Annecy Festival 2015

Just got back from the 2015 Annecy International Animated Film Festival with these lovely people! Just enough energy left to let you know that I'm back and had a lovely time - normal posting will resume next week.

Top row, from left to right: Sian Mills, James Stafford, Tad Davies, Saeed Ahmed, Laura Jones, Josh Cranton.

Bottom row, from left to right: Jason Evans, Ciprian Costas, Katie Green, Robyn Kelly, Hannah Evans, Gary Seto, Stephanie Howell, me.

All of their blogs can be found in the sidebar!

New Showreel

Showreel May 2015 from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Recently I had to put together a showreel of my work from the last three years of university and I thought I'd share it with you today. You can also find it on the homepage of my website.

You may not hear from me for a couple of weeks now - I'm leaving for the Annecy Film Festival on Friday and so my posting for the next couple of weeks entirely depends on whether or not I find any internet connection!

End of Third Year

Keeper: Sneak Peak from Julia Young on Vimeo.

Well, as stated that it would be in my last blog post, since you last heard from me the film has been finished! We have also enjoyed our end of year show where, judged by A Productions in Bristol, the film won the 'Best 2D' category! This marks for us the end of University and it certainly feels odd...

I hope you enjoy the sneak peak posted above; the film in its entirety will be put up both here and on my website once it has completed the festival circuit. I'd just like to take this post to thank again all of those who were involved in the production of the film - you're all the best!

Some credits again and links to websites:

Soundtrack - Joe Barlow

CG Artist - Rhys Jones

CG Animator - Gary Seto

Compositor - Georgia Dutton

Super-duper special thanks to Jason Evans

Thanks as well to Ben Mitchell from Skwigly for taking these photos at our end of year show, 'Animotion'. Congrats to all the winners!

From left to right - Sian Mills, Saeed Ahmed, Josh Cranton & myself, Alice Parkes, Steph Howell

Variations, Moods, Compositing

Last week I posted the following image. It was the background of the very first shot of the film. It's sunset and the scene is bright:

Since last week, Josh and I started talking again about the colours of the film and the implied moods that they create. We agreed that at the beginning of the film we actually wanted a moodier/darker feel so that the relief and optimism at the end of the film is more pronounced. With this in mind, I created this new version:

A while back our tutor suggested that we could create a nice completing-of-the-circle feeling for the film by repeating the first shot of the film at the end of the film. We took this on board as it did provide a sense of emotional completeness and so here is the final background; the lighthouse at sunrise:

My wonderful friend and housemate Georgie Dutton has come on board of the project to help us composite the film. Very, very soon these backgrounds will have CG water in them! The final deadline is this Friday so next time I post the film will be complete. See you on the other side!

More Film Backgrounds

Less than two weeks to go! Eep! These are two backgrounds from the establishing scene of the film. I've almost finished painting them all, and the next stage is to composite everything together. The sea in this first shot will be CG, but for now I've put in a blue area to indicate the horizon. 

Film Backgrounds

Well, terrifyingly, it's now less than 3 weeks until our film deadline. Everything is starting to come together now; animation is being coloured, compositing is going on and I thought today I'd share with you a couple of the painted backgrounds I've finished. The CG base of each and every background in the film was created by the ever-wonderful Rhys Jones and I then take those greyscale bases into Photoshop to paint.

Logo Designs

Lately we've been gearing up our end of year show - organising, advertising and what-not - and I had a go at some graphic logo designing. These were for a name for the show that in the end was discarded; 'Frame by Frame Cymru'.