Filmography 1994 to 1999
This is a run through of my most memorable projects during
my College and University
years. I've dropped in some facts about their development. If
you want to read them all in historical order start from the
bottom to get everything in context.
There are free links to videos where ever possible and many of
them have pages dedicated to each project.
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Showreels
Personal Projects
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Professional
Projects
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University Years
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College Years
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1998 to 1999 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation with 3D Digital CGI backgrounds
After Two Face Tabby I didn't want to spend so long on my next
project so I did some one off exercises to flesh out my showreel
while I spent a few months developing the preproduction
material. This gave me a chance to really hone the storyboard
and character designs. Of course I'd already done a reasonable
amount of pencil mileage with these characters so I ...
more ... 
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1999 - Demo reel with traditional 2D animation
This is the demo reel that I made to launch myself out into the
real world. I was going for fun, I grabbed the liveliest tunes I
didn't already have strong associations with (I hadn't listened
to them thousands of times), and mixed them together to keep the
viewer guessing about what was coming next. I was very pleased
with the climax of the reel that ...
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1998 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation - working for BIT UK in England
This was really just a cheeky last minute request to do an
advert for BIT (the same company that commissioned me to do the
Archer demo). I used one of the characters (later to be
nicknamed Polo) from the Archer piece to present the start and
end of a company showreel. I never got to see it in use but I
think it was going to be targeted for some stand alone
screens/booths in public places around the country (pubs,
leisure centre's etc...). It featured a quick piece of comic
animation presenting the company logo and telephone number on a
green screen so that ... more ...
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1998 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation - working for BIT UK in England
During my summer holiday I found a local company that built and
sold video editing suits, they were also the UK distributors for
an number of different pieces of software. I approached them and
I was asked to do some animation for a video that would showcase
and demonstrate the basics of an animation colouring system
called Archer. To some extent I ended up being a guinea pig for
an early version of the software, so I ended up reporting bugs
too (the start of my software carrier!). I was already starting
to think about ...
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1997 to 1998 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation with 3D Digital CGI backgrounds
This started with a mythical legend I researched that I have
completely forgotten now. My old friend Scott helped me find it,
he's good with things like that. The legend formed the basis for
the story and provided the name of the beast: Fenrir. The I
didn't make any attempt to retell the legend, I just borrowed
the idea for the characters and formed my own story from them in
a similar setting. My plan for this was ambitious so I never
actually managed to completely finish it. Some of the scenes are
lacking ... more ...
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1998 - Demo reel with traditional 2D animation
First shown at the Vital Animation Festival in Cardiff, this
showreel attracted some attention on the student exhibition
stand, mostly from other students! Some people said that perhaps
the dark tone of the music wasn't appropriate for a showreel
which is why I turned to lighter material for my next showreel.
In hindsight I'm not sure there was anything wrong with the
music.  Audio: "Men in Black" is the copyright
of Sony Music Entertainment Inc. 1997
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1997 - Traditional Cartoon 2D Animation
This was part of the presentation
GCADT made every year to
showcase that year's student work (the
Glammies). It was a short micky-take of some of our students
and tutors as the characters from Scooby Doo.
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1997 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation with 3D Digital CGI backgrounds (and
co-star)
This one was a bit more personal, and too long too. There was no
way I could have gotten this one finished on time. It was
storyboarded out to about three minutes and I planned to have
one CG character interacting with 2D animation on a CG
background. The background designs there quite unique, and the
character designs were ...
more ...
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1997 - Demo reel with CG, model and traditional 2D animation
This was my first showreel... at least the first one that I
edited down to something watch-able. It was really just a chance
to learn how to use Premiere and it only features material that
was available in digital form at the time, so it didn't include
any line-tests. It wasn't intended to be used for anything so I
didn't exactly plan it out. But ...
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1997 - 3D Computer animation with additional effects
This was another exploration of 3D computer graphics that
featured underwater futuristic crafts (large and small), a robot
firing a gun (the same one from Gunfest)
and special effects (lightning).
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1996 to 1997 - Traditional Cartoon 2D animation with 3D Digital CGI backgrounds
This was an exercise set by my tutors (at the
GCADT Animation course) to
make a piece of animation set to music. The tunes were pulled
out of a hat and there was no opportunity to back out. I guess
this was my first experience of working to a brief, I wasn't a
fan of the tune at all at first but I made the best of the
situation. This was the first project I storyboarded, animated
in full 2D and ...
more ...
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1996 - Computer animated camera move over a classic painting
A brief project set at University in which I had to work with a
classic painting and make a film (or mood piece) without
actually animating anything. I used 3D studio to pan over
close-ups of the painting and later added subtle colour tints,
cuts' and flashes timed to an appropriate piece of music. I was
very pleased with the result and managed to create a strong mood
that enhanced the contend of the painting.
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1996 - 3D Computer animation
A very silly mess around collaboration with David, combining my
robot from Gunfest with Dave's Bee model.
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1996 - Digital 3D Computer animation
My first attempt at 3D CGI animation was this crude robot
walking in a spaceship filled crystal landscape (now there's a
common cliché if ever I heard one). It was done in 3D Studio 4
in DOS (on a very slow computer). I didn't know anything about
I.K. so the robot's feet slid all over the floor. I ended up
putting a ridiculous camera move over the whole thing that
didn't work that well, since I couldn't preview what it was
going to look like in those days.
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1995 to 1996 - Computer generated Cartoon 2D animation and a variety of
mixed techniques
This was my 18 minute space epic. A personal pet project, this
time, that I started as a series of experiments and I decided to
expand upon. I actually had a plan for this one. I roughed out a
simple storyline, chose some music and planned what would happen
and when to the timings of the music. I was still pretty much
making it up as I went along, but ...
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1996 - 3D model stop motion animation mixed with live action.
Stupid name... I know. It was "Tigra" spelt backwards, which was
the name of my label at the time. I'd already had a stab at
plastacine animation, at this point, and I had a hunch that it
wasn't for me. So I put myself to the test and jumped in the
deep end with this. I made a character with an armature, took
over my parents kitchen every evening for a week and ...
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1995 - 3D model animation and a variety of mixed digital techniques
This was another college project. We had to do something with
letters. There was a typography design element to the project
but we also got the opportunity to make a film on it too. My
friend David and I partnered up and shot a large number of stop
motion scenes depicting plastacine letter forms moving around.
We made up each scenario as we went along during the shooting,
then when it was all done we exported the footage into the PC
(it was only in black and white) and we split up to allow us
both to come up with different interpretations on how to use
that footage.
I coloured the monochrome footage and set it to a variety of
pieces of music. I time stretched it, squashed it, cropped it,
masked it, added effects... all kinds of stuff to create a
series of shorts, some more interesting than others.
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1995 - Computer generated 2D animation and a variety of mixed
digital techniques
This was a landmark for me. It was a college brief that appeared
(like all the others) to limit my choices but I ended producing
my first film that actually forced an emotion from it's viewer.
Admittedly it had some great music on the sound track but I was
extremely pleased with how I played to that sound track with
such limited resources. It was long but worth it. I distinctly
remember the first ...
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1995 - Computer generated 2D animation and a variety of mixed
digital techniques
This used a few key images that mixed together and manipulated
made three scenes that I inter-cut to the Batman theme as one of
my earliest attempts to capture a mood to music. I kept this one
a secret from my long time animation buddy, David, which was a
cool surprise when I unveiled it. But ultimately it wasn't a
long project, just another mess around, and a bit of a homage to
Batman.
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1994 to 1995 - Computer generated 2D animation and a variety of
mixed digital techniques
Night Owl is just one of a dozen short experimental films I made
when I was introduced to an old DOS based animation program by
my friend Dave. Some have been lost over time and some I'm too
ashamed to admit they exist (I caved in to pier pressure to do
something "arty"). But Night Owl stays somehow memorable,
probably because it was the first one I put music to, which
elevated it so much I ...
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