Snooty Business Women

The life drawing sessions were geared towards telling a story quickly. The sketches below were taken from 10 second poses, which is a pretty healthy time, just enough to get the essence and not get too fiddly . . .

Life!

Not sure what I can and can't show from the course due to Aardman Studio policy. So until I figure that one out, bring on the entertainment . . .

My Pen Loves Wrinkles

I was making notes on David Mamets "On Directing Film" and took a sketch break. These old women were sad that day, maybe I should have tried to cheer them up, but their frowns were very appealing to the eye.

Mamet has pretty strong views on films, some of them I struggle with. He's all for telling the story thru the cuts, not a fan of fancy angles and floating camera moves, like his writing he's pretty minimal. It's tough to not want to stick in the camera move or the flashy editing on a job, but I always have a tiny Mamet on my shoulder shouting "Nice shot smart ass, but is it helping the fucking story!!" Of course there's a tiny Welles on the other shoulder . . .

"Just Design it well, a film is a design" - David Mamet

King Crustoid

Frank's background was stop-motion so he really got a buzz at Aardman, but equally it was great to hear his 2D tales of Shrek and Lion King, of life in the big Hollywood studios and his take on what makes a good Story Artist. His love for films is infectious and we started everyday of the course by watching a scene from a classic movie, although didn't get a whole lot done the day we watched the shower scene from Psycho . . .

Every film has progress and regress, good things happen then not so good etc. Frank enjoyed a Birthday whilst on the course, pretty good!

"Class of 08"

Back in April Frank Gladstone came to Aardman and ran a class on Feature Storyboarding. It was 8 weeks of pure bliss and a lot of drawing! We boarded on a cintiq, studied lots of films and even had improv classes, so needless to say where all pretty funny now, look how funny we are . . .

From Left to right, Dave B, Dave P, Jess, Theresa, Big Ols, Frank (aka,teech, aka The American), Ashley, Gabriel, Jimmy, Yours Truly, Helen and the wonderful Katie who made sure nothing bad happened.

What does my wife dream about?

A doodle over a William Morris print I came across just happened to be side by side a sketch of the missis asleep. Perhaps he's the Sultan of her dreams. Perhaps I should be worried . . .

"Indiana Jones and The Search for the Missing Stickers"

Alright I could say that I started this Indy stickerbook as a way of helping with my storyboard staging. I could say I got it to study as Harrison Ford put it Spielbergs "master mechanics of filmmaking", something done perfectly in Temples Raiders posts . . .

http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-character-arcs-in-raiders-makes.html

This is a great seq that just about lives upto the other openers in the series. Indy evades nuclear death . . . in a fridge and that framing of Indy against the mushroom cloud, very Spielberg. Lets just say I started it and now with a mild hint of OCD it must be finished. Anyone out there got any swops?