunity arises!!!
17 May 2010
3:55 pm
Boo! There’s no movie link when I open the blog….and I really want to see the Coprophagic Lizard now. Aaron’s really hyped it
Bro
17 May 2010
4:03 pm
Update your Flash player Bro, it should work!
17 May 2010
4:04 pm
BTW, that Lizard was completely the brainchild of Simon Rodgers. He had a demented brain back then which has not dampened with age! His ideas were great & obviously they still are or he would not be working at Dreamworks! Simons blog is well worth checking out http://www.sim-r.com/blog/
17 May 2010
4:11 pm
Holy s*!*e, that’s so fecken crazy!!! To see it after all this time. If truth be told, I don’t have much recollection of any individual shot, I just remember it being great to make something. Looking at it again, I think we should have reversed the credits. Doc should have been credited as the Director if for no other reason he deserved it for that kick ass narration plus he picked the music Sonic Youth “Cool Thing” juxapoesd with Vivaldi’s four seasons. p.s. Ais is wondering if you’ve any more photos?
18 May 2010
6:08 am
Its funny seeing it again alright. Kudos to Tom Payne for posting it on Youtube!
I don’t think any of us had a clue about credits back in college days & we all just generally mucked in but you’re right the amazing part was just getting to make something!
What Pics does Ais want – Old ones of you or Oscar ones? I’ll have a root around…
18 May 2010
8:09 am
There is no way the person holding the oscar is the same person holding the cup of tea. No way!
19 May 2010
10:44 am
Wha’? Are you messing Soc? Richie is the one running his hand through his flowing blonde locks! The chap with the cup of tea is a chap called ‘Fergus’ we used to be in class with.
19 May 2010
10:57 am
Right so. The page isn’t downloading fully for me. I thought Richie had started to use his visual effects skills to doctor old photos of himself!
20 May 2010
10:17 am
The chap with the cup is Fergus Duffy. He is now, like his father was, a teacher…unlike you people who chose to waste your lives he brings light to where there is darkness, hope to where there is only hopelessness. Oh wait! That’s Obama. Love the video…how ever posted it must be really cool, sexy, Charismatic and very modest. The Oscar goes to?
20 May 2010
8:56 pm
Right so. The page isn’t downloading fully for me. I thought Richie had started to use his visual effects skills to doctor old photos of himself!
31 May 2010
12:12 pm
Hi Doc,
20 years, now I feel old.
Did we camp down by the Canal that year.
I have faint memory of waking up in a tiny tent, seriously hung-over
Cheers
G
18 June 2010
3:29 pm
Howdy Gary, Yes we camped at the side of the river. This was back in the day when you could pitch a tent there, its all apartments now!
) I promise I won’t post it up in a publuic forum like this!!!
I have a photograph of you emerging from a tent looking pretty bleary eyed ( but still young
21 June 2010
10:32 am
Darragh ( Doc) That brought me back a bit I remember it soo well.I can’t believe you still have it.
X Noeleen
21 February 2011
10:52 pm