Since being awarded the Emerging Artist Bursary I now find myself having to update two blogs at a time! I will try to keep the posts different but I did want to share a recent recording I made whilst doing some research. Just click on the red arrow.

Great news Memory Archive has been selected to appear in the First Impressions 2014 exhibition at  View Gallery in Bristol which runs  from 4th - 21st September.
I am really pleased to be selected and can't wait to see the film in a gallery setting. 

I have finally gotten around to publishing part of the finished Memory Archive on Vimeo and thought I would share it with you. So here is Penstowe Manor,  a country house in Cornwall, which is now a  holiday park

First meeting with Somerset Art Works and my fellow emerging Artists today. It was really good to get together and I am really looking forward to this whole experience. I will update my blog with my progress and details of where you can see the finished film nearer the time.

I am very excited to tell you that I have been selected as one of the candidates for the Somerset Art Works Emerging Artist Bursary. 
I  will be developing an animation  in response to the theme  'The Levels and Moors'  and am 
I am now starting my research so will be collecting stories and experiences from members of the public in the area and I will be posting updates on my blog and on the Levels and Moors website.
If you want to find out more or look at the other Artists taking part click here and don't forget to take a look at the link to my work by clicking here

I often tell people that I am in my 'cave' animating but it occurred to me that this probably doesn't mean a lot to anyone else. So I thought I would add a couple of images to show you what the cave looks like.
I am largely self taught when it comes to stop motion animating, although recently I have been very lucky to receive help from the Animation Department at Uni.   
You may notice from the images that I am not exactly state of the art  but I will pass on a little knowledge every now and then to help new animators. Those of you who know what your talking about please look away now!

My animation set up comprises of 3 light sources (two desk lights, and the camera), the drawing is registered to a peg bar flat on the desk (this eliminates movement in the film). My DSLR camera is suspended in a fixed position over the drawing. 

Unfortunately iStopmotion, which is a low cost animation package does not give live previews with my canon so next to the camera is a webcam which allows me to see what I am shooting and lets me do lots of other great things like onion skinning, rotoscoping etc. and is previewed on my mac which you can see on the left of the image.

All light has been removed from the room, which makes it cold and dark but  stops flickering in the animation. 

I will post more about this set up later!

I am looking at the next section of my animation which will  involve  the narrators hands moving whilst sharing memories with the viewer. I think there should be a social element involved so I have undertaken a study of hands playing cards. The images are fairly dark but once run though the animation they should look better.  

I have finally posted my first video on Vimeo (it's a big day for me). Unfortunately the sound isn't good and iMovie really doesn't do the resolution any favours so I am going to get some advice on how to resolve those issues however, for now, here is my first test of 'Memory Archive!

Just looking at some more animators and stumbled across giphy.com where there are some amazing Aleksandr Petrov gifs. Unfortunately, embedding the code on my blog caused lots of problems but I recommend following the link I have posted for giphy (just click on giphy.com above) or you could have a look on YouTube for Petrov's 'Dream of a Ridiculous Man'

I stumbled upon another great Animator this morning and thought I would share Michele Lemieux and her animation 'Here and the Great Elsewhere'  with you . If you can't see it well from my link (I recommend selecting full page view) you could also go to the National Film Board website  -  enjoy.