Here’s a collection of stills from our latest ‘HOW TO?’ film series. Commissioned by our new friends over at young persons film charity First Light. It was a really great experience writing, producing and directing the series and also a lot of fun doing something a little bit slap stick yet staying informative.
They seem to be going down and are currently airing on the BAFTA kids website, released at a rate of 2 per week in the run up to their awards ceremony.
This gallery contains 17 photos.
Its been a long time since I’ve written anything on the blog, it feels neglected… so this month I thought id treat it and upload a few stills from the latest music promo we’ve just made. Im so proud of everyone involved, it looks sensational. Now I finally have a bit of energy back its …
Its exactly a month to the day that I moved down to the big smoke, Ive finally settled in and am excited to announce that Nice Monster is moving into a studio space with promo company mrs.Grey today. Based down in Soho, slap bang in the heart of the UK film industry.
EXCITING TIMES!!! Our current crop of projects are shaping up very nicelly indeed. Heres a quick update:
First up is the 10 films we are creating for film charity First Light. The 3D characters are all complete and we are just waiting for script sign off. Ive been editing the animatics this week and have been working with a young illustrator called Joshua Whitehouse, he is very talented and has been a great help on my last few projects. He seems to be improving with each one so I thought I’d showcase some of his storyboarding work this month.
This is an action sequence that Josh put together for our video teaching youngsters how to get the best out of there camera work. As you can see these videos are going to be a lot of fun.
This short sequence is from the Howto record good sound video, we see the camera man trying his hardest to get silence from his crew so he can hit his record button.
The Goodnight Lenin music promo is also progressing nicelly. I managed to put the CGI eyes, mouth and eyebrows onto the puppets head. All of which will be tracked on and composited in post production.
This is the male characters work in progress. He is coming together nicelly, although he needs a hair cut. I would like to clarify that he WILL NOT have a mullet in the finished video, he will have more of an innocent Levis look to him. 
All of these projects will be completed before christmas this year, but first to get a release is a project I was involved with at Ragdoll. The Adventures of Abney & Teal. This will get its first BBC airing on the 26th September http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015js7l and I cant wait to see how it panned out. I was mainly involved with the character creation, working along side illustrator and creator Joel Stewart and lead artist Steve Dorrance. I think its going to be a massive hit, fingers crossed!
Until next time…
Steven
Goodnight Lenin update. Ive just recieved the near completed puppet from Tony Sinnet. Its looking great! The set build is also progressing nicely thanks to Emily and Carina who have been working their socks off to come up with 3d designs and technical solutions from our original vision. Its coming together nicelly. Hurrah!
July has been a very strange month indeed. At the end of June I convinced myself that making music videos was not really worth it anymore, the budgets are low, the competition is fierce and the tracks that usually have a decent bit of money attached are not to my taste. Thats why im a bit baffled with myself because in July Ive been involved in 4 different music video projects, all very exciting in their own different way.
First up I helped out with the CGI special effects on the Ruby Goes promo directed by good friend Brendan Mcnamme. All shot in a green screen studio with CGI origami style shapes added to create a surreal, abstract world for her to perform within.
Then I directed and produced a ultra low budget video for MC Bonito, we shot this in a day with a skeleton crew of myself, Chris Keenan (DOP) and Sarah Roberts helping out as a runner. This will be signed off tomorrow and up on the blog next time I get chance to update.
The third project is a beautifully shot retro scifi video for a band called Mummers ( there ace ). Nice Monster got a call from MrsGrey producer Ollie to help save the day. So straight away we got cracking on numerous visual effects shots for the promo which has been shot by directing legend Steven Barron. His catalogue of work is incredible, a real inspiration. You may recognise these:-
HAHA
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcyusp_aha-take-on-me-video_music
MJ – Billie Jean
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x496t_michael-jackson-billie-jean-clip_music
Obviously the new video is going to be lot better than these 
Heres a bit of a work in progress shot me and monster Nixon have been working on.
Last, but certainly not least is the new promo for some of Northfield & Birmingham’s finest, Goodnight Lenin. Im co-directing this with Chris Keenan, its a mixture of live action trickery, puppetery and CGI animated faces were creating a lovelly love story, of a boy travelling half way around the world fights through tretcherous conditions to meet his sweetheart. I mocked up these two characters a few weeks back for puppet maker Tony Sinnet.
He is well underway with the carving, and im getting so excited about the progression of these!!! I’ve never done anything like this before, its going to be a technically tricky job, but I think its going to look amazing.
Exciting times at Nice Monster. Until next time folks. Steven.
This is the example render NiceMonster mocked up for our latest commision for
Film Charity First Light.
http://firstlightonline.co.uk/
Next week we will
get cracking on a set of training videos that run youngsters through the process
of film making. These are going to be great – even if I do say so myself.
http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/7102672#!/artist/song_details/1393027
Were shooting a microbudget video tomorrow for MC BONITO, the track is really cool and can be heard by clicking the above link.
If you mash up all the above elements, add some clever animation and a pacey edit youll get an idea of what I have planned. Looking forward to it.
Here’s yesterday’s update of the Roald Dahl 3d model. He is now looking a lot more appealing for the proposed target audience, a bit more Pixar esque. It’s been a good few years since I’ve made anything in this style and it’s really enjoyable, looking forward to continuing today.
Just getting started on today’s update on the Roald Dahl character, I’ve just sketched over the 3d model using the ipad app procreate. I think it’s the best drawing app I’ve used so far.
http://www.epidemicfun.com/2010/the-miniatur-wunderland-hamburg-the-worlds-biggest-model-train-set/
Ive put together a few pitches together this week, heres a few images that I mocked or got my mind ticking.
