Labeouf New Film

This is my latest short Labeouf, a stopmotion animation about a goblin called Norman stuck down a hole. The name came from Shia Labeouf as his Just do it green screen video was going around at the time. I wanted subtler name than Just do it so thought this would be a fun name. The puppet is made with a wire armature and painted with latex, the set is made from MDF wood, recycled and found objects. The budget was zero so everything used was either self funded, found or donated. The film was worked on part time for about a year, stopping when other projects were on. 

The story is about a goblin (called Norman) who is stuck down a hole, but he's to distracted to escape. It's also about the endless possibilities available to us all to shape our future, to seize the moment but we're so distracted with social media, boxsets and video games etc that these opportunities are slowly fading with darker more sinister times ahead. 

Social Media is represented by the bucket, through colours, sounds and the idea that we can fill Facebook with our lives. I didn't want to use a blue book as it seemed too obvious. Boxsets are represented via the blue crystals, ie Breaking Bad as everyone seems so obsessed with wasting time watching it. Gaming is represented with the cork painted like a Pikachu. The sky darkening is time running out, in life, for the planet and the human race, through age, pollution, segregation and war. The longer we wait to act the smaller the opportunity we have to affect change in our own lives and on the world around us.

The film began life as a showreel piece but once it had been made I decided to turn it into a short animation. It was a good experience making the short and I learnt a lot, there's lots of things I'd do differently in future but as it is I've finished working on it. Specifically make the puppet larger with a more expressive face, improve the sky animation (oil on glass) and reshoot a couple of shots. I'd rate it at a 2.5 out of 5.

Explainer Video Blades Animation

Here is the new advert for Blades Animation. I am going to produce a making of blog to accompany how the video was made. Though for now I am going to post the video please let me know what you think.

Richard :)

          

Birmingham Screen Image Network and Networking

This is actually a big answer I gave to some questions regarding the Birmingham Screen Image Network that I attend once a month at Millennium Point. It took me a while to write it but hopefully it will be useful and interesting.

Here are the questions-

What makes a good network?

Why do you go?

And what do you want from a network?

And here is my Answer-

I've attended all sorts of different networking sessions for both creatives and business people, in lots of different venues. I enjoy the BSIN sessions as they are regular, the venue is good and it is easy to find out who is there, what they do and then I can decide who I want to talk to. Rather than the scatter gun approach which occasionally happens at larger sessions.

I think the venue is very important, the worst venues for myself have been bars and pubs. I find the main problem with these is they are to noisy due to loud music and are often being shared with members of the public making them unnecessarily crowded. I found that people end up getting hammered and it just seems pointless talking to some of them as they're totally incoherent.

A venue should have features that provide opportunities for conversation. A drinks station is always good. If I run out of people to talk to and cant see any open groups then I normally get a glass of water and engage the next person to come over to the drinks table. When food is provided finger food works best especially with tall tables that you have to stand at. As you can remain mobile and easily start up a conversation with a new group/table. I think it would be good to put spikes on the walls as it can be to easy for attendees to hide at the side and this would force them into the middle of the room.

Recently I've been attending sessions that have art, interactives, prototypes, puzzles and other assorted conversation props that are great for facilitating networking.

Another style of networking I've enjoyed is speed networking. You all sit in two rows facing one another and have about 60 seconds each to talk, swap cards and move on when the whistle blows. When the speed networking has finished everyone carries on with regular networking but now you know who everyone is and can carry on promising conversations.

Finally the most important thing for me is the people. I preferably want a good mix of creatives, animators, film makers, artists, sound people, writers, photographers, actors etc and preferably some business people, different entrepreneurs who are interested in the skills on offer by the creatives. Most importantly the attendees have to have a good attitude ie polite, friendly and be prepared to try to make conversation.

I go to BSIN each month for a variety of reasons. I enjoy the structure, each person introduces themselves, who they are, then news is shared and interesting debates normally arise. Although the attendances are low there is normally a couple of new faces each month. I have made some useful contacts, I get to hear of news, events and different opportunities coming up.

I think it would be good bring the Screen and Music networks into the same room for the last 20mins to further share news, info, leads etc

When paired with the free dinner and creative networks events after its a really enjoyable and useful way to spend an afternoon.

I also go to support the network and hopefully support the creative scene in Birmingham by attending. Attendances are low which is disappointing, although I wouldn't want the groups to have massive, if it could get up to 15/20 each week that would be great. The only way the group will grow is by people continuing to attend, talking and promoting the meet ups.

Hi

Yesterday I finally finished and uploaded the an animated logo for Blades Animation to stick in front of our films. I intended to finish it much sooner but its been so hot in the studio over the summer that the shoot repeatedly got delayed. Check it out below!

I have already began working on our next project a short explainer video to show off the benefits of using animation and the services we offer.

Richard :)

Lots happening!

Its been a hectic start to the year with lots of news and things going on. First of all the biggest news to report is Blades Animation is relocating. We are currently based in the George Street Chambers in Birmingham. Today I picked up the keys to the new studio located in The Big Peg, I have started moving and hope to be fully moved in by the end of next week. 

The decision to move was made early in January due to a number of issues but the largest being the floor. The current studio has a wooden floor and some of the panels aren't as sturdy as needed. This was causing problems with camera movement while animating, obviously not good. This meant the majority of January was taken up with searching Birmingham for a new studio location. I have looked at numerous places around Birmingham. Here is a list of the places I looked at.

The Custard Factory

The Bond

Venture Way

Faraday Wharf

The Argent Centre

Gun Quarter workshops

It was really difficult to find studios that were appropriate. A lot of time was spent walking around Birmingham looking for different letting agencies or online searching. There's a mountain of office space to let in Birmingham but not so much geared towards creatives. All of the above would be ideal for creatives to varying degrees. In a future blog I will write about each of these locations in greater detail for others who may be looking for their own studio space. 

In between searching for a new home we have focused a lot on networking and making connections with other businesses and film makers around the Midlands. One big problem for Birmingham is theres a huge amount of talented animators and film makers but the scene is very disconnected. There are different  groups but none of them have links to one another and getting to know other film makers has proved to be a slow experience. By different groups I mean things like the Meet up events, animation forum WM, Creative England, Shooters Club etc. The amount of people at the events varies greatly and people aren't always aware of the existence of other groups or film makers etc. Its only through my recent use of Event Bright that I've found lots of new events to attend and have been chatting to others who have told me about some of these groups. They are not all in one easy to find location. ANNOYING!! I would highly recommend the event bright phone app, its really good!

In an effort to keep myself being creative I have hooked up with a number of different writers to initiate some new projects. These are specifically short ideas for the internet. There's no specific deadline but we hope to have something to show later on in the year.

Finally I've been out and about photoing things in an effort to improve my camera and composition skills. So please check out some photos I took from a ceramics workshop located in Sutton College and let me know what you think.

Memorabilia Fair Day One!

Memorabilia 2012 Day One

I attended the most recent Memorabilia fair at the LG arena in Birmingham on the 24th and 25th November. It has been years since I've attended an event like this so was looking forward to it. I don't buy comics or toys any more though I still enjoy that culture and the atmosphere. 

I attended with my two friends Pokemon Master Alan Kwan and the film maker Malcolm Kennedy. We had early entry tickets for both days. On the first day Malcolm and I arrived at 9 to be greeted by a disorganised mess of a queue, the attendants sent us form one side of the queue and back again. Once finally in we had a wonder around until Alan joined us (he was travelling from a different location to us). 

Upon entry we were given a free 50th anniversary issue of Spiderman and a program, posters were on offer but we didn't want to carry these around. The stalls were selling a wide variety of merchandise and collectables. It was cool to see a mix of toy dealers and smaller start up businesses selling custom made merchandise rather than the over priced “collectables” as a lot of stands were selling. I appreciate old toys that are mint in box are expensive as they are hard to come by but I find it ridiculous that a Batman figure fresh off the production line can have such a high price tag. 

The smaller custom stands were selling limited edition designed posters, t-shirts, mugs, clothing, console cases etc. It was awesome to see these stands as all of them were being manned by the designers and makers of their products. We got chatting to some of the owners of these stands and its far more satisfying knowing that you are giving the money directly to the products designers. 

One of the stands I bought an ace super hero mug off was Head shot clothing. The lads on the stand were super friendly and had loads of great stuff definitely worth checking out.

In the middle of the arena were all the celebrities asking for £15 to £25 for 30 seconds of their time. They ranged from actors from Starwars, Only Falls and Horses, Michael Biehn and David Hassellhoff to name a few. There were even some glamor models who just about managed to cover their nipples (well done them). 

Dalek made by Robots live and a house robot

As we worked our way to the other side of the arena we found the Robots Live ring. As far as I could tell this was the same as Robot Wars from TV, I assume they had to change the name for licence reasons. We watched one of these events. I was never to fussed about Robot Wars when it was on TV but seeing it live is totally different. Its really good! The first robots out were the smaller light weight Robots that were mostly wedges with flippers on. These were really fast and chucked one another all over the ring. Next there were boxing robots and they did a segment I think was aimed at kids. Then the final part was the heavy weight Robots and were again predominately wedges but these were even more satisfying to see fight. They're all much bigger than I imagined, it was really exciting seeing such powerful robots smash one another up. 

Around midday the arena began to fill up and it became very crowded so we decided to get lunch. Malcolm had brought sandwiches with him so me and Alan began to look for somewhere to eat. There was a Subway straight outside the arena but it had huge queues. We settled on the Weatherspoons but it had a special LG menu that was very expensive, we were going to buy some paninis but they had sold out, it turned out anything under £10 had sold out. So we had sweets and fizzy drinks for lunch. 

In the afternoon we continued looking around the stalls and made a few purchases. I bought some canvas prints, DVDs, postcards, a Megaman keyring and a Pokemon league cap. The event finished for the day at 5PM then we headed home. In a couple of days I’ll post my report on Day Two.

Batman preparing for a poo!

Quick update

Been quite busy this week just got back off holiday, I camped and walked Hadrians wall. It was a good holiday but has left me feeling like I now need a holiday, very tiring.

As a result todays blog is going to be brief and an update of what Im upto. Today Im going to go to Calumet Photographic in Birmingham to buy some new studio lighting which is very exciting. Other new purchases are just before I went on holiday I purchased some new sound recording equiptment. A new condenser microphone, mic stand and pre amp. These were all bought from Fair Deal Music in Birmingham the staff there were very helpful.

I am just putting the finishing touches to a small set to do some new animation with the Blades Animation Mascot. Im going to be producing a couple of short pieces to add to the showreel. These should be ready by the end of the of the month so look out for those.

Well thats it for now.

Rich

Intro to the All New Blades Animation Blog

Hello so Ive been reading friend of Blades Animation the talented live action director Malcolm Kennedys recently started blog. Below is Malcolm's logo please click on the link to be taken to his website. (don't do it yet till you've read this blog though)

www.malcolmkennedy.co.uk

Malcolm's first entry is an introduction to who he is and what he's about. I thought "umm did I do this?", No I did not. I had a look over my old post to double check as I couldn't really remember but No definitely didn't. So what follows is finally an introduction and welcome to the Blades Animation Blog.

I am actively trying to be more proactive with Blogging, tweeting and facebooking so this entry is all part of this new marketing blitz. Im aiming to blog about once every other week, tweet about once a day and put something on facebook once a week.

When I first started this blog it was just going to be updates of what I was doing, which I guess it had been. I decided that this was in-fact boring so out the window with that and from now on its the all New Blades Animation Blog. I based its boringness on the repetitive titles of the blogs they are all just variants of the word update. My favourite blog post is the networking one, I re-read it the other day and I just thought "THIS IS BLOG GOLD!" Anyway so this made me think from now I'm going to try to put in more useful blogs that are hopefully more interesting. I've got lots of draft blogs I've been compiling for a couple of months now, most of them are just titles with a few notes. I've even got the blogger app so am totally committed to getting these posts done and online.

Right so things Im going to cover going forward are still some updates of projects and what Im up to but less of these. The next puppet I make I intend to document the full process and stick it up on here as a sort of puppet making tutorial. Im planning a day trip to london to buy some studio lights which is going up on here. At the end of September Im going to be walking Hadrian's Wall as research for a project I'm working on which will probably be a mix of smaller posts. I've got lots of creative businesses posts I want to put up, this covers, my work process, marketing advice, scheduling, pricing, how to keep costs low, book reviews, all sorts of stuff and some fun blogs like favourite films etc. If readers have requests then please message me and I can probably do requested blogs or answer questions as well, cos Im nice.

So I think that works as a indication of what this Blog is about from now on. I want to avoid doing any really long blogs and keep them nice and digestible, so I shall stop now. I will try to follow this post up with some history on how I began on my journey into animation, where I started, the routes I took and so on.

Thanks for reading, please like the facebook page to stay up to date on whats going on.

Rich

Update

Got lots of stuff coming up.

I'll be starting the next commission a week Wednesday currently just getting everything ready for that. Its not a massive project so will only last for about a month, possibly slightly longer. I posted another clue on twitter today as to what it is.

Been busy today working on a short film thats scheduled to come out in time for Christmas this year. Currently at the scripting/storyboarding stage. This part can sometimes take ages as theres no point making a film if the scripts rubbish so its very important for this part to be perfect before moving onto anything else. I've done some character designs but these wont be finalised until after the script/storyboard is set and Im ready to start making things. This film is currently going by the title HNY until I think of something good.

The second major project I'm working on is currently called S&S this is ongoing as its a series idea rather than a short so wont be ready any time soon. A large portion of the character designs are complete and Im finishing off the character profiles. The series is a road movie, adventure across Britain. Im  figuring out the plot and the route the characters are going to take. Then at some point this year I plan to spend time traveling the route to help the writing of the plot/script.

During the next week Im going to film a short video tour of the studio so you can all see what it looks like. Though I wouldn't hold your breaths as if you check back through my previous blogs you will see I say all sorts of stuff and don't do it.

So like me on facebook, follow me on twitter, leave a comment or suggestion and i'll see you soon!

Rich

Networking

Today I attended the Business growth show hosted at Drayton Manor hotel in Tamworth Birmingham. Please read on for my experience and maybe tips on networking. 

I had been tempted to attend one of these networking events for a while though had been putting it off as networking isn't the most fun. All my previous networking has been pretty much animation industry specific. Previous networking i've done has been at a variety of festivals and animation events in mostly Wales and a little in Birmingham. The festivals have been the most fun to network at. Annecy especially as just getting into the events is hard enough though definitely worth pursuing as there's lots of famous industry people and free food and drinks. The Networking at Annecy wasn't necessarily successful as it didn't lead to much in the way of work but was fun floundering in the Grand Hotel having climbed over the fence to attend. So I wasn't sure how a pile of business people would react to an animation business at an event like this. 

As it happens it all went really well. I arrived a little before nine and received a warm welcome from  Becky and Jo who allowed me to sign up for the speed networking and the two seminars. The event took place in a large hall divided into two, half for stands for various businesses and the other half reserved for speed networking. 

The speed networking began around nine. I was a little reluctant about doing this as I wasn't sure if this was the right audience for Blades Animation. I'd come prepared with a stack of showreels and some businesses cards. I didn't decided to attend the event until the day before (monday) so was a little rusty on my elevator pitch. Being the professional I am I knocked up a new one on the bus ride over. Fortunately I've done lots of pitching before so it was more of a personal refresher. I went with Frank Boyds structure for elevator pitching.  As follows:

Introduce yourself

What your project is

Who it is for

Why it is important

What you want.

This was obviously supported with the famous Richard Blades charm :). This structure was adapted on the fly depending on who I was talking to and how they were reacting etc. If anyone is wondering what I was wearing I decided against going with a suit as its not the industry I work in and thought it would be misleading if I went with a shirt and tie. It was important to me that I don't miss represent myself as some one that works in an office. I went with comfy shoes, trousers, white t-shirt under a blue v-neck jumper and a smart atticus jacket cos Im a punk :).

The actual speed networking was excellent and a genuinely great way to get chatting to people I would recommend it to anyone. The first couple of people I blundered through a little until my pitch was all set in my head. Fortunately all the people I spoke to were really interesting from a wide variety of backgrounds and businesses. By the time the speed networking had finished it was annoyingly obvious that I hadn’t brought enough business cards. I'd enough for the rest of the day but not enough for any more speed networking which was a shame. 

Next up I checked out the different stands and followed on some of the conversations started during the networking. Part of my reluctance for coming to events of this kind is this type of networking that relies on cold approaches. Again everyone was really friendly and was unlike some previous events i've been to where people stand in closed groups. There were loads of open groups of people who were chatty and eager to meet others. If I ran out of people to talk to I headed for the water point as its really easy to strike up a conversation while people are getting drinks. My main opener was to simply say "hey hello" and "ask if they were having a good time". During these periods I handed out most of my remaining business cards. As mentioned before I spoke to a huge variety of business people from a magician, website designers, event planners, copywriters the list really goes on. 

A lunch buffet was provided which was a nice bonus, consisting of pizzas, sandwiches and sausage rolls. Either side of lunch was a seminar held in a separate room. The Morning session was with Shiv Ahluwalia entitled Sales Communication for Hungry Entrepreneurs who was excellent. A great mix of audience involvement, humour and sales education delivered in a relaxed manner.

The Afternoon was hosted by Jo Simpson and entitled Better Decision Making For The Business Owners. I had covered similar subjects to this Seminar in the Nesta work shop I attended as part of the Transform@lab. It was about identify business values to help inform the businesses decision making which I believe is really important and another valuable seminar and message. 

Unfortunately I didn't stay for the whole day as I ran out of business cards and I was feeling particularly worn out. (I ran the Eden Marathon on Sunday and am still recovering) I headed off about an hour before the events end. On the whole a great day out that I believe yielded some potential leads and loads of useful contacts. I look forward to the next Business Growth Show!

Richard