"The South Bank Show...

Profiles Nick Park"
This was shown on ITV at 10:45 on Sunday 26th November 2006.
I watched this programme with fellow animation student Heather Malone and we both found it very interesting to see. All the way through we sat pointing out how we were both like Nick Park in different ways.
I found it inspirational to be shown what can come from the beginnings of just one person with the right kind of attitude.
All through the interview Nick Park was either fiddling with chunks of plasticine in his hands or he was playing with a model of Gromit. He seemed to live and breathe his creations.
No doubt I could have written a lot more here had I taken notes but I was just too interetsed in watching the show to write anything down.

Pocoyo and M.A.T.E.S

I am currently in the process of working on a personal animation that is not tied to any brief. I am attempting to make an animated episode of M.A.T.E.S, my personal comic that I draw for fun. I have realised that I will need to redesign the characters slightly as they are quite simplistic at the moment. The main problem is with the eyes. I draw them as little sticks with no whites which means it's not possible to tell which direction someone is looking unless I move the position of the eye on the head. This is where Pocoyo comes in.
I remember watching a few episodes on ITV before and remembered that the main character, Pocoyo, doesn't have any eye whites either. They get around the problem by adding little flicks above the eyes to give an impression of direction.

Looking to his left.

Looking straight ahead.

I believe I will use this method on the eyes of my characters so that I don't have to change their looks too much.

Pocoyo's official blog

This blog has very interesting and insiteful information on the designing and production processes that go into creating a children's television series. They have quite a few examples of how they originally intended the characters to look compared to how they actually look now and the reasons why things had to change.



Pocoyo info:

Created by

David Cantolla/Luis Gallego/Guillermo García
Co-Directors

David Cantolla/Guillermo García
Executive Producers

Katheryn Hart - Zinkia Entertainment -

Anne Brogan - Granada Kids -

Jon Doyle - Cosgorove Hall Films -

Count Duckula

When viewing the episode ' No sax please, we're Egyptian' I noticed an error in the illusion of depth. Count Duckula was stood behind a stone tomb yet when he began to dance one of his legs appeared in front of the tomb. From looking at the scene I guess that this happened because it looks as though the tomb, dispite being in the foreground, was painted as part of the background. In order for it to look correct part of Count Duckula's foot should have been missing from the drawing to give the illusion of it being behind the tomb.

I guess this just goes to show how careful I will need to be when planning an animation.

DVD info:

Count Duckula
'No sax please, we're Egyptian' episode
Produced in 1987 by Cosgrove Hall Productions

Henry's Cat

I've just finished watching a "Henry's Cat" VHS and as we are currently working on producing our own walk cycles I picked up on how Henry's Cat walked. Whilst doing the project some of us have noticed that if a cycle is not fully completed, only has hallf the frames, then the legs rotate around each other instead of walking side by side. This appears to be how all "Henry's Cat" walking works on this video. I believe they did this as it meant that they would only need half as many frames to make "Henry's Cat" characters walk and so it was cheaper. They hide it by giving the legs less definition; they seem to blend into each other as they pass.

Here is a little picture to illustrate:

Video info:

Henry's Cat

Produced in 1983 by Mike Hayes

Written by Stan Hayward

Animation by Bob Godfrey, Paul Stone and Kevin Baldwin

Narrated by Bob Godfrey