The Scoop System

So the last few weeks have been super busy on the Common of Houses: Electoral Reform competition I set up. Its been a lot of work but there have been moments of fun mixed in there somewhere.

I was down in London last weekend to meet up with the judges and sort through the entries. The volcano kinda messed things up somewhat, with dozens and dozens of requests for an extention of time and the judges all getting scattered to the four winds and unable to fly home. In the end it all went pretty well though and it was fun to meet and chat with the judges and I think a worthy winner was chosen. The eventual winner has suggested that ice-cream vans replace the polling booths and that we vote by choosing a free ice-cream flavour which represents the party we like best. Over the next few days I'll be uploading all the reast of the entries and the late arriving entries but in the mean time we need your votes to choose which prize the winners should get click here and tell us.

New Cards from Moo

I just received a box of cards I ordered from Moo.com.

The mini cards are printed fuzzy, the business cards are printed squint and the greetings cards, which were to be blank inside, all contain the message

"Zakary Marlowe Maxwell Andrews born March 7th 2010 at 5.17am weighing 8lbs." which is printed upside down?

Blooming useless.

New Prints

Picked up the first print run of my Scottish Posters Prints from the Glasgow Print Studio at the end of last week. Very impressed, the quality of the prints is stunning and the paper is lovely, thick and tactile. The Sherlock Holmes Screen prints are also almost finished and I'll share images of these once I have some.

I'll put all current print orders in the post in a few days so everyone should receive their copies by the beginning of next week. Let me know what you think.

The shop site that I've been promising will be coming soon. I'm just in the middle of designing a website for the GIA at the moment and have three group shows taking place next month which I'm trying to complete work for. There is also the small matter of the new Common of Houses competition which launches next week (fingers crossed). Busy times.

Central Station

Had a lot of fun at last weeks Central Station Launch. Two days of art and creativeness in Glasgow, with a tour bus on the Saturday and a load of talks and tasty biscuits on the Sunday.

Hopefully there will be more events like that coming up soon. Join up to their site for more info.

GFF2010 - Rough Animation Test

Here's a very rough test for the GFF2010 trailer showing the way I'm planning on making the images work. Still a lot of work to do between now and Friday when the Client chooses who will progress. Then there are ten days to complete and tie it all together.

GFF 2010 Trailer

I'm very pleased to say that I was shortlisted as one of the four finalists to possibly create the GFF2010 trailer. Here's a link to the project site and to my Central Station Profile.

Glasgow Film Festival

Central Station just recently ran a ideas call for the Glasgow Film Festival 2010 trailer. Here are a few images from my proposal.

Glasgow has always had a strong connection to the cinema, from their very dawn back in the 1890's through to their hey day in the 1930's when we had more cinemas per person than any other city outside of America. A cinema within five mins walk from your house and people on average going once a week. Even today in the UGC we've still got Britain's busiest cinema - I guess Glaswegians really like popcorn.

My proposal played with this history and relationship. I found it interesting that despite our love for the cinema and despite lots of films being made here, few are actually ever set here. I started to wonder, what would the classics of cinema's past have been like if their setting had actually been Glasgow and not London, New York or Tokyo.

In many ways cities are in part defined by the films and literature that are set within them. These stories sit overlaid onto the streets and buildings shaping our perceptions and imaginations of what can happen there - be it the smog filled streets of Sherlock Holmes' London or the zippy fast talking of Woody Allen's Manhattan.

My idea is therefore an animated sequence of 3D paper cut outs with blend different famous movie shots and scenes into Glasgow settings. These will take you on a fast paced and quick cutting tour of the city and its relationship to film history.

[Movies and settings above - King Kong - Science Centre, Singing in the Rain - Art School, Manhattan - Squinty Bridge, Brief Encounter - Central Station, Godzilla - Glasgow Skyline from The Lighthouse.]

Central Station

I have signed up to Central Station a new creative hub set up as "a space where artists, film-makers and designers can talk about their process, showcase their work, share tools and tip, access resources."

Looks pretty interesting and there is some very nice stuff on there already. If you want to take a gander here's a link to my profile.

I spent a fun hour or two in the park on Saturday in the beautiful sunshine taking some promo photos of some of my work. This is for a planned redesign of the blog/ website in the near future. I think they look quite pretty - though this is mostly due to mother natures nice colours and light than anything to do with me.