The Willoughbys and Netflix!

It's finally announced! Check out the line up for the animated movies Netflix has coming up!

Showreel!

So I finally published my current reel. Not sure why it took me so long, I think it's because I was working on newer stuff and feel like it isn't as up to date as it could be, but what the hell eh?




Animation Showreel - India Barnardo from India Barnardo on Vimeo.

WIA

I recently joined WIA - Women in Animation, and I've been attending the Vancouver chapter events. I have been thoroughly impressed with what they have to offer women in animation/film industry and I just have to spread the news!!

Their current goal is to reach 50/50 by 2025. I think this drive is really important and it's not just related to gender either. If the industry can build working environments that are inclusive and diverse, this will encourage people to apply that would ordinarily feel to intimidated to. At any level you are at, you can help with inclusion. Encourage people to show their work, encourage people to apply for jobs, encourage people full stop.

At the Siggraph WIA Summit I attended on Saturday their shared this paper. The stats are horrifying, and showing all the talk of late hasn't actually been improving the numbers, so now is time for action!

Check out the WIA website and join today regardless of your gender http://womeninanimation.org/

------------------------

In other news my lack of posts reflect that I've been beavering away at Cat and Moth and we have now formed our lighting team! I can't wait to share the teaser with you, so watch this space!

The Willoughby's

This post has been a long time coming, Cat and Moth and my next new project has taking over all of life! Cat and Moth now has a completion date for September, eeeek! So it's full steam ahead! If you want to keep up to date, check out our newsletter over on the site, or foolow us on the many social media outlets @catandmoth

Okay onto the next thing! The next project I've just started work on is Ricky Gervais' The Willoughby's! It looks super fricking cool too.

It's also got some incredible voice talent, including Will Forte, Maya Rudolph and Terry Crews! It's based on a book by Lois Lowry. It's pretty dark, and which makes for a good combo with Ricky Gervais!

I can't wait to show you more in the future, but for now you'll have to suck up the beautiful concept art above :D

Damn

Yay finally managed to render my second Animsquad shot from the class I did last spring. I had an amazing experience in the Expert class with Malcon Pierce and I highly recommend his class, if I can afford to, I'll do it again some day!

Damn from India Barnardo on Vimeo.

Yikes!

Oohh my, I have neglected this little corner of the internet for some time!

I miss writing, and I need to do this more. I hope you are all living life to the mostest and that you haven't missed my waffling too much!

I've been keeping my instagram drawing/painting feed fairly updated, it's probably the quickest easiest outlet at the moment. I've also been selling some animation and art books, to make way for an upcoming move. I hate to part with my books but I can only carry so many.

These last few months have been a whirlwind of excitement and Cat and Moth has been taking over my life, literally! It's sooo much fun working on a short film full-time, if you ever get the opportunity I would grab it by the horns.

Working on Cat and Moth has been a huge learning curve in terms of directing, managing, creating, writing, everything! And it really has got me thinking about ways to write and create stories via film post-C&M. Next, I'd love to be able to produce stories from start to finish in the quickest, dirtiest way possible, which isn't always possible with animation. I was particular inspired to hear about Edgar Wright's story about creating lots of sketches for Beadles Hot Shots, where technically it was meant to be the audience sending in their skits, but there were never enough, so Edgar as an apprentice had to produce a ton of content, unbeknownst to Beadle. I like that phrase, it should be a title for something "Unbeknownst to Beadle", in Italics.

You can check out the whole interview by Adam Buxton here.

I think this quantity of exploration will be an exciting new endeavour. I can't wait to pick up a camera and have a play.

Is there anything you are desperate to try? What's stopping you?

Enough waffling from me today! Hopefully I can make this a more regular occurrence.

Over and Out!

Otto!

I worked on the Otto Christmas Advert just as I was finishing up at Studio AKA, I love that studio, such wonderful people and collaborative project. 

It's been tough finding a copy to share, as most of them are Germany restricted videos. Unfortunately the only version available is with all this writing plastered all over it. But nevertheless it is such a lovely piece and I was so happy to be apart of it for a short time.

I got to help with the previz for the show and then I got to animate on there shots:

(Mum and Dad only) 

Then I had time to block these shots out:

 

Thanks for looking! :D

New shot new shot!

Yay! I can finally post my newest shot! Hurrah! I've been working away trying to get out some new content, and this is the first in a line of pieces :)

Let me know what you think in the comments!

English version

Books, books and more books

Man, books make it hard travelling light.

But I'm so happy to be back with my mini-library. Going to try and squeeze as much out of them as I can whilst I'm back.

On that note... here are a few books I've seen recently that look like must haves for any collection:

The art of Zootopia - (I wanna go see this sooo bad! Hurry up UK release date!)

The Making of Fantastic Mr.Fox - The look inside feature on amazon is really extensive, looks like a fab book!

Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar's Greatest Films - Not the shortest title in the world, but I'm intrigued by the content. It's not directly related to Pixar, I can't work out the exact connection. But I think it's based on Pixar films rather then the opinions of Pixar themselves. But for about £6 on kindle, it might be worth a bash!

Friday was a good day

Creative Music Time

How do you deal with your environment when working on something creative? I'm one of those people that finds it super hard to listen to music when working creatively. I'm not entirely sure why, but it completely distracts me unless the tone of the music is perfect for the type of thing I am creating. I.e I could paint something very naturalisitc with a bunch of pop music going off in the background, but if i want to get big broad strokes, I'd probably pick something rather upbeat and fast, to get me moving looser and quicker.

What do you find works best for you? Have you tried different genres depending on what you are working on?

Most of the time I prefer headphones on with no music, or headphones around my neck with some music playing quietly (but obviously that's not fit for work), but I recently just found this great Disney playlist on youtube, however corny, I somehow find I switch off too whilst animating, it works pretty well for some parts of the process, but I still think that is genre related.

Also switching tracks can be enough to take you out THE "zone", so look up playlists or long mixes on youtube, soundcloud etc, they are great, because you can pretty much forget about them playing, and hideaway your browser so you can concentrate.

I've just realised this post is more about getting and staying in the zone, then my original idea of just what music do you listen to, if any.

But maybe for you, it's a massive source of inspiration, I would love to hear your thoughts :)

The Team!

So the final wave of the Ballerina animation team started yesterday, and we took a photo to celebrate! We had just finished quite an intense hour and a half lecture about the characters, so we all look a bit exhausted!

Blame Canada!

Blame Canada on the length of time it has taken me to post an update on here.

The past month or so has been craaaaazy. It all started on Christmas-eve-eve when we found out we were heading to Montreal.

My boyfriend and I both got jobs as Animators at L'Atelier Animation on a full CG feature film called Ballerina! I was sad to leave Framestore behind, but I learnt so much from that experience, and I wanted to try something new.

Not only has it been my dream to work on a CG feature, and get in deep with character based work, but the animation director is none other than Ted Ty, and we just could not pass up the opportunity to learn from him. I was even going to be Taking Ted's class at iAnimate at this time, if we hadn't got the job.

If you don't know about the project, or the Animation Director, I've linked to them at the bottom of this post.

We've been living here for two weeks now, and I absolutely love it here. It's in the ridiculous minus temperatures, and there's snow everywhere.

To keep inspired, I'm going to be getting more involved in my drawing, painting and sculpting in my spare time, as I have more of that out here.

Anyway, just a quick update, and hopefully I will get the time to update you guys with lots more arty/animationy inspiration, and project news :)

Depending on where you are in the world, good morning, good evening and good night!

Links, as promised:
Ted Ty

Ballerina (2016)

iiiiiiit's Chriiiiiiiistmas!

The latest Christmas Ad I worked on, I'm pretty sure the Red guys voice changes half way through! I did the shots, of the Red guy doing the jumping jack, and the little angel on the pack shot at the end.

Sweeeeet

Woo, finally a piece of work I got to take part in has been released! Feels like ages since something I've worked on has come out publicly! We've been working on a lot of internal projects recently, awaiting to see if I can upload them.

So without further ado, here is the Mcvites Christmas advert we did, and I got to animate the Narwhal!

Freeview

Just had to post this on quickly, if you know anyone that worked on it, please let me know!

Press release

Press release on my time at Teesside and beyond

http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/news/pressreleases_story.cfm?story_id=4769&this_issue_title=October%202014&this_issue=257

Visit our Open Days and discover how @TeessideUniSCM grad @Indi_pops gravitated to success http://t.co/tCqbdG0sFh pic.twitter.com/HNtFoqxTNU

— Teesside Uni news (@TeesUninews) October 3, 2014

Post by Teesside University.

Glen

It's Friday!

And this means Disney music all day!

I had the honour of meeting Glen Keane this week at a presentation at work. It was quite something, I've never been quite so star struck. Such an inspirational man, with so many words of wisdom it's untrue. He was presenting his latest work (which I'm sure you've seen) but if you haven't it's embedded below.

Last year, at CTN, Martyn and I were lucky enough to meet his daughter Claire, who has such a beautiful and traditional style. And you can see from hearing Glen talk, what kind of household they grew up together in. Such a creative and inspirational environment.

It just drums it home even more, how important it is to keep inspired. Listening to people talk about their experiences, watching new films, visiting art galleries, creating things, anything! It really feeds the soul.

So, here are some of Glen's goodness for your viewing pleasure

CLASH Aaaaahhhhh

So in the pub last night, I witnessed this cool ad, and found a whole lot more as part of the chain, all advertising for the Clash of the Clans game.

It's quite hard to find out who the actual animators were, but there are credits here. If anyone know's who worked on these, it would be great to credit there names on this post :). Clash of the Clans had become increasingly popular, and it's quite apparent by their extraordinary ad campaign for sure. Awesome work.

*EDIT* - I have been informed by @Tekkzi that Psyop are in fact responsible for these animations :) Awesome work!