Doctor Who at the BFI – the last days of normality
- At March 15, 2020
- By Niel
- In Animation, Events/News
0
I love going to London. It’s where most of my friends live, it’s where a lot of my work comes from, and it was my home between 1994 and 1998. I have a lot of memories embedded in the grime of that city, so if there’s an opportunity to go there I usually grab it.
But so far I’d avoided the BFI screenings of my Doctor Who work. I don’t like seeing my work once it’s done, especially on a big screen. I only ever see what’s wrong with it. But I’d heard such good things about the BFI events. They were always sold out, celebratory events with lots of special guests, so I finally accepted the offer to attend for the screening of the Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Season 14 Doctor Who adventure starring Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.
That was about a month ago. Then the world turned upside down. The Covid-19 virus started to crawl from country to country, tearing up the usual conventions of society. So I had mixed feelings about attending the event at the BFI. I expected it to be cancelled, but it went ahead, so I jumped on the train and set off for London.
I met up with my good friend Chris Chatterton and we had a few beers – all very normal. London bustled and glittered, but there was a sense of unease, as if this was the end of something special.
The next day, after a very nice breakfast, I went along to the event and spoke about my work on the story. I wasn’t sure if the screening would be deserted, but it was about three quarters full.


I think the interview and the screening of the story went down well, and it was lovely to bump into some old friends who I hadn’t seen for a while like Cameron McEwan, but the feeling of unease never went away and I was glad to be on the train and heading home again afterwards.

Who knows what the next few days and weeks will bring, but I don’t think I’ll be going to London again for a long time.
Farmageddon
- At October 28, 2018
- By Niel
- In Animation, Video
0
I’ve been thinking a lot about an old project lately, one that almost took off in a big way. Farmageddon began life way back in 1991 as The Funny Farm, a daily newspaper strip in my hometown newspaper. It was created by my school friend Gordon Fraser and me as a way for us to flex our creative muscles. Gordon drew the strip, I inked it and we both wrote it (sometimes together, sometimes separably). We had a lot of fun with it and let our imaginations run wild. Even though the strip was set on a farm, we quickly populated it with talking dinosaurs, time-travelling inventors and visiting aliens. It lasted for two years before a new editor of the local paper decided to axe it.
But the Funny Farm didn’t end there. We developed it as an animated TV show and we went to the Annecy Animation Festival where it was optioned by Nelvana, a Canadian animation production company. It felt like we’d hit the jackpot! We talked about moving to Canada to be story editors and exec producers on the show, but it never went into production. The excitement faded and we went on with our lives. But years later the chance came to revisit it and do some more work on it. I was running my own animation studio and thought it’d be great to develop the Funny Farm, now re-titled as Farmageddon. We created 3D models of the characters, locations and props, and started to do some animation tests. You can take a look at our development blog from that time here.
We managed to secure some development money and we took the project to Cannes.
We had plenty of interest but, for lots of reasons, we never quite managed to get it off the ground, and it remains an itch that I didn’t quite manage to scratch. I miss working on it, and I miss playing with the ideas with Gordon, his devious sense of humour was a deep well of creativity. So, Farmageddon is almost thirty years old now and its still there in the back of my mind, just waiting for its day in the sun.
Farmageddon from Qurios on Vimeo.
Animating Gargantua
- At December 23, 2016
- By Niel
- In Animation
0
Remember when I animated Tony Blair piloting a microscopic submarine through the veins of the Duchess of Cambridge?
It was for The Windsors, a Channel 4 comedy that was broadcast earlier this year. Well, The Windsors is back for a Christmas Special, and this time I’ve animated this chap, Gargantua, the EU’s automatic defence system:Gargantua is a rather toothy computer interface that has a ding dong with Prince Charles. With the entire UK under threat of a nuclear strike what could possibly go wrong? Tune in tonight at 10pm on Channel 4 in the UK to find out. And in the meantime here’s a trailer for the episode:
Rogue One, Gareth Edwards and Me
- At December 15, 2016
- By Niel
- In Animation, Events/News
0
Yesterday I was lucky enough to see the new Star Wars movie in Leicester Square a day before it went on general release. I loved the film, it captured the essence of Star Wars but propelled it into the arena of 21st century cinema in a more convincing way than The Force Awakens managed (and I loved The Force Awakens). Afterwards the cast and crew talked for half an hour about the making of the movie. This was even more fun than the film! Here they are, director Gareth Edwards with actors Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Ben Mendelsohn, Riz Ahmed and Alan Tudyk:
Alan was particularly entertaining, talking about the process of performing as a sarcastic droid.
And Gareth discussed the origin of the character of Chirrut and why he’s blind – it’s to do with Kyber dust.
Deigo revealed how he struggled to keep his role a secret, and how his son bragged about a set visit to entertain teenage girls.
As I was leaving I bumped into Kevin Cecil, co-creator of Hyperdrive. I worked on Hyperdrive producing the animation and vfx for the show, including being involved in the development and design of the main space ship, the HMS Camden Lock. I hadn’t seen Kevin for a few years so we grabbed a quick drink to catch up. As we were waiting to be served Kevin turned to me and said, “Do you know the big connection between you and Gareth Edwards?”
Gareth’s background is in CGI and visual effects, so I was immediately intrigued. I was already impressed by his determination as a film-maker, and how he made the jump from VFX into writing and directing. But I hadn’t got a clue how we might be connected. Had we met and I’d forgotten all about it perhaps?
“No, you’ve not met,” Kevin said. “But you have a really big connection.”
Our drinks arrived just as I ran out of guesses. “OK, Kevin, tell me.”
“Gareth built the first version of the HMS Camden Lock.”
Before Hyperdrive was commissioned there was a short non-broadcast pilot made featuring Mark Gatiss, Robert Webb and a few other actors not in the series. I never saw this until about a year ago, so as we began development on the show I had no idea what Gareth had built. The pilot has surfaced on YouTube so it’s interesting to compare this to the full series. Why Gareth didn’t work on the full series remains a bit of a mystery but I presume he was off starting his directing career or working on other animation projects.
It’s odd to think that, just over a decade ago, our paths almost crossed and now he’s directing the biggest movie of the year. I could sit here and mumble and moan about my career path but I won’t… not for too long anyway!
One downside of the event was that by time it was over the last train home had left. Not wanting to stay in London overnight I did something I hadn’t had to do in more than twenty years: I got the bus. It took over six hours and was like Mos Eisley on wheels. It’s a night I won’t forget in a hurry.
Animating Tony Blair
- At May 06, 2016
- By Niel
- In Animation, Video
0
Sometimes a job comes along that is, quite frankly, ridiculous. That was my first thought when Director friend Adam Miller called me a few weeks ago.
“We need some animation of Tony Blair,” Adam explained.
“Right,” I replied cautiously.
“In a tiny submarine.”
“OK…”
“Really tiny, as in microscopic.” Adam said. “He’s inside an artery destroying the Ebola virus.”
I laughed nervously.
“And we need it in three days time.” Adam didn’t laugh.
“I see.”
“Can you do it?”
I’ve worked with Adam before, first on the Omid Djalili Show and then on two series of the puppet comedy show Mongrels. On both occasions it’s been creatively challenging, intense but a lot of fun. So I said yes. I mean who doesn’t want to animate a microscopic Tony Blair defeating the Ebola virus?
As it happened I didn’t even have three days to do it. I was leaving for a family weekend away on Friday morning so I had two and a quarter days to deliver something that wouldn’t need changes or fixes over the weekend when I’d be unavailable. Luckily Adam and the production team at Noho Film & TV were very clear on what they wanted, so as long as I could deliver that we should be able to avoid lots of protracted amends.
The sequence was broken down into three shots of the submarine, starting very close on Tony before he turns his craft into the bloodstream. We decided we’d use stock footage for Tony, so the first task was to find something appropriate. It had to be a recent clip, something without too much distraction and, ideally, something that looked like he might be sat controlling a submarine. We rejected lots of clips where he was talking and I eventually found one where he was listening to a reporters question before responding. Tony smiled, turned his head and listened. Perfect! And the background behind Tony was a flat colour, something I could use as a key to cut him out.
While I waited for approval of the chosen clip I began to work on the submarine. It needed to be a one man submersible, with a big enough window bubble so that Tony would be recognisable inside it. I wanted to use some parts from an earlier model I’d build for Hyperdrive but, as is typical, the archive drive decided not to work. I didn’t have time to recover it (I’ve done that since) so I decided to just go ahead a build a basic sub. The body is made from a stretched sphere, with a window hatch cut into it. The detail was cobbled together from bits of a tie fighter and an ancient low poly ROV model I’ve had for over ten years. Archiving old stuff can come in very handy. All of those bits needed adjusting and adding onto the model to create the overall design. But as there wasn’t time for a traditional concept design stage I was hoping it would be acceptable to the clients. Luckily it was. Once I had a basic shape I sent them a very basic animation test to get their approval. Once I knew I was heading in the right direction I added further detail to the model. I kept the textures very simple as there wasn’t time to do much else.
The animation had to meet some very specific requirements. The clip of Tony is quite expensive to use so it was important to get him out of shot as quickly as possible. I tried animating him ducking down into the ship but he just looked wrong. Eventually I changed the motion of the sub so that he is hidden after a couple of seconds. The sequence also had to work with the timing of the live-action footage – the final render would end up on a medical monitor. Once all this was approved by the client I began the render process. The render is broken up into several different passes which are composited together to create the final image. Tony was rendered speratly so I could control his visibility in the shot. As well as an ambient occlusion pass I created a dirt pass for the sub, helping to break up the basic textures and add some realism.
The various sub renders were combined with the background – a very rushed 3D model of an artery – and some animated blood vessels. (These were actually created years ago for a medical project by Chris Chatterton, one of my animation team at Qurios. Again, it’s good to archive stuff, you never know when you might need it.) Finally I created a simple graphic overlay to show how well Tony was doing in his fight against Ebola.
After a couple of very late nights and early mornings I finally got everything completed at about 1am on Friday morning. I uploaded the shots and went to bed. At 8am I got in touch with Adam and he gave me his approval on the finished shots. They still had to be seen and signed off by three different producers but I was confident enough at this stage to set off on my family weekend away.
Thankfully they didn’t ask for any changes! It was a really fun experience, albeit a lot of hours in a very short period of time. The clients never wanted this to be super realistic or feature film quality. It was always meant to be just a quick gag shot but I think it came out OK.
CGI strain
- At September 09, 2015
- By Niel
- In Animation, Opinion
0
Have you ever been in a cinema, watching the destruction of a city, and found yourself being bored?
It’s an odd sensation. There’s so much to see in front of us, carnage on a scale we’ll hopefully never witness in real life, entire buildings lifted from the ground, ripped apart by superheroes, aliens, military helicopters, whatever! But we yawn, we check our watch and – most importantly – we disengage from the story. We start to plan what we’ll have to eat when we get home.
We’re bored of CGI! We’ve seen so much of it over the last twenty years that we’re no longer impressed by it. Those amazing visuals aren’t enough to keep our attention, we need something far more fundamental: reality. We get that through a compelling story, which is why I can happily watch TV from the 70s and 80s and still be captivated while my daughters laugh at the crude visual effects. Or maybe it’s nostalgia?
Either way there’s been a resurgence in practical film-making in recent months. JJ Abram’s Star Wars promises practical sets and real props and costumes, something sorely missing in the prequels. And it’s not alone. In Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Tom Cruise is hanging off the side of a plane, shouting “Look! This is real! This is real!” Movie makers are keen to show us that their films exist, that they have really made the things they’re showing us, that people toiled and risked life and limb for your entertainment.
CGI vs HGI
But take a moment to think about those CGI artists. Often, they’re the ones who are blamed when for a movie’s bad. It’s not their fault! Yes, there are artists behind those effect shots we yawn through. They are usually the last part of the pipeline, and while they should be included from the very beginning they’re often not. Sometimes they’re just an afterthought: “Oh, those CGI people will sort this out. OK, the script might not be perfect but the big fight sequence when the city gets destroyed will look amazing! We’ll use that in the trailer.”
Perhaps part of the problem is in the name: Computer Generated Imagery, or CGI for short. It’s a term that dates back to the beginning of the technique and it’s understandable why it’s been adopted. But it’s misleading. Graphics and animation are no more computer generated than this blog post, or one of my novels is. Just because I write on a laptop using text-specific software we wouldn’t dream of calling books Computer Generated Novels. CGI is created by humans, not computers. Those humans are skilled technicians and artists, but their skills are no longer seen as a craft, they’re seen as a way to speed up the film-making process and, most importantly, to cut costs. And as artists we’re guilty of underselling our skills, of devaluing them and doing jobs for little or no money just so we can work on a major movie or a cool project.
So maybe we shouldn’t call it CGI any more. Maybe we should put those creative, enthusiastic, starstruck people back into the equation and call it Human Generated Imagery. HGI. Why not? Maybe then film makers (and film goers) might remember that those impossible pictures are made by stressed, overworked people in a sunless basement who toil away, hoping they do good work. After all they don’t want to make bad CGI but sometimes they just don’t have a choice. Money, time and a “Who needs to plan? We’ll fix it in Post” attitude conspire against them, forcing them to compromise their craft.
Another thing to remember is we only notice bad CGI. The good shots are invisible. I’ve done my share of VFX work and I was always delighted when I managed to do something that no one would ever see. The good stuff gets missed. It looks real! Which is, after all, the point of CGI.
RocketJump Film School say it so well in this video:
CGI isn’t a sticking plaster to fix a bad movie at the very end of production, it’s a tool that should be used alongside practical effects, models, make-up, and a good script, to make the best possible picture.
I’ll end with a clip of what is still, in my opinion, one of the best uses of CGI alongside models, practical effects and sound. This famous sequence from Jurassic Park works so well because it was planned meticulously by a director at the top of his game. He didn’t use CGI as a gimmick, it was first and foremost a tool to aid the story, nothing more. Which is exactly what it should be. So it’s ironic that the very same director is behind Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull…
Some further reading: Why the VFX of Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers hold up
Animation Showreel
- At October 26, 2014
- By Niel
- In Animation, Video
0
I’ve finally updated my animation showreel with some recent work! It includes a variety of TV projects such as Our School for CBBC and The Number of the Doctor, produced for the 50th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who.
Filmmaking at Macmillan Academy
- At July 06, 2014
- By Niel
- In Animation, Events/News, Talks/Events
0
Had a great week working with the pupils from Macmillan Academy in Middlesbrough with Mark Jobe from Quay Animation. Together we helped the pupils write, design and animate a short film about climate change and the effects of flooding. Former Macmillan pupil and BBC Breakfast business reporter Steph McGovern dropped in to see what we were up to.
Timesmith Trailer
- At April 03, 2014
- By Niel
- In Animation, Video
0
I’ve just finished putting together a little trailer for Timesmith – hope you like it!
My 2013 – the best of times, the worst of times.
- At December 31, 2013
- By Niel
- In Animation, Blog, Events/News, General, Opinion, Writing
2
2013 was my first year as a proper published author, and what a strange, exciting, terrifying, anxious, fun year it’s been! I think Charles Dickens was onto something with his opening line from A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness.
January
Sorrowline is published! The year is off to a great start! Being published is a great feeling but also strangely anti-climatic. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for so long that when it finally arrives it seems like just another day. The focus now seems to be on the NEXT book.
February
I have a proper grown-up launch party, thanks to Andersen Press and New Writing North, in Waterstones Newcastle. The doubts floating over me last month evaporate in the excitement of the night. But I’m beginning to realise that the work is never really done. Publication is just the start.
March
I do the first of many school visits! I ease myself in gently by doing local schools but it’s not long before I’m travelling further afield. I begin to enjoy doing them, although I’m learning with every event!
April
More reviews appear online and thankfully I’m not mauled. In fact Sorrowline is very well received. I’m still glowing from this reader’s review on The Guardian website! ‘This book is a terrific, scary time-travel thriller’
May
Editing continues on my second book, Timesmith. I’ve chopped it down to a good fighting weight. It goes back to my publishers for the last round of notes and feedback.
I am taken to the planet Zeist to have parts of my brain reprogrammed. My left foot is accidentally replaced with an umbrella stand. We all laugh about it afterwards.
Timesmith is finished and signed off! It’s heading off to the printers soon and it’s time I started thinking about my next book! I told you it never ends! And this is where the worries for book two being. Will people like it? Will they buy it? I’ll know by March next year.
Finally my work on the animation for the Doctor Who DVD of The Ice Warriors is released. It’s a bitter-sweet time as it also marks the end of my working in animation full time and a new adventure in writing. I’ve been running my own animation studio for 11 years and it’s time to move on. There’s a mix of emotions – everything from relief to anger to anticipation for the next chapter in my life. Change is often painful but necessary. But I can’t really call myself a full-time writer just yet as I’m continuing to do mentoring and consultancy work in animation but I’m getting closer to that dream.
I attend my very first book fair, in Gothenburg, Sweden. I was sent by New Writing North as a sort of ambassador for North-East Writers. Luckily I avoid any major international incidents.
The German & Thai versions of Sorrowline are published. I’m officially an international author translated into two languages. Who would have guessed? Strange that I still don’t feel like I can call myself an author.
I get my hands on a copy of my second novel, Timesmith! It’s not due out until March 2014 but it’s satisfying to be able to place it next to Sorrowline on my bookshelf. Of course there is still one more book to be written before this trilogy is complete…
December
Timesmith wins Mr Ripley’s Book Cover Wars! I receive my first proper fan letter! I’m starting to let myself look forward to next year. I’m letting go of the stress that’s dogged me over the last few months and I feel like I’m ending the year in a better place than I started. That’s something worth celebrating.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last year, you’ve really made a huge difference! I hope you’ll stay with me during 2014! Have a brilliant New Year! x