Industry related stuff, interesting links and updates on my own projects that don’t belong in the portfolio.
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Oral History of Peaky Blinders
Tom Nicholson has written a great history of the show Peaky Blinders for Esquire magazine.
Access VFX podcast
I chatted with Simon Devereux at Access VFX for their latest podcast
Peaky Blinders shot breakdown
The University of Bolton have done a detailed breakdown of my favourite Peaky Blinders shot.
Chessboxing Database and video banner
I’ve recently worked on a couple of side projects to help promote the sport of chessboxing.
“Host” – Interview with VFX Supervisor Steven Bray
I chat to VFX Supervisor Steven Bray about his work on the movie “Host”
The Last Kingdom Battle Week
Behind the scenes of the battle for season 4 of The Last Kingdom
Post Perspective interview
“If we have done our job well, the viewers should never notice the work and instead just be enjoying the storytelling.”
The Last Kingdom battle plans
Preparing to shoot by creating battle plans for each setup
Climbing Kilimanjaro
After delivering Season 4 of The Last Kingdom in January, I took two weeks off and climbed Kilimanjaro
Behind the scenes of The Last Kingdom and Jamestown
DVD extras for Jamestown and The Last Kingdom
Jamestown showreel
With the recent broadcast of the third series of Jamestown, I finally got round to getting a VFX breakdown edited.
Camino Santiago
In August I took 2 weeks off to walk 300km through Portugal and Spain.
Most Common Letter
The most common letter in the English language is “E”
Going Analogue – Interview with Ben Soundhog
Last week Gallops dropped the music video for their new track “DarkJewel”. I reached out to the video’s creator, Ben Soundhog, to find out more about how he’d put it together.
Heroes Run 2016
Team BlueBolt entered the 10km Heroes Run in Brighton on May 15th
Scripts of Another Dimension
No-one is impressed by the size of your script
Foundry Session interview
I was recently invited to talk at The Foundry about breaking into the VFX industry.
BAFTA nomination for The Last Kingdom
Congratulations to BlueBolt for their award nomination
#deepdream video
Experiments running video through Google’s Inceptionism DeepDream engine
‘Blade Runner: The Final Cut’ model shop photos
I came across this album of amazing photos from the model shop and had to post them here
Nerdeo – online collaboration platform
Nerdeo will allow connecting freelancers and top students with directors and producers, anywhere in the world, providing them with an online facility for more efficient remote collaboration.
SuperBob premiere at LOCO
After a long, hard journey the premiere of SuperBob took place at the BFI Southbank last night. It was show as part of the LOCO London Comedy Film Festival, in which in won the Discovery Award.
A.D – trailer and first production stills relelased
Details of the upcoming series A.D are now online, including a trailer and these great production stills by our on-set photographer Joe Alblas.
On set VFX supervising in Morocco
I’m very pleased to be currently working out of Ouarzazate in the Moroccan Atlas mountains. Lola Post Production have me out here for 7 weeks providing VFX supervision for the TV series A.D.
The Empire Strikes Back Uncut finally released
The Directors cut of The Empire Strikes Back Uncut is finally out and I’m happy to see that my clip made the selection.
My Darling
“A love affair between an anonymous lurker and a dancing internet sex demon”
Oracle Chessboxing Ball graphics
At this recent fundraising event I was commissioned to not only create a motion graphics pack for the evening, but also fight.
My debut Chessboxing bout
Not exactly work related, but… Last Saturday night I participated in my debut Chessboxing bout at the Scala nightclub, London.
Bot & Dolly: Box
Motion control rigs + projection mapping + 3D tracked graphics = mind blown!
“Under The Skin”, “The Zero Theorem” and year in summary
This week saw the premieres of two movies I’ve worked on in the last year, so I thought I’d post an update about these and some other recent projects.
Principle photography complete on “Superbob”
This British romantic comedy follows the story of a mild-mannered postman who gains superhuman capabilities after a radioactive meteor crashes into Peckham Rye.
Turkish Star Wars punishment review by A Damn Movie Podcast
The guys over at A Damn Movie Podcast have a section called “Punishment Review”. I got them to sit through Dünyayi kurtaran adam (aka Turkish Star Wars) and this is the result.
Aruna Post Production
I’ve recently teamed up with Editor and Colourist Peta Ridley to become Aruna Post Production.
Processing vs Star Wars Uncut
30 days to learn Processing from scratch and create 6 shots for Star Wars Uncut
Hand painted Indian typography
On my recent trip to India I ended up taking more photos of hand painted type than anything else. Street signs, vehicle livery, adverts, shop signage – it was everywhere.
Teaching compositing in India
I’ve just completed 2 months work in Bangalore, training a group of compositors.
I last visited India 16 years ago and had been keen to get back… when the chance to work there came up I jumped at the opportunity.
Prometheus – MPC VFX breakdowns
I spent the final week on Prometheus doing breakdowns for loads of shots. MPC just released their official reel of breakdowns here.
“Dubstep Dispute” – Interview with creator Jason Giles
An exclusive chat with Jason Giles about his funky animated short, featuring robots and dubstep!
PROTO – Interview with Director / VFX artist Nick Pittom
I’ve been following with interest the progress of a short film called “PROTO”. I caught up with Director / VFX artist Nick Pittom for an exclusive interview about the work that had gone into the project.
My book of crap graffiti gets published
I think many people dream of being a writer. For some it’s the novel they’ve had formulating in their head, for others a screenplay that they want to see made. Well I can now tick the “published author” box on […]
“Dark Tide” behind the scenes at the Pinewood Underwater Stage
Whilst working on Dark Tide last summer I had the opportunity to work on set at the famous U-stage at Pinewood (a vast 20m x 10m x 6m underwater tank that has been the stand-in for the ocean on many […]
Penny Art Auction
My good friend Lucianna Whittaker is auctioning off a load of her paintings with a starting price of just 1p! There will be an exhibition in Brighon first, then they will go on sale in less than a month. Find […]
Retro Brochure collection
I used to own a great collection of 1970’s brochures for cars, electrical goods and furniture. I scanned them all and put them on my old site – I’ve just realised that people still visit the site looking for this […]
Prometheus
I’ve just completed 3 months work on Prometheus. That’s literally as much as I’m allowed to say about it though. Things are pretty tightly under wraps – I’ve never seen a movie have trailers for it’s trailers. Yes you read […]
Cinemetrics
I find this pleasing on so many levels. Coding, motion graphics and analysis of movies.
Hugo Wins VFX Oscar
It was pretty amazing to hear that Pixomondo won an Academy Award on the weekend for their work on “Hugo”. Even though I was just one part of a huge team, it was a thrill to see the guys who […]
Shit VFX Artists Say
This is just painfully true – Im sure this is me on a day to day basis.
Dead Hungry – Behind the scenes
Back in 2009 when I worked on Dead Hungry, a crew from Al Jazeera were on hand to document the film making process. This behind the scenes piece was shown on The Fabulous Picture Show.
The Counter-Culture Mixtape
I recently visited the end of year show for the Fashion Photography students at the London College of Fashion. Amongst the displays was one by my awesome girlfriend Peta Ridley, titled “The Counter Culture Mixtape”.
Future Noir
My buddy Mark Thomas just launched his new website “Future Noir”, a blog about art, science and technology. It also features some of his awesome photography.
Website reboot
The website has finally had a much needed redesign. I realised that the static, individual case-study style portfolio I had before was too restrictive. I work on a diverse range of projects, a lot of which are feature films that […]