The past year threw quite a bit at me, there were a few wobbles, but I’ve mostly built up a lot of confidence in my abilities and to write this up into one post before focusing on current projects.
January kicked off with Coco and The Birthday Party at BFi and Harold Pinter Theatre respectively, followed by Early Man and the spectacular Lumiere London.
In February my work was recognised at the BBC Showcase in Liverpool with other fan art pieces. Major projects like Sprout Oddity and Chilly Mr Penguin kept me busy as did an attempt at creating VR content. I’m at the point where storyboarding and animating sequences aren’t that intimidating, at least on small-scale stuff. At Cardiff Animation Festival in April I met commissioners and fellow animators, saw Oscar-nominated Late Afternoon among a reel of short films.
It was an honour to be in the company of Joanna Quinn, Lee Unkrich, Nick Park, Brad Bird, the cast/crew of Watership Down at BFi, Taika Waititi at BAFTA’s Screenwriting Lecture…
…and everybody involved in Paddington 2. Framestore gave a presentation on making the VFX. Months later a screening of the film in aid of Noah’s Ark Hospice was held at Everyman Cinema in Muswell Hill, followed by a Q&A with Sanjeev Bhaskar, Peter Capaldi, Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin.
The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour was also a blast; insane amount of detail went into the sets and props, creatures and costumes. That Hogwarts miniature – wow.
In Spring I caught a rare Mew with perfect stats down the beach and lots of Charmander in London while the Royal Wedding was taking place. Augmented Reality is cool, but so is befriending an old church cat in Covent Garden and bumping into Michael Sheen in Soho!
London was good to me throughout 2018 – LFCC in July, Watford in November, and then in December where myself and pals were at Alexandra Palace for Letters Live, Everyman for Paddington 2, and King’s Head in Crouch End for It’s What He Would’ve Wanted, a night of poetry, comedy and stories by the late Sean Hughes. It was genuinely moving and funny throughout with cats who knew him well and his doggo Betty.
A weird turn of events lead to my first ever operation; you think you’re invincible but you’re not. No serious injury, it was just something I felt needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. I recovered quickly thanks to the NHS, Twitch and iPlayer, David Copperfield, a brief interview published in the Doctor Who Magazine fandom special, and Mordecai who I spent most of the winter, spring and crazy hot summer sharing lunch with, until Dad moved house.
Winnie the Pooh joined me on a couple of adventures (because I saw Christopher Robin five times), from Letters Live to exploring the Hundred Acre Wood (actually it was Highgate) expecting to run into Tigger, Eeyore, Owl, Dr Robert…? On 8th December, we were exactly where we needed to be.
Guess I was kind of busy! and 2019 will be even more so…
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