Jon Creamer's Blog RSS Feed - Televisual http://www.televisual.com/blogs/29/Jon-Creamer.html en-uk © 2010 Televisual. All rights reserved. Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:06:40 36 Televisual http://www.televisual.com http://www.televisual.com/images/logo.jpg 408 70 Behind the scenes of Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy The Mighty Boosh’s Noel Fielding and animator Nigel Coan have turned the weirdometer up to 11 on their new show with the liberal use of poster paint, cardboard and green screen animation

Taking a break from filming The Mighty Boosh, Noel Fielding and animation director/Boosh collaborator/old college friend Nigel Coan took some time out to mess about with some comedy and animation ideas in their front rooms. The result is the upcoming E4 sketch show, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, a home made series featuring stunt riding lychees and talkative stingrays all held together by cling film, bacofoil, poster paints and felt tips. Nigel Coan tells Jon Creamer about the show’s DIY surrealism.

How did the series come about?
Two or three years ago we had a couple of months spare to make something ourselves but we didn’t know we were going to make a show at the time. We literally filmed it in our flats and there were just two of us doing it but we managed to get 23 minutes of stuff and thought ‘there’s a show in this.’

Was that starting point where the homemade aesthetic of the show comes from?
Yes, the limitations we had when there were only two of us led to how we made the series. When we made the series we tried to keep to that way of making things rather than expand outwards.

What was the inspiration for the show’s look?
There are a lot of painted elements. The main thread of the show is that Noel’s in a psychedelic jungle tree house and all that is painted. It’s inspired by Henri Rousseau and painters like that. That’s because Noel paints as well as doing comedy, and we thought it’s a nice texture and it reflects him. It’s also an extension of the animations we do on Boosh. It was a conscious decision to keep the painted elements in and a deliberate reaction against slick cg stuff.



What was the writing process?
The way Noel writes is by performing it so he’ll rattle it off word for word and then we’ll talk about it and I’ll tell him if it’s possible or not [in terms of the animation]. So we made decisions quite quickly about what we were going to do. Anything I wasn’t sure about I’d go away and do a quick test and come back and say ‘Yes, we can do that.’

Did the finished show change a lot from the 
initial scripts?
Often if you’re doing a character for the first time you sometimes discover what’s really funny about it after the performance because Noel improvises so much. Obviously we’d start with the script but it’s often that improvised stuff that we used because it’s just fresh. When it happens in that moment, you know it’s funny straight away so it often supersedes scripted stuff.

The animation’s mostly based on green screen performances, why?
We shot some stuff against painted sets but in the end we preferred working on green screen because you concentrate on the performance and it gives you options afterwards. You can then decide what the world is going to look like after – if it’s going to be collagey or if it’s going to be painted. We’d always start with an idea in our heads but it gives you options. When you shoot on a set it is what it is on the day and it’s not going to change.

Why did you form your own production company, Secret Peter, to make Luxury Comedy?
Because we made what we made on our own just in our kitchens and with green screen, it gives you the power to do that because you can create all these worlds without big sets. We thought if we can do that why not have our own production company, get a producer and expand outwards. It’s quite stressful because it’s all on us but I’m glad we did it that way.

There’s an enormous amount of animation overall, did you know it would be possible to make in the time you had?
When we started it we didn’t know. It was a big learning curve because we weren’t sure what we were trying to do was possible within the budget. But now we know what’s doable and what’s not.

Details
Noel Fielding’s 
Luxury Comedy
“A psychedelic character based comedy show half filmed and half animated. The show is like biting into an aurora borealis sandwich...like Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger recreating The Jungle Book using toast... Warm and strange and packed 
with jokes.”
Broadcaster E4
TX January 2012
Production company Secret Peter
Exec producer Derrin Schlesinger
Producer Isibeal Ballance
Director and lead animator Nigel Coan
Music Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzorno
Editor Mark Everson



Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Behind-the-scenes-of-Noel-Fieldings-Luxury-Comedy_bid-318.htmlTue, 10 Jan 2012 10:58:14Behind the scenes of BBC3's upcoming Young Soldiers It's one of the most dangerous times to be a British soldier since the Second World War, particularly if you’re in the infantry. BBC3 and Lion’s new access doc gets close to the raw recruits signing up to fight for their country in Afghanistan

With the 10-year anniversary of the Afghan war approaching, there are plenty of docs about the British soldiers at the sharp end. But while many focus on life on the frontline, Lion TV's new BBC3 doc series takes a look at new recruits as they prepare for battle.

Access was, of course, key to the doc and particularly access to Catterick, the infantry's basic training centre where all new recruits spend their first six months. "Lion had been working on the access quite heavily for nine or 10 months before it got the greenlight," says the show's director and series producer, Dov Freedman. And the indie's "reputation helped. They'd done a lot of access documentaries with the MOD in the past" including ITV series Guarding the Queen and the MOD were happy with that. The BBC3 audience demographic helped too, says Freedman. "The age to join the infantry is 17 to 32 which is pretty much BBC3's target audience so all that made it appealing" to the army.



The show focuses on four main characters joining The Rifles regiment and casting began as the slew of recruits arrived on their first day at Catterick. “We didn’t know anyone before they pitched up for their first day so we were casting as we went along." Each of the characters was there for a different reason. "There's a guy whose brother had been blown up in Afghanistan and suffered some quite bad injuries, another who'd been in the TA before but was struggling to find a job and an out of work tiler trying to support his son." Through those stories "we're trying to paint a picture of Britain," says Freedman. And also ask why, when it's such a dangerous time to join the army, recruitment is still high.

Even though much of the focus is on the training process, the series would be incomplete without following the characters to Afghanistan's Camp Bastion and the front line. This meant a hostile environment training course for Freedman and a shock to the system. "The heat and the dust is unbelievable" especially when you're dragging body armour and camera kit too. "It's pretty challenging but not as challenging as what the soldiers have to do." For his trips to the frontline, Freedman hired an ex soldier turned DV director. "He's been filming out there for the last four or five years and had been in the army for a long time. He knew what to look out for and what to do and what not to do."



Although the UK footage was shot on a Sony DSR 450, Freedland took the decision not to take that camera to Afghanistan. "I was keen to because I knew there was going to be a fantastic light." But at the same time "you've got to be able to carry your own kit. I didn't want to take the DSR because you've got the Peli cases and batteries and stuff. The last thing the soldiers want to see is you schlepping around with loads of boxes."

In the end he took the Sony Z7 body with a Canon J22 lens. "We got a converter and retro fitted the Z7 with a big lens and the results were pretty good." He also shot on tape, despite the heat and dust of Afghanistan. "If I went again I would shoot tapeless but we started on tape and I didn't want to take a fresh camera out. You just had to change tape when you were inside to try and keep the dust out of it and just really mother it."

details
Young Soldiers A 5x60-minute observational documentary that follows a group of new infantry recruits from basic training at Catterick through to the front line in Afghanistan
TX September 2011
Production company Lion TV
Broadcaster BBC3
Exec producers 
Donna Clark 
and Jeremy Mills
Director and series producer Dov Freedman
Commissioned by BBC3 commissioning editor of factual, formats and specialist factual, Harry Lansdown
Cameras Sony DSR 450, Sony Z7
Post  In-house at Lion with final audio post at Rapid Pictures

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Behind-the-scenes-of-BBC3s-upcoming-Young-Soldiers-_bid-295.htmlMon, 05 Sep 2011 12:16:33Cometh The Hour With Abi Morgan writing the script, a cast that includes Ben Wishaw, Dominic West and Romola Garai and comparisons with Mad Men, The Hour has a lot to live up to. Jon Creamer reports

There's a lot to pack in to The Hour, Kudos' new Abi Morgan-penned series for BBC2.
Set in a TV newsroom in the mid 50s, it's part period drama, part suspense thriller and part love triangle. It takes in the birth of television news and the beginning of the end of deference. It’s also a show about transition - as the Suez Crisis tips Britain from broken post-imperial dinosaur and turns the country towards a bright new technological future.



The media chatter surrounding the show has so far been about the possible birth of a British Mad Men. But, says exec producer Jane Featherstone, that’s a strange comparison. "I love and adore Mad Men but that is about ad men in New York, this is a political thriller. They’re nine years apart and not even in the same country. Tonally it couldn't be more different."

The show begins, after all, in a London still suffering the effects of the second world war – filled with bomb damage and rationing - a world away from the glitz of Madison Avenue. But the show is also about how Britain was changing in the mid 50s. Along with its thriller elements, the theme of transition runs through the series, even within the first episode as the TV journalist characters move from the old fashioned Alexandra Palace and take up residence in the bright new Lime Grove Studios. The drama begins "claustrophobic and shadowy and steeped in the patina of age," says director Coky Giedroyc. "Through the first episode as the journalists fight to get out of Alexandra Palace, I let the light in. At the end of episode one, they're in Lime Grove Studios and it's the vision of the future - shiny floors and ceilings and big windows and new technology."



The show is faithful to its 50s setting, with all the attention to detail that entails but the production team were determined not to be stymied by the conventions of period drama. "Recent period has to feel real but contemporary," says exec producer Jane Featherstone. "It's not a historical piece in the sense it was trying to be an absolute replication of that time. What the design and photography team did was absolutely accurate in every way, but it was very much about creating a world that felt real to us today as well."

Despite the period setting, the script demanded the show had the pace of contemporary drama. "I wanted something richly textured and lush and period but with a motor and energy that are really contemporary," says Giedroyc, who took influences from 50s movies like Touch of Evil "for the heavy rich, smoky sense of the period" but also Michael Mann thrillers like The Insider "for the energy and the motor." It is, after all, a political thriller too. "In a way, sod the period," says Giedroyc. "An audience won't be bothered with something that's incredibly beautifully constructed but a bit boring."

And that need for pace informed the camera work. "Coky in particular was adamant she didn't want a very typical period, staid, solid look," says DoP Chris Seager. "We wanted something a bit more vibrant, not in the sense of being handheld because we didn't want people aware of the camera." Instead the camera "was asked to be inquiring, looking and going with the action rather than watching" which led to "a lot of POV stuff, a lot of over-shoulder stuff and Steadicam shots going down corridors and going up stairs and people going in and out of light and dark. It's an exuberant style."



A major aid to that pace and exuberance was the early find of Hornsey Town Hall, a listed 1930s building packed with period features. "We found it early on and it was the most creatively exciting thing I've done in a long time," says Giedroyc. "It's one of those really important breakthroughs on a production that if you don't get, you're stuck." The production team were able to have the run of the whole building and could even use buildings to the rear to create the Alexandra Palace and Lime Grove sets. 

Finding the building informed the writing too. With so much period detail in situ, characters could be followed through corridors and down staircases and that meant Morgan could write some real pace and movement into the script without needing more set builds. It meant "our world had scale," says Featherstone. "Which we probably wouldn't have been able to afford without it." It also meant director Giedroyc could concentrate on the performances. "It freed me up," she says. "I could go on long journeys with characters. I didn't have to go from one poky set to another. I had four flights of stairs, I had six corridors so we could create a camera style that was incredibly fluid. And it's very rare to be able to do that in a period drama."



Recreating Lime Grove
Eve Stewart, production designer: "We wanted to make the difference between Alexandra Palace and Lime Grove really clear because it says something about society at the time. There was a massive surge in technology in those few years. It went from post war utility and make do and mend and then suddenly space travel was starting to be talked about." To research the period Stewart watched contemporary movies and took references from the Geffrye Museum and The Museum of London. "And we met a lot of people who'd worked at Lime Grove in the period. They managed to come up with original footage of the building." As for props, "we make an awful lot ourselves. For the television equipment we found Dicky from Golden Age Television Recreations who has two big cameras and a big boom in his garage. Then if you're charming and friendly to these people it then leads on to their friend who leads on the their friend. There's an enormous wealth of mad English people who collect things."


Details
The Hour
A 6x60-minute drama series that centres on the early days of British television news in 1956. Part period drama, part love triangle and part thriller
TX: July 2011
Production company: Kudos
Broadcaster: BBC2
Writer: Abi Morgan
Director: Coky Giedroyc
Producer: Ruth Kenley-Letts
DoP: Chris Seager
Production designer: Eve Stewart
Exec producers: Jane Featherstone and Derek Wax for Kudos, Lucy Richer for the BBC and Abi Morgan
Commissioned by: BBC2 controller, Janice Hadlow and BBC controller of drama commissioning, Ben Stephenson
Cast: Romola Garai, Dominic West, Ben Whishaw, Tim Pigott-Smith, Juliet Stevenson, Anton Lesser, Anna Chancellor, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Oona Chaplin
Cameras: Arriflex D21
Grade: Molinare
Locations: The majority of the series was shot at Hornsey Town Hall which doubled for almost everything including Alexandra Palace and Lime Grove Studios


Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Cometh-The-Hour_bid-284.htmlTue, 05 Jul 2011 12:25:42Getting Kids' TV connected At next month's Children's Media Conference, a panel session about  the 'connected living room' will discuss how connected TV will affect kids' television. Here the speakers preview their thoughts

Marc Goodchild
Independent digital strategist and former editorial lead, BBC IPTV
With the new(ish) phenomenon of 'media stacking' - where kids are watching, playing, reading, chatting, voting, contributing on various devices at the same time, is TV becoming more ambient? Many see connected TVs as an opportunity to reverse that trend. The killer application has to be new TV formats that enable social interaction, incorporate play-along and are as immersive as games consoles. And once the TV is connected you can then tie in all the other connected devices too. Traditional TV may get squeezed out but this technology opens up the opportunity for a new breed of 'tele-centric experiences' for the 21st century.

Matt Locke
Director, Storythings.com
There are two key questions about the connected living room. What products will people buy in the current economic climate? And what will people actually 'do' with them? For most of us, the second is a lot more important than the first. In the last few years, social technology has grown exponentially, so we are starting to see new patterns of behaviour that are maturing and becoming mainstream. Kids are leading these changes and broadcasters will not always be the first movers to take advantage, and make money, from these new behaviours, so it's up to content creators to do the innovation themselves, and in return, reap the rewards.

Hamish McPharlin
Director of research, Decipher Consultancy Ltd
Connected TV has been around for years - we call it Red Button, but it's hindered by the constraints of the delivery mechanism, something which connected TVs and devices potentially overcome. A major influence in all this will be the pay platforms. Our research suggests a pay TV box trumps a connected TV in pay homes, and Sky et al will always innovate to keep it this way. So connected TVs will see more usage in non-pay homes. It will be a slow process to get good kids interactivity as current apps are slow and clunky and need to be developed for each manufacturer. Getting apps to work hand in hand with broadcast is still looking some way off.

Richard Kastelein
CEO, Agora Media Innovation
Connected devices will radically change the living room over the next few years as not only connected TVs enter homes, but also consumer pick-up of both smart phones and tablets will allow for dual screen interaction - providing a much more ergonomic and practical tool over the traditional TV remote. Though most TV remotes shipped by 2015 will likely be touch screen. TV apps on connected TV and companion devices are going to rattle the TV broadcast industry - the traditional value chain of brand/agency/broadcaster/consumer will drastically change. Some call it democratisation, others scream disruption. But for indie producers of kids' TV, there are going to be new paths to the consumer that fall outside of the norm.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Getting-Kids-TV-connected_bid-281.htmlWed, 15 Jun 2011 10:37:51Genre report: entertainment There’s no sign of the ratings juggernauts of entertainment TV losing any of their popularity. And buoyed up by that success, commissioners and producers are now on the hunt for the next big genre-busting hit. Jon Creamer reports


The explosion in big budget entertainment TV that kicked off several years ago seems to be a boom with no bust in sight.

Many of the huge Saturday night shows are now several years old and there’s no sign of audiences, or channels, tiring of them.

The X Factor reached its seventh season last year with over 16m viewers tuning in for the final, the last Strictly Come Dancing series picked up over 14m for its final show. Britain’s Got Talent reaches series five this spring, Dancing on Ice’s sixth season has just ended and Got to Dance on Sky 1 brought in double the slot average. And although Channel 5 has now stepped out of the game with entertainment fan Richard Woolfe off to pastures new and the Don’t Stop Believing experiment consigned to the graveyard, Channel 4 has emerged as a big new entertainment player since Justin Gorman took the head of entertainment job and got his hands on a pot of post Big Brother cash.
 
THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
For all broadcasters, entertainment shows, and particularly the talent show juggernauts, just keep on rewarding them with huge ratings and returnable brands. Far from moving through a natural TV lifecycle that would have seen them wane in popularity after so long at the top, they seem to get bigger and bigger, “which goes to prove that the old school values of singing and dancing and performance and jeopardy and competition are still as valid now as they’ve always been,” says Nick Samwell-Smith, creative director of Total Wipeout producer Initial.

It also goes to prove that those same channels have had the foresight to constantly reinvent them while also constantly upping their production values. “It needs to feel familiar to the audience, but at the same time you need to move it forward,” says BBC controller of entertainment commissioning, Mark Linsey. “The shifts can be subtle but quite significant.”



And the door isn’t completely closed to new talent shows either. “When The X Factor or Idol juggernaut was a bit younger there might have been a feeling that you can’t pitch a singing show or a dancing show,” says Initial’s Samwell-Smith. “But you feel, in the current climate, that even though those massive shows are still delivering huge numbers, if you get it right and have the right twists on it, there may well be room for more in that area.” Because it’s looked like the genre has reached saturation point before, and then one more talent show comes along and turns into a hit. “I remember at ITV thinking there couldn't possibly be another talent show and then Britain's Got Talent pops up, so you never say never,” says Sky One head of entertainment, Duncan Gray.

THE NEXT GENERATION
But for all channels, a new talent show would have to have some very original twists to it. “If it is a talent show the important thing is it has a real point of difference so we’re offering something that has a different flavour or attitude,” says BBC controller of entertainment commissioning, Mark Linsey. “That’s very key, not to ape something that already exists.”



“If we do it we’d have to invert it. It’s very difficult to go up against the wonderful X Factor. And our price point isn’t the same, so we would have to come at it from a very Channel 4 angle,” says Channel 4’s head of entertainment Justin Gorman. “We piloted something a while back and we’re still looking at how we touch in that area. It’s a tricky place to inhabit but I’d never say never because it obviously has a great audience but it’s tonally a tricky thing to achieve.”

Outside of the terrestrials, original commissions need to offer a point of difference, not a slightly less opulent copy, says UKTV’s commissioning editor for entertainment, Tess Cuming. “We tend to shy away from talent competitions. Our budgets are very healthy. They’re on a level with, if not more than, Channel 5, but our business model is based on something we can repeat to amortise costs.” And repeatability is not one of the major features of a talent show. “We don’t want to look like we’re aping the terrestrial channels and look like we’re doing a paler version. It’s difficult to sail into a similar area with a fraction of the budget.”
So the door may be open still at some broadcasters, but the idea would have to be very surprising to be welcomed in to the room. And with those ratings bankers still doing the business, the channels are on the lookout for the next generation of entertainment shows.

“I look at reality game shows and at the reality fusion going on in The Only Way is Essex and admire them and wonder what Sky’s bigger, better version would be,” says Sky One's Duncan Gray. “There are a couple of crossover genre shows that are just about to hit in the international marketplace that I’m very interested in. I’m very interested in the next generation of talk shows and who those performers may be, not in a pluggy way, but in a performance based way.”



BBC controller of entertainment commissioning, Mark Linsey, says the success of the big returning shows gives commissioners the leeway “to take risks and back producer’s hunches and try new things and new territories which we’ve got to do to move the genre on.”

Initial’s Samwell-Smith, whose new BBC1 show Don’t Scare the Hare features a four-foot tall animatronic hare, reckons the time is ripe to pitch the weird and wonderful “There’s room for coming up with an idea which is a bit out there, a bit mad. You can sometimes almost surprise a commissioner into being interested in your show. That it’s so left of field they can’t say no to it.”

For Channel 4’s head of entertainment Justin Gorman, “creating hybrids is a really interesting way of moving things forward - combining an event with a gamseshow with live show with a stripped thing with a studio thing attached to it – that sort of bonkers stuff as a starting point is good. It’s easy to get stuck with ‘that worked quite well, what can we do that’s a bit similar to that again’. If we’d done that there’s no way we would have done Ten O’clock Live or The Million Pound Drop.”



But just as broadcasters may be on the lookout for new forms and hybrids of existing formats, entertainment TV’s cyclical nature, and its willingness to dust off ideas from the past and give them a new shine, means it’s not always the brand new that’s given a chance. “We are looking at single player, high value, gameshows and quiz shows,” says Samwell-Smith of Endemol's development efforts. Could this be a new Who Wants to be a Millionaire? before the original show’s even left the airwaves?
Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Genre-report-entertainment_bid-265.htmlWed, 04 May 2011 12:47:59Period drama with attitude It's a costume drama, but it’s a world away from the warm bath experience of most TV period pieces. Jon Creamer reports on Origin Pictures' graphic and disturbing tale of Victorian vice - The Crimson Petal and the White

Although the adaptation of Michel Faber's sweeping and highly detailed novel The Crimson Petal and the White will come to the screen as a four-part BBC2 drama, it was originally to be made as a Hollywood movie starring Kirsten Dunst.

At least it was when ex-BBC films and now Origin Pictures' David Thompson first went after the rights and found that Sony Pictures had got there first. Luckily for him, the movie was never to be and Origin grabbed the rights when Sony backed off. "What I loved about it was its epic sweep," says Thompson. "I didn't see it as a movie. It was too big a book. Too many great books are destroyed when turned into a single movie."
The book is certainly epic, but it's also a very different proposition to what's usually expected from a period drama. Though set in the Victorian era, it's a modern novel and one that's keen to turn over stones to see what comes crawling out from underneath. "I've not done much period drama but I'd always been interested in doing it in a different way," says Thompson. "The book's full of smell and sex and opulence and poverty. It strips the layers off Victorian society and takes you behind the green baize door."



For such a proposition, it was obvious that the look of the film had to be very different to that of a typical costume drama. Says producer Steve Lightfoot: "It's a dark book. In a way it's a sort of riposte to Dickens and the idea that people might be poor but they're happy. Marc [Munden, the director] was keen to get that darkness" referencing third world slums rather than "cheerful chimney sweeps and market stalls."

The epic nature of the book also cried out for a series that could portray a sense of scale. Origin Pictures managed to tie up its BBC2 commission with help from Fremantlemedia (with whom it has a first look deal), Lipsync Post and a Canadian co pro agreement with Cite-Amerique (which meant three weeks of studio shooting in Canada) but, even so, the production needed some ingenuity to achieve that sense of scale. "In a world of diminishing budgets what tends to happen is [shows] get more interior," says producer Steve Lightfoot. "We tried hard to keep the sense of scale and show the world as it would have been at the time."

And to achieve that, the team needed to think beyond London for locations. "Trying to find big Victorian streets in London that are remotely filmable on," is difficult, says Lightfoot. And on a TV budget you can't close them. So the street scenes were done in Liverpool "which gave the piece some real scope." A lot of grand Victorian architecture in London is also a little too perfect, says production designer Grant Montgomery. "The buildings [in the period] were black because of the chimneys and fires. If you're trying to do a decayed kind of Victorian world, London's all cleaned up and very expensive to shoot in."

The locations also took in Somerset House, Waddesdon Manor, Disraeli’s house Hughenden Manor, and a building in Rochester that once served as a brothel. The filming also required the team to take over a private Georgian house that served as the Rackham family home where they repainted and furnished the place while the residents moved into a back room for the duration.



The main location required a lot too. Sugar lives in the Rookery, a slum world of three storey wooden shacks and dirt floors that crouched beneath the Victorian architecture that surrounded it in the St Giles area of London - a tall order to recreate in central London but perfect for Manchester Town Hall. "It's built around an internal courtyard so what you end up with is a more or less triangular inner space that's walled at all sides," says Lightfoot. "We built our stuff into it and it gave us this 360 degree set that we could walk round and shoot in any direction."

The location's closed off nature also meant there were "no problems with controlling traffic," says Montgomery. We could just let loose in there." It also meant the production could dump several tons of earth in there too as well as recreating a traditional Victorian open sewer. "The mud was a big issue," says Montgomery. "It looked like a First World War battle scene, but it gave it the atmosphere that you really didn't want to live down there."

THE STORY
Adapted from Michel Faber's sprawling novel, the drama tells the story of Sugar (Romola Garai), a young prostitute in 1870s London who yearns for a better life. She meets a wealthy businessman, William Rackham (Chris O'Dowd) who feels hemmed in by the strictures of his life and sets Sugar up as his mistress. Although set in the Victorian era, the language and tone of the book and the film are not. Graphic, visceral and disturbing, it is described as the sort of book Dickens would have written if he'd been allowed to.

IN CAMERA
Director Marc Munden and DoP Lol Crawley felt the script demanded the photography should avoid costume drama cliche and reflect the claustrophobic and unsettling tone: "We tested Canon K35 lenses, which are these old 70s lenses that had an interesting fall off in terms of their focus," says Crawley. "As soon as we started to get physically close to a subject, it was like crawling over them with a microscope. When we had a two shot I would be a foot away pulling focus from a veil to the eyes and back over the skin. So you're really examining the textures and the faces as the woozy, crawling camera wanders around these different textures. Then for the wide shots you jump out to a very low angle. The heads and conversations were played very low in the frame with a lot of negative space so you've got these low, wide angles intercut with these very intense close up, crawling cameras shots."

THE LOOK
Although staying faithful to the era was crucial to production designer Grant Montgomery, so was reflecting the story's disturbing tone which meant "bringing in a lot of influences" from outside the period. The brothel was influenced by South America. And we wanted it to be slightly 'voodoo princess' and a really disturbing experience. The walls were painted with deep reds and we patterned Mary Magdalene pictures with Victorian photographic pornography and candles so it becomes sort of shrine. It's definitely not straight period."



DETAILS
CHANNEL: BBC2
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Origin Pictures
TX DATE: March 2011
LENGTH: 4x60-minutes
ON SCREEN TALENT: Romola Garai (Emma, Atonement), Chris O'Dowd (IT Crowd), Gillian Anderson, Richard E Grant, Shirley Henderson, Amanda Hale, Mark Gatiss
CAMERAS: Red One with Canon K35 lenses
POST PRODUCTION: Lipsync Post
LOCATIONS: Various including Manchester Town Hall, Somerset House, Waddesdon Manor

KEY CREDITS
Commissioning editors: BBC drama controller Ben Stephenson and head of BBC2 Janice Hadlow
Exec producer, BBC: Lucy Richer
Producer: David Thompson
Producer: Steven Lightfoot
Director: Marc Munden
DoP: Lol Crawley
Writer: Lucinda Coxon adapted the script from the Michel Faber novel
Production designer: Grant Montgomery
Casting director: Nina Gold



Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Period-drama-with-attitude_bid-233.htmlWed, 16 Feb 2011 11:33:23Product placement - who wins? With the new rules for paid for product placement within UK television shows due to kick in this month, Televisual asked who will product placement benefit most; broadcasters or indies?

Vicky Kell
Business manager, sponsorship, placement, funded content, C4
We are hoping that the answer will be "both". Given Channel 4's unique position as publisher-broadcaster and supporter of the indie sector, we're pleased to be working hand in hand with indies to establish and execute the opportunities around this new revenue stream, and are in the process of negotiating how those revenues will be split. In order to run successful product placement campaigns, it is imperative that this is a close working relationship, and we’re looking forward to presenting our first PP opportunities with Hollyoaks to the market, fully in conjunction with Lime later in February.

John McVay
Chief executive, Pact
The new rules surrounding the relaxation of product placement have to perform a balancing act between providing much-needed revenue streams for programmes (which are no longer fully funded by the broadcaster) and maintaining the audience's faith in the content. Pact was very involved in helping to frame the guidelines and this was the principle which underpinned all of our meetings. Going forward, for product placement to work it has to address funding concerns for both independent producers and broadcasters and there needs to be real benefits for both. In the end we need to ensure that product placement produces new revenue.

Sean Marley
Md, Lime Pictures
There's a real opportunity for indies and broadcasters to work together on mutually beneficial projects. Although I understand broadcast commercial teams may want to lead on the majority of deals, it must be true to say that agencies or clients spending the money will want to look the person in the eye who will be responsible for delivery i.e. the producer. It is equally obvious that your average indie won't have as many agency contacts or as much industry intelligence as the sales teams. So, two interlinked, equally important teams playing to their strengths, with a share of revenue that reflects that combined approach and we'll all be happy - as long as both parties act with creative integrity taking priority over commercial opportunity.

Caroline Reik
Sponsorship and brand content specialist, Pulse Films
Product placement will, over time, create a crucial new revenue stream for broadcasters and indies. Indies must keep a firm eye on the way in which products will be used - editorial integrity and clever creative must win through for everyone to benefit. In the short term, ITV is best placed to manage product placement as they work with many in-house producers. Coronation Street and Emmerdale (from the pub to the corner shop) are often cited as perfect opportunities, however commercial broadcasters must demonstrate that product placement can drive additional revenue and not take significant money away from spot advertising and sponsorship.


Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Product-placement---who-wins_bid-229.htmlFri, 11 Feb 2011 10:54:59TV's big bang year 2011 will be the year when convergence stops being just a TV industry seminar subject and becomes a reality in the UK's front rooms. This year, Virgin, Sky and Freeview will be joined by Apple, YouView, Google, Games consoles and TV set manufacturers in the battle to be the main box under the living room plasma. Jon Creamer reports on TV’s big bang moment

Sky, Virgin, YouView, Google TV, Apple TV, connected TVs, games consoles - the race is on for each platform, service or box under the TV to become more things to ever more people - a PVR, a catch up service, a video on demand service, a web browser, a social networking machine, a gaming console – and to become the player that effectively owns the front room television.

And it’s a race with so many disparate competitors because there are so many disparate reasons to be running in the first place. TV manufacturers want to differentiate their expensive sets from cheaper rivals and become service providers rather than simply kit suppliers; digital TV platforms need to solidify their position fearing that customers might cut the cord and opt for a “good enough” service through broadband; games console makers want to push their way into the front room and get mum and dad using them too and Google and Apple just want a piece of everything.

So it looks like 2011 is set to be the big bang year for the front room TV as viewers stop sitting back and waiting for the traditional channels to spoon feed them shows and become active, lean-forward users demanding video on demand as they fire off tweets, browse the web and check their Facebook status – all on the same front room plasma.



Well, maybe. It’s well documented that more and more people, particularly the young, are multi-tasking while watching the TV. Sending Tweets or using Facebook on a PC, tablet or smart phone while watching a show is already well established.

According to Futurescape’s Connected TV white paper, the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards saw 2.3m tweets about the show during the broadcast that were flashed up on a big screen on the stage throughout. “We’re already seeing a revolution in ‘social TV’ where viewers are using two screens – their TV and a laptop for instance – to watch TV shows while also interacting with their online social networks and getting extra information,” says YouView ceo Richard Halton. “I think that through apps these activities will quickly find their way onto the single TV screen as applications such as Twitter and Facebook are developed for YouView.”

But while most connected TV services plan apps for Facebook and other social networking activities, the jury is out on whether viewers will want them sharing screen space on the front room plasma or will prefer to keep them to the smartphone or tablet in their hand.

“The front room TV is shared and it’s a very communal experience,” says Fernando Elizalde, principal research analyst at research company Gartner. “It’s not a one-on-one television screen. If you’re in the main room sitting with family and interacting with your friends, that can be bothersome for the rest of the people watching it. What may happen is a companion screen that is in synch with the show you’re watching. So you’re having the social television experience on the companion screen while the main screen is not being impacted by a single viewer’s activity.”



How people end up using social networking apps on their TVs remains to be seen. At the moment, the main use of connected services is simple video on demand, particularly on connected TV sets. “Given where we are in the game, especially with a TV device, it’s going to be led in the early stages by the VoD services,” says Samsung UK’s content manager, Darren Petersen. “After all, it is a TV and people still want to be sitting back and watching TV content to begin with. Consumers understand it. They’re already using VoD on other platforms. In the UK the iPlayer led the way and educated the mass consumer. Consumers are comfortable with that form of consumption.”

VoD is set to increase, but even that will be an evolution rather than a revolution. “What people watch is traditional linear broadcast television. Under 10% of all viewing time is time shifted,” says Oliver and Ohlbaum Associates senior consultant David Cockram. “And the vast majority of that time shifted viewing is PVR time shifted. Only a very small amount is [pure] on demand. Even in Virgin homes, still less than 10% of what people watch is on demand.”  

Just because viewers will be able to demand so much more video on demand with their front room TV, it doesn’t mean they will straight away. “My view is a fairly conservative one but realistic and probably becoming conventional wisdom,” says Cockram. “In five years time, under 20% of all viewing will be on demand. And, under current trends, only 2% of all viewing - i.e. 10% of that on demand viewing, will be pure VoD.” With the rest being shows people have recorded on their PVR.
And that figure is based partly on the fact that pure video on demand has been around for a long time, both in the US and on Virgin in the UK, but has until recently, been a very small part of all viewing. “When it was Hollywood movies, HBO content etc the levels of viewing were tiny. What’s really driven the take up for on demand viewing is high quality content from the linear schedule. It’s people watching more BBC primetime shows they missed last night. It’s not watching box sets or Hollywood blockbusters. It’s UK produced content,” says Cockram.

As ever, content is king, and only those providers that offer the content the viewer wants, or who can partner with someone who offers that content, will thrive.



And that’s already looking like a problem for the nascent Google TV. Despite a tie up with Sony to build the TV sets and keyboard/remotes that it will run on, most of the major networks including NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS and Viacom have said they won’t be making their content available for the service. In the UK, it’s original UK content made by or for the major broadcasters that drives people to video on demand or catch up services, and any service that can’t provide this content, is facing an uphill struggle. “You can’t just throw a device out there that’s got an Internet connection,” says Samsung’s Petersen. “You need to treat each segment of the value chain in the right way. The people who own the content aren’t just going to hand it over to you unless it’s done in the right way.”

TV content aside, the great revolution the new services are offering is putting internet connectivity on to the TV. But the way they do that is one of the big dividing lines. Some have a completely open system like Google TV that will make the entire internet searchable with a browser. Others use an apps based system more akin to an iPhone that lets developers optimise internet applications for the TV platform. Which will prove most popular on the main TV screen is a question that’ll be answered over the next year or two. “We are taking a very different approach to Google TV which is essentially looking to put the internet on the TV screen with a full browser,” says YouView’s Halton. “Our belief is that consumers aren’t looking for that from their TV. YouView is about enhancing the TV experience and respecting the place the TV has in the living room as a shared screen that espouses warmth, and entertainment.”

An open system has the advantage of infinite possibilities, but there’s also the ease of use that comes with an apps based system. “Will the regular person have the will, patience and knowledge to peruse the Internet on these boxes,” says Gartner’s Elizalde. “They want it to be easy to access. Not necessarily limited but it has to be accessible and not complicated.”



With so many offering such a bewildering variety of services and ways to access TV, it’s likely there’ll be some thinning out among the various competing platforms and services, but unlikely that will lead to one dominant player. “There are too many major players in the marketplace for one box to really win out,” says Sony Computer Entertainment’s marketing director Alan Duncan. “The TV market will become more like the gaming market’s been for 30 odd years. We’ve always had competing platforms offering quite similar experiences. The broader TV market will start to see a similar scenario.” Consumers will pick and choose as they do now. “Realistically, we’ll end up with a number of different connected TV platforms, just as we have done for TV over the past few years with Freeview and Freesat and pay TV platforms via satellite and cable,” says Halton.
The real convergence will most likely come from the various platforms and services joining together and offering their services through one box. And the likelihood is, it’ll be the incumbent platforms with their name on the box.

“My view is there won’t be calls for cord cutting,” says Elizalde. “ I wouldn’t be surprised in the long term if most of these over-the-top services are integrated into the traditional pay TV services. If you want to get premium content you still have to pay for it. They will partner together because it’s easier for the consumer to access content that way.”                                                                                                 


YOUVIEW
Formerly known as Project Canvas, YouView is the platform being put together by the BBC, ITV, BT, Channel 4, TalkTalk, Arqiva and Channel Five. The platform’s first boxes, that will retail at around £200, go on sale from the middle of this year (though YouView admits that date could slip). Essentially, YouView is the connected TV version of Freeview, subscription free but this time combined with the last seven days’ catch up TV as well as on-demand services and interactive extras via a broadband connection. The platform won’t have a browser to search the web, but will allow developers to put together apps made specifically for the platform. Early apps will likely be video on demand applications from companies like LoveFilm as well as services like Skype, YouTube and Facebook. The boxes will also be PVRs. The EPG will incorporate catch up and PVR recordings so viewers can move backwards along the time line and forwards to select shows they want to record in future.

CONNECTED/SMART TVS
Essentially a standard TV with a broadband connection. Manufacturers like Samsung and Sony are leading a major push into developing and marketing their TVs’ connected abilities. By 2014 it’s estimated that 54% of flat panel TVs shipped globally will have internet connectivity and services. Up until now, many customers who bought connected TVs had simply not got around to connecting them to the net but, say the manufacturers, a lot of this was down to manufacturers instead concentrating on pushing their sets’ 3d capabilities instead of their connected ones. Connected TVs, like YouView and Virgin Media, work with a suite of apps developed specifically for them rather than going for a full on web browser experience. Samsung recently announced the one-millionth TV app downloaded globally from its app store with some of the most frequently downloaded apps in the UK being Lovefilm, iPlayer, Muzu.TV, Acetrax, Facebook and Twitter.

GOOGLE TV
It’s already rolled out in the US but has already run into major problems over what content will be available as most of the major networks including NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS and Viacom have said they won’t be making their content available for the service. Google TV is the player that aims most fully to put the internet on to the living room TV. The entire internet will be searchable rather than limiting itself to an apps-based system where certain providers optimise their sites specifically for a particular platform, though Google TV will have apps as well. Google TV is pushing multi-tasking, the idea of splitting the screen as users wish so they can both surf the web, check Facebook and watch TV all at the same time. Users have to buy a new piece of kit, either a new TV that comes with qwerty keyboard remote, a box with a keyboard from Logitech or a Sony Blu Ray player/Google TV and qwerty remote combined.
 


VIRGIN
Virgin Media’s new box, which went on sale late last year, extends the Virgin Media video on demand capabilities with a TiVo PVR recorder that comes with a 1tb disc and adds and a 10Mbps modem for VoD and online services. Like YouView, which launches later this year, the Virgin box, though connected to the internet, is not aiming to be a browser that can turn the TV into a PC screen. It will also offer apps created specifically for the platform through its own app store with Youtube, Twitter and ebay already available. The Virgin box’s EPG will also try and blur the distinction between live TV, catch up TV, recorded programmes and pure video on demand, with viewers scrolling along a time line and clicking on the shows they want or using search functions to find content. Like a standard TiVo machine, Virgin’s box recommends shows based on the user’s past viewing and shows can be rated by other Virgin viewers using the red button. Viewers can also build wish lists so the box can automatically record shows with a certain theme or featuring a certain actor or director for instance.

GAMES CONSOLES
Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s XBox are both pushing their respective consoles’ TV content capabilities. Most recently it was Playstation 3’s turn with the console adding ITV Player and 4oD to sit alongside the BBC’s iPlayer that users can already access through the console. Playstation 3s already have a web browser, access to Lovefilm downloads as well as other VoD services, live music video collections, links to personal photo album services like Picasa and a soon-to-launch music service along the lines of Spotify. Microsoft’s Xbox already has a hook up with Sky Player that allows its users to buy a Sky subscription and watch standard and premium Sky channels. Users can also download Hollywood movies through Xbox’s Video Marketplace and listen to music through Last.fm.

SKY
Sky is extending the scope of its Sky+ PVR with Sky Anytime+ that adds a large VoD service to its standard services with Hollywood movies from the Sky Movies collection as well as classic sports, entertainment, kids shows and docs. Sky is, for the moment, eschewing any of the internet apps that Virgin Media, YouView and other providers are also adding to their boxes and sticking to the straight VoD proposition. It also has Sky Player, another subscription offering, but one that can be used on other platforms aside from a Sky box like PCs and the Xbox. Users buy a subscription to the service, which lets them view Sky channels and its premium content.


Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/TVs-big-bang-year_bid-217.htmlTue, 11 Jan 2011 15:04:34PS3 and the TV Sony's announcement that ITV Player and 4oD will be joining the BBC's iPlayer on its Playstation 3 gaming consoles is one more small step towards the reality of convergence in the UK's front rooms.

With web connected TV sets now becoming prevalent, Virgin launching its new TiVo box that can access the web, YouView planning to launch with internet connectivity built in next year and other web/TV services like Apple TV and the soon to launch Google TV in the mix, convergence isn't simply a seminar subject at NAB or the Edinburgh TV Festival any more.

The race is on for each box under the TV to become more things to more people - a PVR, a catch up service, a VoD service, a web browser, a gaming machine - and to become the box that effectively owns the front room TV.

For a games console like the PlayStation 3, offering catch up TV through its box is a way of broadening its user base within the whole family. "One of our jobs is to install PlayStation 3 in to as many UK homes as possible," says PlayStation's UK marketing director Alan Duncan. "If your only offering is games, that can limit your possibilities so a catch-up TV service is a very good way of broadening the appeal of PlayStation 3 and broadening the value proposition in people's minds, both in terms of purchase and how many people in the family are going to use the console."

He said that in the UK 50% of PlayStation 3's connected audience, which is over 80% of the total user base, already use iPlayer through their PS3. "This is a great way to introduce PlayStation into people's homes and make them more aware and accepting of the other things we do."

Playstation 3s already have a web browser, access to Lovefilm downloads as well as other VoD services, links to personal photo album services like Picasa and a soon to launch music service along the lines of Spotify.

"The policy is we're interested in partnerships with the major players," says Duncan. "The TV manufacturers are tending to scoop up lots of services on their integrated internet TVs. We're not interested in offering all the niche services because it's not our core business. We're offering so many other services it would become too cluttered and technically too difficult."

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/PS3-and-the-TV_bid-205.htmlMon, 13 Dec 2010 14:14:56Banksy revealed If you missed the recent Animated Encounters Festival in Bristol, you may have missed this short that finally revealed the true identity of graffiti artist Banksy.
The Aardman short was commissioned by Encounters for its Graffiti Animation section.
Morph vs Banksy was made by director/animator, Chopsy; producer, Lida Nassif; model maker, Enty; lighting, Nat Sale; camera assistant, Joe Maxwell; compositor, Spencer Cross and editor, Nikk Fielden

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Banksy-revealed_bid-199.htmlWed, 08 Dec 2010 17:41:51Creative round up Great work from Nexus, Blue Zoo, Aardman, Joyrider, Loose Moose and Amazing Spectacles.

Nexus was commissioned by Leo Burnett to create this live action spot for Nintendo DS. The oversized DS set was a fully workable machine, operated by the children to create the impression of a DS in use. The producer was Isobel Conroy and the directors were RBG6.



Blue-Zoo created two Christmas themed idents and an accompanying graphics package for Disney XD in EMEA and the US. The animation directors were Mike Wyatt and Damian Hook. Design was by Denis Constantinou.

Disney XD Christmas - Robot from Blue Zoo on Vimeo.



Ireland’s National Consumer Agency brought in Aardman director Chopsy to direct this commercial, Heads, in which a confused consumer sees the world a little more clearly by logging on to the NCA website. The ad uses stop-frame puppets in a world made of ‘foam-core’. All the buildings and props were constructed out of foam-core with the designs enlarged, then printed out and stuck on top.



Commissioned by Publicis, Joyrider created this spot with The Found Collective for UBS and Formula One where sections of F1 tracks are brought to life in a stylised graphical treatment that merges a cut and paste photocopy style with 3d.

UBS - 'THE LINE' - 30" from the found collective on Vimeo.



This is a Christmas short made at animation house Loose Moose by young Czech animator Veronika Jelínková, with the help of head of cg, Dave Loh. It was created with a combination of Maya and After Effects.

LooseMoose Ident from Veronyka Jelinek on Vimeo.



This is new animation studio Amazing Spectacles’ first job, the winter TV campaign for firelighter and ignition brand Zip. It was directed by Martyn Pick who worked with Prime Focus senior animator Andi Farhall.
Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Creative-round-up_bid-196.htmlMon, 06 Dec 2010 15:19:28Watch with Nexus Nexus Productions' Clemens Habicht produced four stunning idents through creative agency Harriman Steel, as part of their rebrand of UKTV's Watch channel (click on pic below to view).
ʉ۬

The idents have the strapline Watch together so each shows an everyday scenario where things are better shared (a picnic, a night out, a night in, a café). They were created using Japanese black theatre techniques where puppeteers swathed in black move people and objects around the scene.

It was filmed entirely in reverse as a single take on steadicam, with all effects achieved in camera.  Using varying shutter speeds, the film was then played back at 25 fps, to slow things down and create the magical, floating effect.  Black costumed people (later graded so that they would disappear from view) created the storm of things and people arriving in the scenes.  

Agency: Harriman Steel
Creative Director: Julian Harriman
Agency Producer: Beth McQueen

Production Company: Nexus Productions

Director: Clemens Habicht
Executive Producers: Charlotte Bavasso and Christopher O’Reilly

Producer: Isobel Conroy 

Production Manager: Alistair Pratten
Director of Photography: Nick Bennett
Art Director: James Hatt


Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Watch-with-Nexus_bid-179.htmlWed, 03 Nov 2010 18:10:03D&AD's multilingual shout out International design and advertising awards body, D&AD, put out its call for entries for this year’s awards with a live address in 13 languages in the style of a US presidential state of the Union speech.

D&AD president, Sanky, gives his call to creativity from a presidential lectern in all 13 languages in turn or viewers can click on their own language to view the address in just one.

Work Club created the campaign for D&AD that needed to stress the international nature of the awards whilst being “true to its British DNA.”

As the campaign progresses over the next weeks and months, Sanky the president will deliver a number of other speeches, including a Xmas message.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/DandADs-multilingual-shout-out_bid-177.htmlWed, 03 Nov 2010 12:40:30Televisual Storyboard In this month’s Storyboard, Underworld says it with flowers; Rushes and Red Bee go back to the future for BBC1; Adams Trainor gets up close and personal with the old masters; Chopsy mixes on vinyl; Manvsmachine makes Nick’s future bright and orange; Dinamo Productions take the Wordles to the small screen; UFO and mathematic fly into space; Billy Goat tries to kick off a property boom and Assaf Hayut creates a perspex human




This is Underworld’s promo for Bird 1, three shots stretched over eight minutes from a digital time-lapse studio shoot set up by still life photographer, Peter Thiedeke. Tomato director Dylan Kendle brought in Glassworks’ Flame artist Duncan Horn to give the shots a painterly feel.



Rushes completed vfx work and grading on this Back To The Future-style promo directed by WHO? through Red Bee for BBC’s Turn Back Time: The High Street series. Hosted by Gregg Wallace, shopkeeping families are transported back to the birth of the high street in the 1870s. The trailer shows a Victorian street scene with a BBC1 minibus, mocked up to look like a time machine, appearing from nowhere, (bursting through a time bubble) and screeching to a halt along the centre of the high street leaving flaming tyre tracks in its wake.



The HD photo mapping sequences in Blakeway’s BBC2 arts series Renaissance Revolution were developed by Adams Trainor. Paul Trainor travelled to Vienna with photographer Rupert Truman to capture every square inch of Raphael’s Madonna of the Meadow using large format cameras fitted with 65 mega pixel capture technology allowing for microscopic interrogation of the surfaces. The detail is so microscopic a photographic print of Madonna of the Meadow using the images from the series would be 12 metres high and fully HD.

Nickelodeon HD from ManvsMachine on Vimeo.


ManvsMachine directed and animated this series of logo idents for Nickelodeon's HD channel. The brief was to create an evolution of Nickelodeon's “one-brand” to show-off the network’s recently added HD capabilities.

INTO THE COSMOS - Architeq/Chopsy from Chopsy on Vimeo.


Into the Cosmos by Architeq is Chopsy’s (Aardman’s Darren Robbie’s) first foray into the world of music videos. Using a combination of stop-frame, pixellation, live-action and time lapse animation, old records travel the streets of Bristol.

MTV's BEST HD LIVE PERFORMANCE - TITLES from steve Lewis on Vimeo.


Directors UFO, repped by Not to Scale, created the new intro, closer and bumper teasers, as well as the logo, animated titles and integrated wipes, for MTV show Best Live Performances. Post was at Mathematic.


The Wordles Pilot from Jessica Gunn on Vimeo.


Wales based Dinamo Productions is to go into production on its “multi-layered interactive word and sound association” kids series, The Wordles after winning a three way commission from CBeebies, RTEjr and S4C.

Property Pal Charlie from BillyGoat Entertainment on Vimeo.


Belfast based Billy Goat Entertainment created a series of 30-second commercials for Irish property website PropertyPal.com. The ads see mascot, Charlie, visiting locations around Northern Ireland, planting Rent and Sale signs.


This four-and-a-half-minute film, The Perspex Human, was developed over five-months by animator Assaf Hayut and residents at Dower House, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust’s (SLaM) adult self-harm service.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Televisual-Storyboard_bid-172.htmlThu, 28 Oct 2010 15:05:44The whole of the moon Behind the scenes of actor/writer Mark Gatiss's HG Wells adaptation for BBC4

Can Do Productions, the indie set up by writer/actor Mark Gatiss and director Damon Thomas didn’t take the easy route for its first project, a vfx-heavy sci-fi/costume drama on a BBC4 budget

BBC4 has commissioned some award winning dramas in its time, but it’s not known for having the most luxurious budgets in the genre.

So a period adaptation of HG Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, in which the main characters shoot off to the moon in a Victorian spaceship and encounter an extraterrestrial race of insect-like beings, required some serious budgetary ingenuity from new indie Can Do Productions.

But, says Mark Gatiss, who set up the indie as a vehicle for his and co-founder Damon Thomas’s pet projects, that’s sort of the idea of the company. “We’d had fantastic experiences with likeminded crews of a can-do nature. It’s amazing what you can do on a BBC4 budget if everybody is up for it.”


The pair met while working on the incredibly tightly-budgeted docu-drama The Worst Journey in the World and went on to make ghost drama Crooked House for BBC4 that involved “three different time periods, shot in 15 days. Incredibly ambitious,” says Thomas. So the pair, it’s fair to say, had previous. But The First Men in the Moon was to be of a different order of budget squeezing.

As it was their own indie making the film, some of that squeeze came from ploughing the production fee back into the budget. “If we’d done it with another company, the fee would be split and money would go out of the production and it wouldn’t have been achievable,” says Thomas. And “when you’re small, you can ask people for favours because you’re not seen to be a big company with a massive turnover.”

Potentially the most difficult aspect to achieve on such a tight budget was, of course, the extensive vfx necessary for a trip to the moon and alien characters. Luckily post house Rushes stepped in. The company agreed to create the 312 vfx shots needed along with the creation and animation of the film’s alien race of Selenites for the “challenging budget” that was available. Vfx artists “get into that business to create alien creatures on other planets,” says Thomas. “And most of them end up taking spots off models in commercials or animating crisp packets. This is their opportunity to make talking moon creatures.”

But despite Rushes excitement at the project, it still needed to plan carefully to make the job financially viable. Rushes first created an extensive animatic for all the big vfx scenes. “We blocked out all the scenes in complete to-scale detail,” says vfx producer Louise Hussey. “Often people bring you in halfway through a shoot but we saved so much time because everybody knew what needed to be done. It was a joy because the vfx team was immersed in the process” right from the beginning. Director Damon Thomas agrees that preparation is the key. “You've got to move so quickly to achieve the schedule. You can’t just say ‘I want to shoot this five ways’” and decide which was best afterwards.



It’s also important to be able to quickly adapt and that becomes easier when the writer, lead actor and director are also the exec producers, says Gatiss. “If you’re up against it, as the writer you can say ‘that’s fine, we don’t need that bit.’ It’s easier. You can work your way around [problems] because you’re there all the time.”

Another major money saver was creating a script that didn’t throw up ruinously expensive scenarios. Gatiss’s astronauts are strapped into their seats and wear magnetic boots, for instance, so there’s no need to show them floating in zero gravity. He also had to strip aspects out of the original story. “In the novel the moon has a massive jungle that grows and withers within the space of a lunar fortnight, we couldn’t do that. There were also gigantic moon calves that we couldn’t afford.”

“When you’re producing it as well [as writing it] you end up having arguments with yourself,” says Gatiss. “If I was just adapting it I might say ‘we’ve got to go for it and see what we can afford.’ But I’ve done enough lower budget things to know what’s feasible and what’s artistically viable.” And a low budget can’t justify a poor product. “If I thought it wasn’t going to look any good I would have said ‘I don’t think we should do this.’”



The Selenites
Initial designs for the Selenites were created by artist Carim Nahaboo. “They were really interesting,” says Rushes vfx supervisor, Hayden Jones. “But when we discussed with our lead animators about how they’d walk and move, because they were quite long limbed we were concerned about getting all of the different plot points out of the way they looked. So we started sculpting with Damon and Mark . We kept a lot of the feel of the original design. We kept it alien but with enough of a human feel so they could communicate and you could feel emotional about them.

Size Matters
“Quite often films feel small on a low budget,” says director Damon Thomas. And with the action set on the moon, that was something to be avoided. But scale costs and the set wasn’t huge. “Because of the size of their set they couldn’t get the scale of exterior shots that they wanted,” says Rushes’ Hayden Jones.  “So naturally everyone’s first assumption was to hang a blue screen up” behind the set and create vfx backdrops to be composited in later. “But on such a challenging budget, 50 blue screen shots eats up a massive portion of that.” The solution was to create matte paintings and turn them into huge 120 foot backdrops to hang behind the set. “I then put the camera right up in the top corner of the set and did some long lens shots of the characters walking along” with the backgrounds out of focus, says Thomas.

The Big Finish
“There are a lot of fantastic shots in terms of the quality of the grade,” says Damon Thomas. “I worked on that for a long time to perfect it. You have to have that attention to detail in the finishing processes. One of the things I aimed for was consistency across the whole film.” And that involved pushing Rushes to spread their efforts evenly across all the vfx shots, not just the hero ones. “Quite often people get obsessed with one creation, my job is to keep the consistency right through.”



Details
Channel: BBC4
tx date: 19th October 2010
budget: Tight - even for BBC4
on screen talent: Mark Gatiss, Rory Kinnear, Alex Riddell, Peter Forbes, Katherine Jakeways
cameras: Red One
post production: All vfx shots completed at Rushes with Ascent 142 completing post and sound design
studios: Pinewood Studios
locations: Ad director Howard Guard’s estate in Hertfordshire


Key credits
Commissioning editors:BBC drama controller Ben Stephenson and head of BBC4 Richard Klein
Production company: Can Do Productions
Executive producers: Mark Gatiss, Damon Thomas, Jamie Laurenson (BBC)
Director: Damon Thomas
Writer: Mark Gatiss
Producer: Julie Clark
Editor: Liana Del Giudice
Composer: Michael Price
VFX Producers: Louise Hussey, Warwick Hewett
VFX Supervisors: Jonathan Privett, Hayden Jones
Compositors : Dan Alterman, Noel Harmes, Anthony Laranjo, Simone Coco, Barry Corcoran
3D Animation: Andy Hargreaves, Craig Travis
Lead TD: Mark Pascoe
Sequence lead: Seb Barker
Matte Paintings: Matt Lawrence,Brad Le Riche

This article originally appeared in Televisual's October 2010 issue

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/The-whole-of-the-moon_bid-163.htmlTue, 12 Oct 2010 11:35:56Mr Happy sees red Classic kids character Mr Happy turns nasty in a new Specsavers spot after he misses out on the optician chain’s biggest ever free offer.

Passion Pictures’ Darren Walsh was brought in by the creative director of Specsavers Creative, Graham Daldry, to recreate the exact look and feel of the original Mr Men cartoons.

In the new ad, Mr Happy wakes up in a grump (after missing out on the free glasses offer) and strides through the Mr Men world throwing a cake in Mr Greedy’s face, dumping a dustbin on Mr Messy’s head, pulling off Mr Bump’s bandages and tying Mr Tickle’s arms together.

 
Credits
Creative director: Graham Daldry
Copywriter: Simon Bougourd, Aaron Scoones          
Art director: Neil Brush, Michael Hutchinson
Agency producer: Sam Lock
Media agency: MEC
Media planner: Gary Caranay
Production company: Passion Pictures
Director: Darren Walsh
Production company producer: Debbie Crosscup
Post-production: Passion Pictures
Audio post-production: Simon Capes @ Clearcut
Composers: Anthony Hymas @ Joe Campbell

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Mr-Happy-sees-red_bid-161.htmlMon, 11 Oct 2010 11:31:22Pic Pic Andre Panic in the UK Not To Scale directors Pic Pic Andre get a UK cinema release for their debut feature.

Pic Pic (Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar), best known for their Cravendale milk commercials, have bagged a UK cinema release for their 80-minute movie, A Town Called Panic.

The movie sprang from the five-minute TV episodes of the same name, that were produced through Aardman, and features the same cast as the series with Cowboy, Janine and Steven again taking starring roles.

  
"One of the biggest challenges was to write a story that would hold the audience's attention for 80 long minutes as opposed to the five minute TV episodes we were used to,” comments Pic Pic. “This meant adapting and adjusting not only our storytelling methods but also our way of working and animating.  We realised that if the film was to be shown on the big screen, we had to pay much more attention to the details and depth of the art direction so as to create a richer visual experience and a great deal of effort was therefore put into the design and construction of the sets.  That said, we wanted to stay as true as possible to the initial spirit of Panic, namely its spontaneous simplicity, its homemade feel and its childlike absurdity."
  
Panic will be on the streets of London and all around the UK from October 8th. 

OPENING 8 OCTOBER:
Soho Curzon
Greenwich Picture House
Brixton Ritzy
Islington (Green) Screen
Everyman Hampstead
London Cine Lumiere
Birmingham Electric
Liverpool Picture House
Bristol Watershed
Brighton Duke Of York
Newcastle Tyneside Cityscreen Cinema
Sheffield Showroom
Edinburgh Cameo
Glasgow Film Theatre
 
OPENING 15 OCTOBER
Leicester Phoenix
Oxford Phoenix
Gate, Notting Hill
Manchester Cornerhouse
  
22 OCTOBER
Little Theatre, Bath
Aberdeen Belmont
Exeter Picturehouse
Harbour Lights, Southampton
Birmingham Mac
Derby Quad
Nottingham Broadway
Norwich Cinema City
David Lean, Croydon
Regal Henley
Barn Dartington
 
29 OCTOBER
Waterman’s Brentford
Flavel Dartmouth
 
5 NOVEMBER
Dukes Lancaster
  
19 NOVEMBER
Stamford Arts Centre
Campus West
Courtyard Hereford
 
26 NOVEMBER
Edencourt Inverness
Warwick Arts Coventry
  
1 JANUARY
Theatr Clwyd

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Pic-Pic-Andre-Panic-in-the-UK_bid-156.htmlThu, 07 Oct 2010 11:47:07Virgin Atlantic’s new spot At last, a campaign that cocks a snook at recession with an ad that’s bold, inventive, fun, and, encouragingly, looks like it’s had a few quid spent on it. Virgin Atlantic’s latest ad – its first ever global TV campaign – comes courtesy of the same team that put together the airline’s award winning Still Red Hot 25th birthday campaign.

The 90-second TV and cinema spot was again devised by RKCR/Y&R’s Pip Bishop and Chris Hodgkiss, with Partizan’s Traktor again directing and MPC taking on vfx duties. Featuring the strap-line ‘Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t,’ the campaign takes the viewer through a surreal and glamorous world of airline iconography that aims to dramatise “how it feels to fly with Virgin Atlantic.”

The campaign was filmed over six days at Pinewood Studios with four post experts on set throughout. MPC’s VFX team was led by Rob Walker and Tim Civil and was involved from an early stage starting with a complete pre-viz to help determine the timing of the shots, camera moves and transitions between scenes.

Most of MPC’s work focused on the ad’s complex composites with all the various elements shot green screen using motion control and then put together in post.



And here are some of MPC's "making of" pics













Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Virgin-Atlantic’s-new-spot_bid-149.htmlFri, 01 Oct 2010 13:01:55The Apprentice: the new season And so to the launch of the sixth series of The Apprentice where a screening of the first episode, in which contestants had to make and sell sausages, reveals that the show and its format have sensibly not been changed by one little jot.

Nick Hewer’s back still tutting from the sidelines, Margaret, of course, is off studying parchments but Karren Brady looks like a worthy replacement despite being yet to develop a shtick to rival Margaret’s raised eyebrows. And, of course, there’s Surallan, who’s now morphed into Lord Sugar, a name that sounds more suited to a Mr Big character from a 70s Blaxploitation movie than a businessman and Labour peer.

The 16 contestants are the usual bunch of shy, retiring wallflowers describing themselves variously as “supremely intelligent”, “charismatic” “fantastic” and claiming that “everything I touch turns to sold” and that “my first word wasn’t mummy, it was money.”

To reflect straitened economic times, the line up includes those who’ve been hit by recession including people made redundant, or who’ve gone bankrupt and graduates who can’t find a job to “prove it’s possible to come through and be a winner,” said Lord Sugar at the post screening Q&A.

When asked about the danger of ending up with a group of candidates more interested in getting on telly than working for him, he said the show had “overcome that a long time ago. Occasionally one slips through the net” but “generally I can spot them a mile off.” He said that this series he’d “insisted on some credible people that had achieved something” and that he was “very conscious of having contenders who are potentially good business people.”

The series TXs on BBC1 on Wednesday 6th October at 9pm with The Apprentice: You're Fired, now hosted by comedian Dara O'Briain, on BBC2 after the main show

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/The-Apprentice-the-new-season_bid-145.htmlTue, 28 Sep 2010 15:33:55Aardman sets tiny record
Aardman has set a Guinness World Record for the 'Smallest stop-motion animation character in a film', with its new short Dot for Nokia.

The film, directed Aardman collective Sumo Science (Will Studd and Ed Patterson), was shot on the new Nokia N8, with the film showcasing the phone’s 12-megapixel photography capabilities and also the CellScope, an invention by Professor Daniel Fletcher that can attach to a Nokia handset and help diagnose fatal diseases in remote areas of third world countries.

The film features Dot, a tiny 9mm girl who wakes up in a magical, magnified world to discover her surroundings are caving in around her. She escapes the encroaching wave of destruction as her world unravels via a path made up of tiny, familiar objects such as coins, pins, pencil shavings, nuts and bolts, until she finds peace by knitting herself a blanket from the very matter that pursues her.

To create ‘Dot’, Aardman’s in-house production technology engineer, Lew Gardiner worked alongside the Physics Department at the University of Bristol to create their own CellScope production camera. Aardman used Rapid Prototyping 3D printing technology that uses a computer-generated model of an object or character and then prints it in full 3D using a plastic resin material. The entire set was no more than a metre and a half long. The film was painted under a microscope by modelmakers and animated using tweezers. Heather Wright was the executive producer. The agency was W+K. Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Aardman-sets-tiny-record_bid-140.htmlThu, 16 Sep 2010 17:46:41Sky Arts' particle perfection


Brighton's Artillery Design produced and animated the 3D and effects for one of Sky Arts' new series of channel Idents. It was directed by Jon Yeo from BSkyB. Artillery's Val Wardlaw used bespoke scripting and N Particles in Maya to produce the spot and render farms had to be used to cope with the immense weight that the large HD particle systems generated. It was composited in Nuke by Mike Connolly. Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Sky-Arts-particle-perfection_bid-137.htmlTue, 14 Sep 2010 11:31:13This Is England 1990 lines up
It looks like Shane Meadows' first foray into TV won't be his last. And it looks like the next show could be another This Is England, but this time set in the rave era of 1990.

In a Q&A following a screening of the first episode of the upcoming Channel 4 TV sequel to Meadows' Bafta winning This Is England at the Edinburgh TV festival, the director said he'd love to do another series.
He said 1990 was a major turning point for him and that it was a time that was "his era" as he'd been just a "plastic skinhead" in his younger teenage years.

Get ready for Woody, Shaun and Lol doing the big fish little fish on Channel 4 soon. 
Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/This-Is-England-1990-lines-up_bid-121.htmlTue, 31 Aug 2010 14:20:07September's storyboard In this month’s Storyboard, The Mill takes it slow for Turner; Not to Scale’s art imitates life for SCIB; Smoke & Mirrors and Big Buoy get fresh with Trident; Stamp Films gets on its bike for Fuel TV; Stink and Mainframe play fair with Huggies; Square Zero makes sweet dreams for Sominax; Airside goes barking up the Gumtree; Roughcollie counts sheep for S4C and Thirty Three & Swift and Wonky make planning easy for Tower Hamlets 






Turner Broadcasting and The Mill teamed up to create these five 15-second idents for TCM shot in super slow mo with 35mm and Phantom cameras. Noah and the Whale composed an original track for the spots. The creatives were Simon Goodrick, Ben Campbell and Adam James.






Not to Scale directors Ubik created, Your Story, Your Wall, two 30-second commercials for Egyptian paint company SCIB through Leo Burnett Cairo. Each commercial tells a story of an empty room waiting to be decorated through paintings of the people that live there and what they plan to do with the room. The sets for both rooms were built and filmed at 3 Mills studios. Each camera move was filmed using a Canon 5D on a motion control rig. The animation was all created in Flash, artworked in photoshop and composited in After Effects. Lisa Hill was the producer.




Trident Senses: "Burst" TVC from Jon Yeo on Vimeo.


Smoke & Mirrors and Big Buoy teamed up for JWT’s current campaign for Trident Chewing Gum. The ad has a group a friends watching a beautiful meteor shower that hits the earth and releases cool minty freshness into the air. The agency producer was John Cheesemore and the director was Jon Yeo. Senior vfx producer was Jordan Andreopoulos and the lead Flame Jim Allen. The cgi was completed by Smoke & Mirrors’ Gerald Chrome, Jon Wood and Chris Bore and the grade was by Mark Horrobin. The editor was Colin Sumsion.





FUEL TV: Excite Boost from FUEL TV on Vimeo.



Stamp Films’ Justin Harder built this homage to classic Nintendo video game Excite Bike as a promo for extreme sports network Fuel TV. The DoP was Brad Rushing. JP Rooney and Ford Spencer built the bike and Marina Toybina the suit.







Stink’s Christian Bevilacqua brought in Mainframe for the 2d, 3d, matte painting and compositing on his new world-wide spot for Huggies nappies set in a funfair. The producer was Molly Pope and the agency was Ogilvy, Johannesburg.








Thirty Three & Swift Films’ director Maria Lee brought in Wonky Films to animate this film that was ordered by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and explains how  local residents can have a say in planning applications.






Classified ads website Gumtree’s first TV spot comes courtesy of Airside. Agency Beta London’s brief was to create a simple 30-second piece about the ease of buying and selling locally via Gumtree. The designer was Dick Hogg.






Square Zero’s Sarah Klan designed and animated this 2d/live action commercial for the Sominax sleeping remedies. The agency was  Sudler London. The live action was directed by Dave Wood at Toast.





Roughcollie.tv created this graphics package, including titles, break bumpers, stings and maps, for S4C show Y Porthmon (the Drover), a week long live show reenacting the journey of the last drover in Wales.
Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Septembers-storyboard_bid-117.htmlWed, 25 Aug 2010 16:13:44Storyboard - August
In this month’s Storyboard, Nexus paints it black for Panasonic; Lola creates some out of this world effects; Sherbet scratches its head for WGBH; Beautiful TV gets naked for MTV; Hothead goes udderly pink for E4; Shufti serves up some whelk custard; Atticus Finch creates a very sick ad for the NHS; Uli Meyer destroys bugs for Domestos and Specsavers suffers the attentions of an amorous whale



Nexus’s Smith and Foulkes were hired by Australian agency The Campaign Palace to create the launch ad for Panasonic’s Neoplasma TV. The TV promises ‘deeper blacks’ that allow the colours to stand out. The ad animates some of the negative associations of black before ending in an explosion of colour.

Lola created the effects for Pioneer Productions’ 8x60-minute science series How The Universe Works.
The series, a co-production between Discovery and Sky, has 700 shots supplied by Lola that depict stars, black holes, the big bang, galaxies, the solar system, planets, moons and supernovas. Lola combined cg with images from the Hubble telescope, the landers and NASA footage. The 3d vfx supervisor was
Tim Zaccheo and the 2d vfx supervisor was Rob Harvey. Lola’s producer was
Michelle Martin.


Hothead’s Olly Reid created this trailer for E4’s Udderbelly live event that’s housed in an enormous upside down cow. Reid even employed a stilt walker to get the pedestrians looking in the right direction before comping the cow in.


The latest Should’ve Gone to Specsavers viral is a pastiche of classic movie Das Boot in which a shortsighted and amorous whale has a close encounter with a German sub. Director was Cris Mudge at Mustard and post was at Golden Square.


Production company Atticus Finch created this sick campaign for NHS Northamptonshire. Designed to deter young people from binge drinking, the campaign focuses on a ‘wasted’ night. The director was Chris Richmond.

Beautiful TV’s promo for MTV’s Less Clothes, More Music campaign has MTV presenters and actors walking through London with nothing on but some flashy graphics. The designer was Roxanne Silverwood and the animator Markos Christodoulou.


Shufti Films has produced a short musical viral to celebrate ‘the great British dessert – Whelk Custard’. It’s is a spoof teaser for a series in development, Chumpy Nuts, backed by South West Screen. The director is Nick Mackie.

Sherbet’s Jonathan Hodgson directed a series of sequences for a new documentary for US network WGBH. Of Lice and Men analyses how the lice living in human hair can provide clues about human evolution during the last six to eight billion years. Hodgson led a team of designers and animators including Alex Robinson, Adam Aiken and Ben Sayer and created the sequences with a mix of hand drawn elements, photo montage, collage, 2d Flash animation and 3d cg. Sherbet’s producer was Jonathan Bairstow.

Uli Meyer directed the latest Domestos ad, Fugitives, for Unilever through Lowe London. Lowe’s creative was Mike Yee. Uli Meyer’s producer was Matt Saxton and the animation supervisor was Boris Hiestand.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Storyboard---August_bid-112.htmlWed, 28 Jul 2010 12:31:05UK's World Cup win

UK creative agency Radiant bagged the FIFA contract to create the title sequences and graphics package that will be shown by 200 broadcasters worldwide before, during and after every World Cup match.


The company, who already produce the graphic packages for the Champions League, was awarded the contract in August last year after a competitive pitch against agencies from across the globe.


The key artwork was created inhouse and Radiant brought in Unit to complete post.


The sequences show a young South African boy calling out to the world to come and take part in the competition.


The creative director was Michael Berthon, the senior designer Matthew Malkin, the executive producer Richard Wallman and the producer Charlotte Dale. Charlie Cassidy was Unit’s producer and the composer was Matt Clifford.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/UKs-World-Cup-win_bid-98.htmlFri, 11 Jun 2010 16:22:16Televisual storyboard - June
In this month’s Storyboard, Fluid Pictures steps into the arena for C4; MTV sprouts an organic logo; Momoco builds a Father and Son relationship for ITV; Uli Meyer finds monsters in the toilet for Domestos; Beautiful TV heads back to the 80s for 4Music; Lola builds blocks for Expedia; Blue Zoo cheers on ITV’s World Cup hopes; Big Button channels Tron for Ash and Kream expounds on the true spirit of cricket


October Films hired Fluid Pictures to create these 300-style fight sequences for its upcoming Channel 4/Nat Geo show Gladiators: Back From the Dead. Compositing was by Cameron Gilroy and MJ Azzopardi, cg by Gilroy and Adrian Wyer and vfx production by Dave Throssell.


Beautiful TV was commissioned by 4Music to create these sponsorship bumpers for Lips: I Love The 80s, a new karaoke game for the Xbox. Design was by Roxanne Silverwood and animation by Matt Birkinshaw.


Momoco created the main titles for ITV’s upcoming thriller, Father and Son, starring Dougray Scott. The sequence, designed by Nic Benns, is a heavily textural piece that layers micro-fiche, x-rays and forensic imagery to capture the dark atmosphere of the mini-series. Newspaper clippings and family photos were also created to invoke the sinister past of Scott’s character.


Uli Meyer Animation has just finished this ad for Domestos called Face Off, a live action and animation mix ordered by Lowe London. The director was Uli Meyer and the producers were Matt Saxton and Liz Chan.

MTV - Logo Animation from GiovanniBucci.com on Vimeo.

This logo animation for MTV was designed and directed by Enrico Lambiase and Giovanni Bucci. The piece, an abstract mix of 2d and 3d graphic elements and real footage, has MTV sprouting a magical environment made up of branches, nature and industrial elements combined together. The soundtrack is a dirty steel and metallic sound mixed together with female opera vocals.

ITV.com World Cup Promo from Blue Zoo on Vimeo.

Blue-Zoo was commissioned to design and animate this
20-second spot to promote ITV’s World Cup website. It was ordered by ITV Creative. The creative director was Chaka Sobhani and the art director was Tom Box.

Expedia Blocks from ipress play on Vimeo.

Great Guns asked Lola to animate this ad for holiday company Expedia. It uses animated blocks to show how to build the perfect vacation. Director was Giles Greenwood, vfx supervisor was Grahame Andrew.

Big Button’s latest promo for Ash is this sci-fi inspired music video for the band’s synth-pop single Binary. The footage was shot on green screen in New York before being shipped to the BB team in the UK to add Tron-esque effects.

 
Kream was commissioned by the MCC to produce a sequence to promote its ‘MCC Spirit of Cricket’ programme that showcases the roles and responsibilities of captains, players and umpires. It was directed by Ed Salkeld.



Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Televisual-storyboard---June_bid-96.htmlThu, 10 Jun 2010 10:55:25The fact ent commissioners - full length Q&As Televisual's July issue contained our latest genre report, this time on factual entertainment TV. For the piece, we spoke to commissioners at Channel 4, the BBC, Five, Sky, Living and Bravo and UKTV about their programming needs in the months ahead. There wasn't room in the magazine to publish the full length Q&As, so here they are below.






Liam Humphreys
Deputy head of factual entertainment, Channel 4


What’s hot right now?

We’ve got a new format called The Joy of Teen Sex, a sex advice clinic for older teenagers and their parents in the vein of Embarrassing Bodies. It’s going to be an entertaining PSB format which tackles the agony and ecstasy of young people’s sex lives. And Mary Portas has signed an exclusivity deal with us. We’ve got two formats in production with her.

What’s your aim?

We’re making an effort to commission more shows that speak directly to young people. A lot of our programmes have really young demos. If you look at Heston’s formats or Gordon’s formats they’ve got really young demos but we are commissioning more shows which speak directly to young people. A lot of factual on Channel 4 is brilliant and cutting edge but it could be a bit younger so we’re trying to address that.

How will the absence of Big Brother effect fact ent?

Fact ent will play a vital role in the slots that are going to be freed up next year. We do the entertaining side of factual and we speak to young viewers so definitely.

Across the board we’re looking for more size and scale in what we do. There are more slots but there might be fewer things filling them. They could be competitive formats or events that could be stripped across the week. We’ll be looking to make bigger commissions, which will have a kind of scale and position in the schedule

Without Big Brother we’ll definitely need bigger runs and bigger brands. I want to build bigger brands which return. There’s some great output in fact ent but not enough returning stuff. That’s a key priority of mine and talent’s often key to that.

Is talent important

Talent’s going to be vital going forward. We’ve got a brilliant array of talent – Jamie, Gordon, Hugh, Heston, Mary, Kevin McCloud, Jo Frost. Part of our remit is new talent. It would be great to get more female faces on the channel and some younger faces and more diversity.

What else is important?

Mischief runs through all our best commissions. It’s always a slightly subversive idea rather than straight factual formats which the BBC better serves.

What’s missing for you?

A lot of our formats are talent led but we’ve been slightly underserved in factual formats in recent years. How the Other Half Live is returning. I commissioned Undercover Boss which is returning, but there haven’t been many non-talent factual formats at 9 o’clock and that’s going to be a priority along with finding new faces.

What are you not after?

We want fewer reality formats. What we do has to have proper purpose and be about something and then it can be entertaining. Fact ent might have struggled recently recently with how relevant it’s been.

We probably wouldn’t want to do a food idea unless it was genuinely new and groundbreaking because we’ve got so much of it. In terms of old-fashioned fact ent we probably wouldn’t do pop culture structured essays or archive shows unless they’re genuinely doing something new or had proper access attached to them. We wouldn’t do cut and paste biogs.

What turns you off in a pitch?

Half-baked formats with the starting point of “we take six people and put them in this place.” If that’s the opening line of the pitch your heart sinks a bit.

Pitch tapes are very important especially where talent’s concerned, an element of access is always important.

What have you enjoyed on other channels recently?

We’re the best in talent driven 9pm narratives but I do think BBC3 have done well in recent years with their array of factual formats without onscreen talent – Blood, Sweat… and Britain’s Missing Top Model, they’ve done that very well.

What budgets do you work to?

The tariff for 9pm is £160k though if it’s the right idea there’s always room to explore other ways of doing it or other avenues.

Is it just big schedule busting ideas you’ll commission?

We’ll still commission four part series. I might even still commission one off access docs if the access is right but across the channel with us as with everyone there’s going to be less room for one offs and two or three part series.

 

Jane Rogerson

Director of commissioning, UKTV

What shows do you need?

We need shows that can spike attention, either because their concept’s noisy like Made In Britain for Blighty or Scream if You Know the Answer for Watch - they both have an attitude and a spike to them. Or because we are generating news just by the setting of the programme. For Food and Home it’s necessary that we are ahead of the trend in those areas because the terrestrials are climbing all over them.

On Yesterday, if there is a big sweeping subject then we do a very fresh and focused point of view on a broad sweeping subject. We’ve just launched a one hour special on Dunkirk. Rather than doing a general Dunkirk doc we focused in on the men who were left behind. That was a fresh story that wasn’t familiar. Ration Book Britain with Valentine Warner was Yesterday’s most successful commission ever. Off the back of that we’ve just commissioned a series.

Is talent important?

It’s important across the network. I often do strategy reviews to look across the network and make sure we’re delivering the people at the top of their game in those genres and also the new younger more interesting faces. So I’m really proud of Argumental with John Sergeant Rufus and Marcus.

What else are you looking for?

Everybody is looking for the next wave of 9 o’clock fact ent formats that feel fresh and that can stand out on any channel. We’ve got a couple of things that we’re very hopeful of but we’re very open to other ideas

What are you not after?

We can sometimes get pitched a lot of fashion and style ideas and we just don’t have a home for them. If it feels like it could be on Living, it’s probably not the right tonality for us.

What’s stood out for you on other channels?

The Day the Immigrants Left on BBC1 was an astonishing breath of fresh air. Done at the right time with the right sensibility and to put it on at 9pm on BBC1 - I really admired that. And Four Weddings was such a perfect Living show.

What sort of budgets do you work to?

It completely varies. For the smaller, more niche channels you should be coming in at the equivalent of BBC daytime rates. For the bigger entertainment channels you’re probably looking at a reasonably good budget. We can compete properly in the market. We won’t do a lot. We don’t have the ability to commission a lot and burn off some that don’t quite work. Everything has to work. It’s three or four shows a year for a channel

How do commissions work alongside your BBC acquisitions

It’s fair to say if we can get it from the BBC we probably shouldn’t be spending the commissioning budget on it, so that’s why there’s a constant need for us to think ahead and think differently. Though it might have the same tonality

 

 

 

Steve Gowans

Head of factual entertainment and features, Five

What’s working well right now?

The Gadget Show goes from strength to strength, it’s our Top Gear - we own the area and have an incredibly loyal audience. The Hotel Inspector is returning this year, Cowboy Builders has another run of six this year. Extreme Fishing is back for another run of eight this year – Robson’s proving to be a real face of the channel. We’ve got another run of Rory and Paddy coming up and Build a New Life in the Country has also got a another run of revisits. They are all robust brands but the key thing is never rest on your laurels.

Are there subject areas you’d like to build on?

If I know an area we want to do I wouldn’t publicise it. The rule of thumb is look at Mondays at 8pm. We own tech and we’ve got a few new things on the go already but if there’s something else we can do in that area, we’re always interested

What else do you want?

With Alex Polizzi you have an absolutely credible expert - she has been doing this all her life. So it’s the easiest thing in the world - bring me an absolutely credible expert who’s also a TV natural. Sadly that’s the circle you have to square and when you hit someone like Alex Polizzi who is all those things it’s gold. It’s incredibly difficult to find a face that fits doing something that will bring an audience to it. It’s incredibly difficult to find those areas you can take ownership of. It’s a constant search. That’s the point of the job and the hundreds of meetings you have every year. You’re always looking for that next new face, area, format.

Any themes you’d like to build on?

Cowboy Builders is of the time. Rewarding the deserving and punishing the undeserving - they’re both really good starting points. The best new fact ent shows like The Secret Millionaire and Undercover Boss are all about rewarding the deserving and the surprise ending - a big reveal where people are getting what they deserve. Feel-good or getting our own back has many applications.

What slots do you need to fill

8pm and 9pm for me

Should fact ent reflect the recession?

I don’t think reflecting the austerity of the times is the job of an entertainment dept. Formats that are down in the mouth and about how to deal with debt are not going to fly with me. My job is to provide stuff that’s escapist, feel good with a happy ending or an adventure. Something to brighten things up.

What about celebrity adventure shows?

It’s about credibility. We had so many celebrity journey shows that when they’re clearly doing them for the appearance fee they don’t ring true. With Robson there’s an absolute passion for the area and no little ability and that comes across on screen.

What do you not want to be pitched?

Anything that’s purely female in skew. I wouldn’t look at parenting or relationships. It’s very well served elsewhere and we don’t get an audience for those kind of shows.

But I’m never sick of anything being pitched. I’m always grateful for ideas coming in.

 

 

Celia Taylor

Head of factual and features, Sky1

What’s really working for you?

Pineapple Dance Studios. The impact that’s made has been brilliant. Not only has it been a hit it’s been really interesting how the industry’s reacted to it as an innovative, breakout example of how you can refresh factual entertainment or documentaries anyway.

What do you want to from your fact ent shows?

We’re trying to do things that other people aren’t doing, trying to be liberated from the restraints and pressures that factual’s been under and get back to what good factual entertainment is about, which is really entertaining, well made stuff.

Where do you want to go from here?

We’ll try stuff out, be creatively open and experimental. We’ll be breaking the rule book a little bit. Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won’t. Pineapple was an example of when it worked brilliantly but we didn’t know that when we started messing about with it.

We’re not just after slightly increasing our share, it’s about having big hits. We want everything to perform well but we’d much rather have ten really big hits that people love than 30 things that do slightly better than the slot average last year.

What kind of talent works on Sky1?

There are the A listers like Davina and I’m doing a feature length documentary with David Attenborough so you’ve got the cream of the crop. But there’s also that younger level of people who have have had major mainstream exposure like James Corden and Joanna Page. I’m having conversations with terrestrial talent who think Sky is now one of the players. Making our own talent is key for us too, we’re not afraid of new talent.

What subjects don’t work for you?

We’re after what the others aren’t. If they want more property, more cooking, more gardening, we don’t want any of that. We’re the anti matter channel for all things features.

What sort of runs do you order?

We very rarely do one offs, I want returnable brands. It’s a 6x60 minimum order. If we get it right or have confidence we’ll go for a lot more.

For what slots?

8pm or 9pm and 6pm on Sundays.

What budgets do you work to?

We go from £70K to £300k depending on what it is and who it is. Something like the David Attenborough 3d doc is considerably more than that.

Do producers understand the channel?

The channel has changed so clearly on screen and our message is quite easy for people to understand. It’s fewer, bigger, better and the fact we’ve had some brilliant talent signings signifies to people we’ve upped our game a lot. And because we are doing fewer, bigger, better we can compete budget wise.

What’s the best way to pitch you?

By email. There is an electronic system that you’re supposed to use but nobody really does it that way.

 

Mark Sammon

Head of commissioning,

Virgin Media Television

How has Bravo changed?

I don’t want to do Bravo’s heritage down, it has a great history and some great commissions but they were never particularly inclusive so girlfriends and wives never felt they could come in and watch. The new era in commissioning is all about being inclusive. We are a male skewing channel and will continue to be but in order to get the volume we want to get it’s about girlfriends and wives watching as well. The model works perfectly well for Living, we get men watching – it’s about 60-40 in terms of audience now so we know it can be done. When women are watching Four Weddings they want a bit of the bitchiness and it’s a drama for them. Men who are watching are saying its all just incredibly hilarious.

What’s worked so far?

When we commissioned Alex Reid: The Fight of His Life we had a lot of women watching that haven’t watched Bravo in years. They’re watching because he’s in Heat magazine and the guys are still watching for the fight demonstrations and the drama.

Is it now about fewer, bigger, better?

Instead of saying we need ten episodes and they’re all going to cost X amount, I can come in with a show pilot like The Human Guinea Pig and say I need four times the normal budget to do this pilot and the business has been up for that. The sense of scale and ambition we’re after means we’ll sign off budgets appropriate to that.

What budgets do you offer?

Our fact ent budgets are absolutely comparable, if not better and healthier, than what’s currently being paid at terrestrial channels for peaktime shows. That’s why we attract some fantastic production companies and talent. We have the money and we’re prepared to spend it on the right ideas.

What talent are you after?

Talent’s a short cut to changing perceptions of Bravo and bringing audiences in that might not have watched for a while. So now we might spend more money on a piece of talent. They do a job. They make people reassess their opinions of the channel in a single stroke.

Gavin Henson [who’s fronting Human Guinea Pig] is a good example. He’s in the pages of Heat week in week out by association. He stays true to Bravo being a male skewing channel because he’s respected sportsman. He has that breadth of appeal.

There’s something in comedians as well, the Gavin and Stacey affect. We’re trying to get names like that on to the channel.

You can break talent but they have to be stand out amazing and what they’re doing has to be quiet shocking

What formats do you want?

Finding our returning format is a dream come true. We’ve looked at Top Gear and those shows that work for men. We can never emulate them - we don’t have the budgets and why would we? Top Gear’s already there. But we look at the ingredients and see if there’s something we can spin out from those shows, we might find nothing but that’s part of the journey we’re going on.

What’s needed on Living?

The Holy Grail for Living is the next Four Weddings. Formatted shows are still very much on our shopping list and it’s always about the talent. What names can we attract that add that bit of glitz? We know the themes that work. Our battle is because BBC3, ITV2, E4 and Sky1 are all after the same audience now so Living has to stay ahead of that pack. If we do a wedding show or makeover show it has to have a twist and have more layers to it. We have to be much cleverer.

 

Harry Lansdown

Commissioning editor, features, formats, specialist factual, BBC3

What are you looking for now?

We’ve had a lot of success in taking viewers around different parts of the world and we’d like to keep doing that but we’re also looking for some more domestic stuff as well. How do we do shows that are gripping and compelling but we’re in the kitchen and the living room or the school, rather than necessarily taking people away?

What else are you after?

We’ve had a lot of success with Britain’s Missing Top Model and then we did Dancing on Wheels. I like that way of doing disability. It doesn’t feel worthy, it feels celebratory. I’m keen for something in 2011 like that, I don’t know what it is yet.

What else are you missing?

We had and continue to have a lot of quite serious stuff, programmes around globalisation and so on. But we’ve had a lot of success with The Undercover Princes and Princesses. Formats like that are like gold dust. They’re more at the entertainment end and we need those as well as the Blood, Sweat and World’s Strictest.

Do you want fact ent to reflect tough economic times?

That’s the challenge? There’s this huge crisis going on which is going to change all our lives in ways that we’re just beginning to realise. How do we reflect that? It’s difficult because as a proposition you have to think quite hard about how it’s going to feel exciting. But if you don’t reflect what’s going on in the world then it’s not relevant to people’s lives. The best formats are about things that are going on but you have to be subtle. We can’t do a fact ent format that’s about young people looking for work, that’s too head on; you need to be a bit cleverer.

Have you found anything yet?

Not really, so I’d love some help on it. It’s tough but someone will come up with an idea that feels like it’s representing a scarier world.

What shows won’t you do?

We keep away from those features territories like cooking, gardening and property. I’m more interested in younger skewing things.

 

It’s aimed at a young audience, should that be reflected in the faces on screen?

You can overstate the youngness of it. It is a younger channel but we’re talking 20s and 30s we’re not talking a teen channel. A good presenter is a good presenter, generally they’re in there 20s and 30s there aren’t any rules. Young people love Alan Sugar, Jeremy Clarkson, Gordon Ramsay. You have to sometimes s be a bit counter intuitive. And we’re not putting celebs on the telly for the sake of it. It’s more lightly formatted and it’s documentary in its sensibility that’s what we found people really like.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/The-fact-ent-commissioners---full-length-QandAs_bid-94.htmlFri, 04 Jun 2010 14:51:05Televisual storyboard
In this month’s Storyboard, Lola, Jellyfish and Prime Focus help tell the story of the US; Passion promotes marital bliss with Jerry Seinfeld; Sumcreative plays some Rock n Roll; Blue Zoo takes a trip to the cinema; Wilder goes on an Emirati adventure; E&P and Disqo do business in Thailand; Bait mashes it up for S4C and Boomerang; Al Jazeera gets a kids rebrand from Seed and Devilfish and Blac Ionica make shards for Virgin Shorts

 

America Story Of US from Nutopia on Vimeo.

America: The Story of Us, the History Channel US’s highest rated special ever, had vfx and post work from a host of UK outfits. The major series, that covers the whole of the US’s 400 year history had extensive vfx created by Lola and Jellyfish  with grade, audio and online completed at Prime Focus.




 created the Flash and traditional 2d title sequence for Jerry Seinfeld’s new NBC reality show, The Marriage Ref, where A-list guests like Madonna, Alec Balwin, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ricky Gervais preside over average American couples’ disagreements. Using a script penned by Seinfeld himself, Hope and Hemming’s animation explains the origin and meaning of the show. The look of the piece was influenced by classic 60s TV titles like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie.

 

SumCreative produced over 50 animations for BBC series I’m In A Rock n Roll Band!. The graphic novel inspired sequences illustrate moments in the lives and careers of the rock stars featured in the series. Creative director Paul Peppiate commissioned comic book artists Steve Beaumont, Mike Collins and Leigh Gallagher to produce over 250 master illustrations. SumCreative designers Al O’Brien, Ant Scott and Lynn Tidsey completed the 50 plus animations, complete with all the effects and grading work.



Cineworld Ident from Blue Zoo on Vimeo.

Blue-Zoo created this ident to be shown in Cineworld cinema’s before performances with the characters representing different film genres. It was ordered by BD Network. The producer was Peter Muggleston and the director was Will Smith.





Wilder made this five minute film for the UAE Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010. In it, an animated Emirati boy and Chinese girl take a magical journey through the UAE. Exec was Richard Batty and the director was Kevin Mckiernan.




Seed Animation was commissioned by branding agency Radiant to produce four further idents and on-screen graphics for the continuing rebranding of Qatar’s Al Jazeera children’s channel, JCC.



Virgin Media Shorts 2010 from Blac Ionica on Vimeo.
Agency Devilfish commissioned Blac Ionica to create this TV and cinema promo for the Virgin Media Shorts Film Competition. The piece is based aroud the VMS “shards”. Blac Ionica also produced the sound design.


Black Sheep - Titles from disqohd on Vimeo.
E&P Associates created this new identity for Thai TV entrepreneurial show Black Sheep Runs Business. Creative director Rob Machin worked with Disqo’s Joe Lovelock to develop and animate the sequence.




Stwnsh from Bait on Vimeo.
S4C and Boomerang commissioned Bait to brand its new kids’ service Stwnsh (Mashup). The identity is built around unexpected mashups including hair clips and chip forks causing cars to explode and hair-dryers blowing colour.

Marriage Ref Titles from kate sullivan on Vimeo.

Passion’s Tim Hope and Chris Hemming Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Televisual-storyboard_bid-89.htmlTue, 11 May 2010 14:36:11Terry Pratchett on TV adaptations
In April's Televisual we have a production close-up feature on Going Postal, Mob Films' latest Terry Pratchett Discworld adaptation for Sky 1.



As part of that, we're running a Q&A with the knighted author about how he feels about seeing his books on screen, and how he feels about getting on to the set.

He says: "If I can get on set during filming, I am like a kid with a train set. I'll even hang out with the costume ladies.  I really love getting behind the scenes. When Hogfather was being made I was very impressed with the depiction of Archchancellor Ridcully's study, which was everything a wizard's study should be. But I pointed out to the set dressers that no cleaner in their right mind would ever go into a wizard's study and so it should be a lot more dusty. They actually seemed impressed with this because as they left they were heard to say "he knows his snotting" (snotting up meaning 'distressing' a start or part thereof to make it look well used, but neglected.  Another term we picked at the same time was 'chutney' which apparently means everything lying around that shouldn't be. A film set is full of chutney.)"

See the full feature in April's issue

 

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Terry-Pratchett-on-TV-adaptations_bid-72.htmlWed, 31 Mar 2010 16:13:51Totally sweet, dude


Aardman directing outfit Busty Kelp (Paul Smith) created this motion capture clip, currently working its way to the Youtube front page. It features US teenage dog character Greg Mutt and his incisive review of James Cameron's Avatar .

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Totally-sweet-dude_bid-71.htmlTue, 30 Mar 2010 12:10:32The doctor will see you now

The new Doctor Who's new exec producer, Piers Wenger, has been chatting to Televisual about how the upcoming series has changed from its previous incarnation.



The first episode of series five TXs this Easter weekend and Wenger, who's taken over from original exec Julie Gardner, will be nervously awaiting the public reaction.

There is of course, a new Doctor on board, Matt Smith, and a new lead writer in Steven Moffat.

Smith's Doctor is "more chaotic, charming in a more bumbling way, less obviously responsible, more unpredictable. He’s quite clumsy as a person, there is a Stan Laurel-ish quality to him," says Wenger.

And on Moffat's writing, he says: "Steven is a very different writer to Russell. His writing has a different character. Blink is a good example of how he likes to use childhood fears to inject jeopardy into his stories. We took that as a lead to bring in a sense of wonderment and fairytale and a little more darkness - that feeling of a classic children’s story.”

Wenger has also brought in a completely new directing team for this series.

We've seen a sneak preview of episode one and it was one of the most engaging bits of TV drama we've seen in a long while.

The full interview will be in April's edition of Televisual
Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/The-doctor-will-see-you-now_bid-69.htmlTue, 30 Mar 2010 10:41:48Powerful stuff
It’s not an easy ask for a design and animation company to turn reams of dry, statistical data into an interesting and explanatory narrative.

But that’s what left wing thinktank Demos asked Airside to do with its detailed statistical study which tried to show how much power was held by individuals in each area of the UK, and by constituencies as a whole.

Airside set the problem in a historical context in order to create a narrative that would help ordinary members of the public understand these concepts.  

The film was created as part of the Sunderland-based Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art’s exhibition entitled Think-Tank: A Marketplace of Ideas that had Britain’s leading think tanks collaborate with the its top designers to imagine how to create a better nation.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Powerful-stuff_bid-64.htmlTue, 23 Mar 2010 12:28:08What entertainment commissioners want


Just doing the rounds of the light entertainment commissioners for our LE report that will come out in the next (April) issue.

So far, we’ve chatted to the BBC’s Mark Linsey and Sky’s Duncan Gray.

It looks like humour is a major theme for BBC entertainment commissions right now. Linsey said: “Let’s Dance and Total Wipeout have a lot of humour and fun at heart. That undertone of comedy is very important to us. Even if you look at formats like Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum and Undercover Princesses – there’s a lot of humour in there.”

Specifically, his focus is on the 10.35 slots on Mondays and Fridays. “We’re trying not to be too proscriptive because we want people to challenge us, we want people to surprise us, we want people to come to us with quite risky or out-there ideas for BBC1 we are looking to take a few risks with fresh original formats.”

Gray said Sky was sticking firmly to a “fewer, bigger, better” agenda for LE and that the way forward for his commissions was “not about being niche or playing on the edges, it’s about absolutely being in the middle of the cultural agenda but you’re able to skip a generation and take a slightly fresher approach.”

Check out the full report in Televisual’s April issue.

Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/What-entertainment-commissioners-want_bid-62.htmlTue, 16 Mar 2010 11:23:16The making of Emily
Check out this "making of" video for Passion Pictures director Dan Sumich's new stop frame spot for the Action For Children charity.

The model of the little girl was built and animated in CG and then the animated frames were used to shape the resin models using lasers. Around 95 models were created all in all and were hand painted and shot as live action.

Lying prostrate on Newman Street all night amongst the beer cans and fag butts must have been fun.


Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/The-making-of-Emily_bid-52.htmlWed, 10 Mar 2010 14:08:29A mini masterpiece

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

This stunning time-lapse, tilt-shift style short about a day in the life of New York city was created by director Sam O'Hare who's repped through Aero Film in New York. The track, written for the film, is by Human. For more info on how O'Hare created the short, check out this Q&A Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/A-mini-masterpiece_bid-48.htmlMon, 08 Mar 2010 17:02:02Gorgeous journeys

Visa 'Football Evolution' from Chia Tucker on Vimeo.

Untitled from Chia Tucker on Vimeo.

A couple of fantastic sporting journeys from a couple of Gorgeous's directors. The first is Chris Palmer's Football Evolution for Visa made through Saatchi and Saatchi and the second is Peter Thwaites AT&T Winter Olympics Up and Up spot for BBDO New York.  Total Comments: 0 ]]>http://www.televisual.com/blog-detail/Gorgeous-journeys-_bid-47.htmlMon, 08 Mar 2010 16:56:24