All Creatures Poster

Here's a poster I've designed for a Buffy Transformers Crossover I wrote some time ago

Amazon Star Trek Review

I wrote this review for the Star Trek (2009) movie on Amazon.co.uk and just wanted to share it here...

The big problem Trekkies have with this film is it re-writes history to the point that the original series never happened. This point of view is plainly silly and I prefer to think of it as cementing the original timeline. From now on the original series, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and all the previous films are untouchable. You can still buy the DVD's, enjoy the shows whenever. Only now the creators have an empty canvas, unhindered by decades of back story we know backwards. You might notice I left Enterprise out of that list above. That's because I think it belongs in this new time line, after all they went out of their way to reference it.

Alright, now that's out of the way lets look at the film. It's not what you expected. If it was I congratulate you. First of all the cast. They fitted the roles perfectly, sometimes too perfectly. At times it felt like they were trying to pull off impressions of the original actors. While they did bring a few new aspects I would have liked to have seen a bit more.

The ship. Ahh the ship, originally every Star Trek ship was designed by artists. Inside and out. As such they were a reflection of the times. From the 60's block colours to the 80's creams of next gen and the dark moody look of the 90's DS9. It was more interested in style and substance came in a strong second. As long as it looked good we were fooled into thinking it worked. This film comes at it from a completely different direction and because of that the Enterprise feels like three different ships. The exquisitely crafted outside, the advanced habitable saucer section and the brutal pipe riddled construction site engineering section. Each look like they belong to a different ship,, it doesn't gel together right. There is no transition from steam punk boiler house to over lit corridors. Made all the worse by shaky cam direction. There's almost no consistency here, jarringly confusing and distracting. The only other ships we see are polar opposites, Spock's Jellyfish is a triumph of style, but looks out of place in the Star Trek universe. It's design is too alien and has no connection to Vulcan designs we know of. The Romulan mining vessel looks far too fragile for it's purpose. All those spikes and edges are just bits to brake off.

As mentioned elsewhere the plot had more than a few holes. Why was there a twenty year gap between the mining ship and Old Spock's arriving? At any point did Starfleet command question how a washed-out cadet with a history of disobedience gets thrust into command of the fleet's flagship on the voice of one man? Surely there must be more Vulcans out there, somewhere, not just the handful of thousands that got off the planet quick enough. They don't detract form the film but if you think about it there are a lot more that just don't make sense.

The direction, as I touched on, was more than a little distracting. Shaky camera technique and Fly-on-the-wall style filming works well in a modern drama to add realism, or a horror to bring a point of view to the audience. But not with something like this. Star Trek is too fantastical to be realistic and J.J. Abrams is just a little to heavy handed with it at times. Having the opposite effect of what was intended and actually taking us out of the movie by wanting to see more of what is going on. There is also an over reliance on lens flares to build atmosphere. Yes it made the film stand out and gave a nice dichotomy between the Dark Romulans and bright Federation, but we could all do without the symbolism.

With all these negatives you'd have every reason to hate the film. What stops you is the shear passion on the screen. Everyone involved knew they were working on something a great many people feel very passionate about. It had the right mix of humour, character development and drama to be entertaining. To feel like a worthy successor to the legacy. It didn't drag or feel rushed, despite you wanting some parts to be expanded on.

As a film it's solid, as a story it's interesting. As a fan I enjoyed the head nods to continuity and could accept the new actors because they pulled it off. Of all the films out this summer this was one of the best, far better than the disaster that was Transformers 2. It's only real sci-fi rival this year is District 9 and that doesn't have half the fun.

No Simon Pegg for a start (who's Scotty stole every scene he was in, even from Nemoy!)

The Imaginartium of Doctor Parnassus

When I was very much younger I had a VHS video tape. It was of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 on the same tape. I'm telling you this because on that tape there was a trailer for a film called The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. To my shame I haven't been able to find a copy of this film but I love the trailer, it's so lovably insane. When you realise it was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, the Python responsible for Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and directing the Python film Quest for the Holy Grail you know it's insane

This guy is the most insane director in Hollywood and most of the time is films are so crazy that people don't know what to make of him. Honestly, he makes Tim Burton look stable.

This is leading up to my thoughts of a new film from the Pythons lead animator:- The Imaginartium of Doctor Parnassus. Here's the trailer

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5702544/14942419

Yes this is the last film Heath Ledger worked on before his death, he had only filmed about half of it but they found a way around this. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrel stepped in and took over the role in different parts. In other words the shear acting power of this move could eclipse the sun!

Now I don't often go to the cinema. It's a lot of effort and money for something I'm going see on DVD a few months later anyway. I'll still, on occasion, go out of my way to see a few films. Transformers 2 was one and so was Star Trek. This is only the third film I KNOW I have to see. Hell, everyone has to see this film.

Sword Arm

Still working on my animation

I've been practicing with arms and weapons in my own little nuanced style. While I would like a more colourful pallet to work from it's actually hindering the realism and style. So I've mashed together my two prototype versions to see what looks better If you have an opinion please leave a comment.

Revolution of the Mask, Issues One and Two

Don't worry if you haven't heard of this comic. It's produced by a small independent company called Brainscan studios (www.brainscanstudios.com) in the US and only available over here online. I came across it because the writer is also a comic book reviewer on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, a fantastically funny site that is also the reason I've not been updating my fan fiction as much as I would like.

The writer, Lewis Lovhaug, is a fantastic reviewer and you can pretty much guarantee he knows more about comics than you do. He's an expert on them, simple as that, and this isn't his first excursion into the world of writing. So, as you may guess, I was looking forward to reading the first two issues.

Well now that I've read both and I can sum them up in two words:- Decidedly average. Not bad, not brilliant. Just average.

I don't know what I was expecting, as much I wanted to be amazed at how awesome it could have been I was always a little uneasy with the preview pages. They were all bland and minimalist, in both art and scripting but I acknowledged that with each issue being 23 pages long some corners would have to be cut. Otherwise that sort of length is just too much work.

The first thing I'm going to do is point out the art. When your going for a minimalist look you need a clean style that makes an impact and this has one.

Personally I'd like a little more to the backgrounds, there is a bit in there already but it's so little you can't help but reckon it's trying to make a point. Drawing attention to itself more than subtle statement background art really should.

I would also like something a bit more abstract or artistic. There's not quite enough to make it feel real. So make a statement with the art instead , making it leap out of the pile. There are more than a few hints that the artist knows what he's doing with shading and light, if they would just use it a bit more.

Both of these are personal points and aren't necessary important to the enjoyment of the comics, but I'd still like a little more substance behind the pencil work.

The difficulty, I'm sorry to say, is the writing. Well first the story is obviously inspired by both V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. There are other examples. but those two should give you the right impression. If you're not familiar with them think Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four meets comic book characters. We've seen it all before, right down to the average man on the street joining up with the heroes and learning all about them.

Now an exceptional writer can take this sort of fairly bland premise and make it interesting. In all fairness there is quite bit left to the story so there is more than enough time to that. My problem here is in that 23 pages per issue I mentioned earlier.

That means we're 46 pages in and there is nothing I couldn't figure out or deduce from the 8 preview pages. Yes the characters are a little more than the usual two dimensional fare and little bits 'n' pieces have the taint of interesting ideas, but nothing grabs you like it should. A few nice moments come from a handful of in jokes and references scattered across the work, but they are few and far between and are almost there in spite of the story.

The biggest problem though comes in the second issue and it is one I've come across in my own work. Size of cast. A small, tightly knit, cast of characters gives you more time to explore and flesh each one of them out. That means more empathy from the reader. Here we have a massive cast that just appears out of nowhere. Each one's look inspired by other, main stream, heroes. Where did they come from? Who are they? Do any of them have special powers? These are questions that are just going to get in the way of developing the people we should care about. In a self contained story the less characters the better. Supporting roles follow the same rule, less is often more.

Another thing is it's a little too preachy. A good story needs a moral, a lesson to teach. It gives the story direction, a heart and can hold it all together, but that's not what a story's all about. It's also about people. People we care about, people we are made to care about. Here we have a message, but we're sort of missing the caring about people side of things.

So, the first two issues don't live up to their potential. With luck, and my faith in the writer, it may pick up and there are hints of something bigger on the horizon, but for now leave it be. Don't get me wrong it's not bad, I don't regret buying it... I would just like to enjoy it a little more. Maybe that will come in future issues and I'll be getting them as well, mostly to support the writer and independent comics in general.

If you want to support the writer and his work, have a look at his blog:- http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/

PS His Web-Comic, Lightbringer, is however much better. Give it a read

Pals animated maps

Here are some short animated maps I produced from scratch for an un-broadcast documentary I was involved in. As well as providing the graphics I was the lead editor

Watchmen part two. The ending.

Alright. My problems with the ending of the Watchmen film.

Okay first factual problem, it wouldn't work. With the world on the very edge of nuclear war several cities exploding in mushroom clouds will not stop the war. It would in fact kick start it, at least one knee jerk reaction from an idiot would be to press the button. Bye bye world, see you glow in the dark from several light years away. If, you know, I didn't live on the irradiated lump of rock in question.

The reasoning behind Adrian's plan is severely flawed, let alone the results. With Dr Manhattan around there is no cold war. He could turn Russia's nuclear ordinance into sugar. Or custard. Even spinach for crying out loud, there is no threat here. The story is pointless.

The same faults are in the comic but can be ignored easily due to the skill of the writing. It's that skill that's lost here.

Right now on to my number one problem with the ending and take a deep breath and try to follow me here.

I mentioned in my first half that Hollis Mason was dropped from the film after one scene. I also mentioned reflections, how something in one part shed light on to something later. Both visually and literally. This is where Mason's plot comes in and is needed. In the beginning of the Watchmen comic we got chapters of his book, written after his retirement from costumed crime fighting. It's easy to ignore that to save time, there is even a whole Chapter in Watchmen devoted to these memoirs. The Director exorcised all that to save time, unfortunately this all reflects on the ending.

More specifically Rorschach's journal. We have to ask what would happen if people did read it and did believe it. With Mason's book the result was everyone knew he was the first Night Owl. This is directly responsible for his death at the hands of uninformed hooligans, who think he's the same one that has freed Rorschach.

The message is that if the book is published the uninformed and ignorant would attack. Undoing all the hard work of Adrian's masterplan. Rorschach wins, at what cost? well its steep is the only answer.

Have we won or lost by sacrificing our morals? That is the key question and it's your opinion, there is no right or wrong answer to that. Instead, with the film, we get Night Owl shouting how wrong it is to deceive humanity to save it. Saying it's a debasement. What is the point of having an ambiguous ending when you try to shoehorn a moral into the thing with a crowbar and a sledgehammer? This is the third problem. If you're just going to slavishly follow the comic with blind obedience you don't just make a left turn when the book takes a right. It's jarring, pointless and misses the point.

I know I'm sounding like a fan-boy of the comic and I am but I can't separate the two. With V for Vendetta I can accept it as a different point of view from the book. A such it becomes a different story and both can be enjoyed. You can say that the book inspired the film rather than a straight lift. The same with I Robot. It's not Asimov's work but is inspired by it. While both films weren't good as the source material they were better than you thought of them as different thing.

Not every film version of a popular book can be Lord of the Rings. If you can't follow the original with a religious fury, be it length, convoluted plot or in the case of Watchmen just being plain unfilmable put in one sentence at the beginning. "Inspired by... "

Fanboys would find the smallest problem and rant about it for days on end (as seen here) Add "inspired by " and you solve everything. You'll still get the fans but you can always smile at their rants and say the original is brilliant we want people to read it, just look at ours as well.

This is the biggest problem with converting one art form into another. You are going to change things so accept that. Don't just follow that thing like a slave and wonder why you don't do well in the box office when the only people watching know the books backward and secretly wanted something new

Sketches Part two

These are two more sketches. These done from photo referances from two of my freinds

The first is of Claire Watts

and the second is Stuart Parry

Lions Title Animations

Pull

And Jump

Two short little animations for the lions website, both done exclusively in Motion, before I got my own dedicated graphics software

Dragon Hat Animation

Knowing I was going to do more animations in the future I decided to build a sort of title card. I called it Dragon Hat because I like Dragon's and hats... Nothing of a surprise there

Magica

Here's something I did several years ago for collage.

I'm currently in the process of up dating and re loading this as a wide screen and in higher quality so keep your eyes peeled