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Showing posts from December, 2018

Interview with Gavin Strange (aka “Jam Factory”) – Senior Designer at Aardman, Director of Aardman’s “Masters of Merry” Fortnum & Mason Christmas Ad, and Author of Motivational Self-Help Book, “DO Fly”

Portrait photo of Gavin Strange. Photo courtesy of Gavin Strange. “There are a million and one reasons to not do something, to not start something,” Gavin Strange—a Bristol-based, ten-year veteran at Aardman Animations, where he works as a director, most recently having directed the Christmas ad campaign Masters of Merry for London-based, luxury department store Fortnum & Mason , as well as a senior designer in the studio’s digital department, whilst also pursuing his passion projects on the side under the alias Jam Factory—tells Stop Motion Geek. “Life, work, family, health, time, space, location, mood, emotion—all of these things can throw you off your game.” “So, I think you have to do anything you can, use anything you can, to get and to stay motivated,” Strange continues. “Pick the lowest hanging fruit, set yourself a goal that’s easy, really easy. Because it’s all a step in the right direction. It can be so overwhelming when you’re trying to plot and plan whe...

Interview with Chris Randall, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Second Home Studios

Chris Randall in the Mills & Reeve Innovation 50 list. Source: https://twitter.com/SecondHomeChris/status/904681346060230656 “I came to animation mainly from a point-of-view of blind curiosity,” Chris Randall—the creative director and co-founder of Second Home Studios, a Birmingham, United Kingdom-based, award-winning animation studio—tells Stop Motion Geek. “I’d always loved the medium but never took it seriously, or saw myself with a part to play in it. It wasn’t until after Uni that I realised I basically like tinkering and trying out new things, whilst at the same time telling stories. So, animation is a perfect fit for me.” First founded in 2004, Second Home Studios has garnered multiple BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards and nominations for many of the films in their diverse repertoire of artistic and commissioned projects, encompassing all styles of animation—from stop motion to CGI to 2D—as well as puppetry and mixed-media. In their fourteen-and-counting years...