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Watch Late Afternoon now! Made at Cartoon Saloon with a lot of amazing folks

I know.. i know I said I wouldn’t post here anymore… but I thought since I had been talking about this a lot on my blog and shown WIP artwork I had to tell you guys when the film finally went online for everyone to see it!! Plus I’m really excited for the film since we made it to the Oscar shortlist for Best Animation Short XD hope you all enjoy it and thanks for the support!

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Bye Tumbles

Good lord Tumblr! What a way to go...

I don’t think I’ll be updating here at all anymore so follow me if you wanna see any more artwork or animation thoughts on TWITTER or INSTAGRAM !

Also you can keep up with Late Afternoon film news on the FACEBOOK page and TWITTER too. Plus look out for a website coming soon!

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The Hiker 

My piece for the Animation Art Show! Its open to the public and the auction of all the works takes place this Sunday 4th Nov with all the proceeds going to charity! If you can't be there they are also accepting absentee bids but you have to get them in by 10pm tonight

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Late Afternoon - STORYBOARDS

With the pitching over we could now focus on the film itself. We were very gratefully to have access to the funding, but nonetheless at €46,000 it was still a lean budget for the scale of the project.

The deadline was fairly tight too. We had until the start of June 2017 to deliver - roughly nine/ten months of production. In order to keep the film on track I knew the duration couldn’t go near (or god forbid over!) 10 minutes.

The immediate priority for me was storyboards. I had a good script, but there was a lot of visuals that needed to be figured out. In fact, a fair amount of the imagery in the script changed once I began boarding. The script was a good starting point, but the boards were where all the heavy lifting happened.

At this point we also did extra research. Talking with people who dealt with issues such as dementia and Alzheimer’s was essential. The film had to be grounded in something real. It helped to solidify some of the ideas that were already there.

The whole boarding process for me was a mixture of exploring/editing/feedback. I explored ideas in the boards. Then I edit them together, intuition and personal taste play a big part here - some ideas would work while others had to go back to the drawing board. Eventually I had a version of the full animatic. I showed this to a few people to get feedback. Then repeat the process.

I paid special attention to the pacing and flow of the film. I wanted it to feel dynamic... to rush by in the same way that Emily, the main character, is swept along by her memories. It had to build into something climatic, even overwhelming by the end.

Another aspect I spent a lot of time on was getting the balance right between sentiment and sincerity. The film had to be emotional without feeling manipulative... it's a hard line to walk. In the past I’ve shied away from making more emotional films because it is hard to get right. It’s a more personal film then my previous ones which makes me feel more vulnerable - you are wearing your heart on your sleeve!

The last shot of the film is a good example. It's very simple - a wave washing the shore, but of course it carries a lot of meaning. I changed the exact shot many many times looking for the right balance... it was one of the last shots to be finalised. I kept searching until I felt like it hit the right note.

There’s a lot more I could talk about in regards to creating the storyboard. This stage was a way of creating a roadmap for the journey ahead.  Late on in the production, when there’s no time to think, I couldn’t tell anymore if it the film was working. All I could do was trust the boards and the decisions I made when I had a clearer head. I know that some people don’t like to rely too much on an animatic, but personally it was essential to get keep the film on track and to communicate ideas with the rest of the crew.

Sorry for the loooong post. Next one will be about the concept art so it will have more pictures and less words!

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Final stills from the Cúl an Tí

Big thank you goes to the great team I had on it! With a very limited amount of time they really brought it to life! It was a lot of fun to make :)

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Its been a while... but here is some more concept art from the short, irish language film I directed - Cúl an Tí. You can see some of the early design work in post from last year here!

With these concepts I was working out the use of negative space, colour and texture. It took a bit of time to get the balance right between the backgrounds and character.

As I said before we animated the short in Flash 8. Since I designed the characters with the software in mind, it was a pretty fast way to animate it but...its kinda crazy since software from 2005 and pre-adobe!! The reason being was that we simple didn’t have enough new licenses. Sometimes you gotta work with what you got!

It was a bit of a draw back at first, but actually the limitations of the software were a good kind of challenge. I used it a lot when I was starting out in animation so we were able to avoid many of the glitches :)

The film, along with others from the project, will be screening at Kilkenny Animated this weekend!

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Late Afternoon - PITCHING

In order to get funding we had to put together submission to send to the Irish Film Board’s Frameworks scheme.

For the initial application I decided to write a script and make extra concept art to get the idea across. I could have made a storyboard instead of a script, but I felt that writing was a better use of my (limited) time! There was other information we had to provide too including directors notes, budgets and CVs. It takes more time to get the whole application right then you might expect.

A month or so later we were told we had progressed to the next stage, we were shortlisted! For the interview they requested us to clarify some of the elements in the script. We had about two weeks to make additional artwork and refine ideas. The artwork here was made in order to demonstrate how the visual ideas of the script might translate to screen.

Then it was interview time! It’s not as scary as it sounds, but I was still pretty nervous! I really wanted to make the film so I felt there was a lot on the line... The main advise I can say is just to be as prepared as possible and to show  your passion for the project. Luckily I had Nuria Blanco, my producer, and Áine Mc Guinness, a key concept artist, there to back me up.

Then we had to wait. A few weeks later it was announced that we were one of the three films selected for the Frameworks funding - thank you Irish Film Board and RTE! We were delighted - It felt like we had already accomplished a lot, but really it was just the beginning...

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This is the first in a series of posts I’m doing about making my short film Late Afternoon. I’ll try to put one up every couple of weeks. Hopefully it will be useful, or at least interesting to some!

BEGINNING.

The idea for the film slowly evolved in my head, for about two+ years. The kernel of it for me was how identity is dependent on memory. It took a while, but a narrative began to form around that central idea. Eventually when I knew it was a film that I wanted to make, I decided to take the next step.

These drawings are from that time, before I even had written my script. I used these to pitch my idea to the folks at Cartoon Saloon and they in turn offered to support my application for funding. At that time, Nuria Blanco, also came on board as my producer which was a huge boost - we were a team! That gave me courage for the next step: Writing my script and pitching it to the Irish Film Board.

For frequent updates and screening info you can follow Late Afternoon on twitter and on facebook!

You can watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/224449499

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Some roughs exploring designs and poses for Mika. It was important for me at this point to try stuff out without worrying about the outcome. I wanted the sketches to feel energetic without getting bogged down finessing details.

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This is Mika - the mascot I designed for Animex 2018

She’s a chaotic, creative muse - full of ideas and enthusiasm! She’s got your back when starting out on a project :)

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Here is the trailer my new short film Late Afternoon!

I realise this might come as something of a surprise to my followers here, but I didn’t want to reveal too much until it was ready. I have been working on the film at Cartoon Saloon since last year and it will premiere’s this Saturday at Galway Film Fleadh!

Speaking personally its the longest and most challenging film I’ve made but I am also very proud of it! I got to work with some amazingly talented and dedicated people on the film which really made the whole thing possible. I couldn’t have done it without them. I can’t wait now until it’s out there in the wider world for people to see! If you want to see more artwork from it or find out about festival screenings, please follow on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

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So proud to have worked on this film! I can’t wait until everyone gets to see it.  So beautiful and touching <3

1st trailer of “The Breadwinner” animated feature film directed by Nora Twomey at Cartoon Saloon studio (Song of the Sea, Secret of Kells).

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Watercolour for Incognito - a fund raiser for the Jack and Jill foundation.

All the pieces went up with the names hidden, but now they are all sold I can show which one is mine :D

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Penguin #2

This second one has a shiny black finish with a red hat and a orange beak. Working with glazes was interesting since I was never sure what it would look like when it came out of the kiln!

Thanks again to @ancientspirals for bringing them to life :D

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Zelda/Tetra

I haven’t gotten BOTW yet so I’m still living the Wind Waker style <3

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Penguin #1

These might look a bit familiar... When I was trying to decide what to make in ceramics class I thought back to some penguins I drew in my sketchbook long ago.

This was the first one I made and it’s wearing a little backpack. I used a matt black on the little guy with a nice shiny orange glaze for his bag and beak.

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Early concepts for the characters in Cúl an Tí.

I wanted to design fairy folk that weren’t the typical wings-and-wands type. These are inspired by Irish folklore, especially the stories about them getting up to mischief!

I was also testing out how the design would look depending on the animation software we used. The last image was a test to see how closely I could match the look in different programs. The original characters were designed in Photoshop, but we ended up animating it in Flash 8 (yes really!)