Animated Portrait

This summer our Dean (Gerda Roper) retired, and the media crew decided to make her a video send-off. I thought it would be more appropriate to make my input as an animation So, I made a tiny tribute to her and her big influence on the shape of the School (SAM, Arts and Media). Making a portrait of someone as an animation is a new challenge - not really a caricature, but having recogniseable signs including in this case, expressions and big jewellery. So far, she doesn't seem to hate it!

Referendum - animating the news

Just squeezed in film No.7 to 2014 - a tiny one-minute animation on the Scottish referendum which was made for the BBC Draw the News site. Open submission, and no fancy competition but great feedback and probably seen by more people that films at a festival; especially as it's still online. Again, the challenge was in the tight format - 60 seconds - and creating a semi-abstract figure to represent everypeasant.

Animated Documentary

A new experiment -  a linear documentary Life with Sheds based on the ideas collected for an interactive piece "The Worldwide Shed". I asked for a narrator who could do a cross between Sir David Attenborough and David Tenant's Doctor Who. I got the incomparable Ronan Paterson, who sounds like both, with a touch of Bunny Guinness.
This is a first attempt at animated documentary, which is an interesting genre. Lots of films I have seen use a narrator/ storyteller, which always makes the images seem less important...illustrations for a text rather than a text itself. So  I don't think its going to be my preferred method of working. Also, this is definitely my last attempt at lipsynching a boiled egg.