VFX Breakdown for Pigeon Song Animation

Here is a VFX breakdown for a live action / animated shot that I produced for a recent music video.  I did the compositing and the landscape sketches, Nuria Valdeon did the cell animation and Fraser Murdoch did the 3D modeling.

Project Scotland 'Enjoy the Present' Campaign

Here is another banner that I made for the good folks at ProjectScotland. The Christmas themed design was achieved using the Vue environment design software and plenty of Photoshop.  Here is a walk through of the Photoshop work;

Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward & Fisher 'Pigeon Song' Music Video

Here is the music video that I directed with John Fairfield for the band Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward & Fisher.  The video was shot by Ian Forbes on the AF-101 in Dundee and St Andrews.  It was cut in Premiere CS6 and most of the VFX and grading were done in After Effects.  A break down of the animation sequence is to follow next week.

ProjectScotland - 'Night Dweller' Campaign

Here is a Halloween themed Facebook banner I made for ProjectScotland.

Nuke Compositing Demo

Here is a walkthrough of a shot I made in the Foundry's Nuke Compositing Software.  Watch it in 1080p if you want to see what's going on in the node tree.

VFX Breakdowns

A selection of VFX breakdowns from my short films Falling Out (2011) and Meta (2010)

The Lion and the Unicorn - Clip 1

Here is a clip from 'The Lion and the Unicorn' which I directed for artist Rachel Maclean. The director of photography was Ian Forbes, the focus puller was Alan McIlrath and the gaffer was Robbie Gray.

CV

I'm looking for work in film and television.  Click here to view my CV in pdf form.

Showreel

This showreel features work that I directed, edited, graded and composited as well as post production that I have done for other directors. All my directorial work was shot by Ian Forbes and produced by John Fairfield for Flyboy Films.  The music used was Lewis den Hertog's score for my short Falling Out and the track "Ain't That Peculiar" (Oddisee Remix).

A Stately Suicide TRAILER

"Private nurse, Hannah, resorts to replacing the volatile Lord Spencer’s prescription with street drugs after she pops all of his medication."

Phoenix Comicon

Some good news from Phoenix Comicon.  Meta (2010) won a prize for 'Grossest Use of a Prop'!  See if you can spot it in the trailer.

The View - "How Long" OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

 I did the colour grade and VFX for this music video directed by Scott Davidson. It was shot by Ian Forbes  and edited and art directed by Rose Hendry.

Phoenix Comicon & Edinburgh Short Film Festival

I've had some great news for my short films recently.  Both Meta and Falling Out have been selected for the Phoenix Comicon Film Festival and A Stately Suicide has been selected for the Edinburgh Short Film Festival.  All three films were directed by myself, shot by Ian Forbes and produced by Flyboy Films.

Meta and Falling Out screened last week at the Phoenix Comicon Film Festival.

A Stately Suicide will be screening on the 17th of June at the Edinburgh Short Film Festival.

DELTA HEAVY - 'Get By' (official video)

DELTA HEAVY - 'Get By' (official video) from Ian Robertson on Vimeo.

I recently did the visual effects and finishing for hyper talented director/animator Ian Robertson's new music video.

Ian shot high resolution jpeg stills on DSLR using Dragonframe stop motion animation software and created the edit in Final Cut with proxy video before conforming to the original image sequences.  I then imported a Final Cut XML of the project into Premiere Pro CS5.5 and nested each shot for colour grading.  For the pan and scan and visual effects I used the dynamic link to send shots to After Effects.  Most of the animation was done in twos (doubling frames in a 24fps sequence to give the appearance of 12fps) so hold key frames were used at two frame intervals so as not to introduce smoother motion than was native to the animation.  Needless to say, motion blur was SWITCHED OFF!

Digital Cinema Package Tutorial

In this tutorial I detail how to create a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) from a quicktime video file.  The source video in this example was HD 1920x1080, 25 frames per second in the ProRes codec.  In order to be sure that the DCP will work on any server I convert it to standard cinema 2K pixels and slow it down to 24 fps.  This demonstration is done on MAC but all operations can be done on PC as well.

DISCLAIMER: SINCE RELEASING THIS POST I HAVE BEEN CONTACTED BY PROFESSIONAL DCP ENCODING LABS POINTING OUT FLAWS IN THE WAY OpenDCP CREATES DCPs.  PLEASE READ DAVID MARGOLIS'S POST IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW AND CONSIDER USING A PROFESSIONAL LAB.

Misty Saturday

We've been enjoying two days of amazing sunshine but on Saturday I arrived in Edinburgh to the densest fog I've seen in a while.  Grabbed this picture just after jumping off the Megabus.  Bladerunner vibes!

Paw Prints MUSIC VIDEO - Production Stills

Here are some production stills from the Tango in the Attic Paw Prints music video shoot courtesy of talented photographer Fraser Stephen.  God that place was muddy!

Tango in the Attic - Paw Prints MUSIC VIDEO

I co-directed this Tango in the Attic music video with Scott Davidson.  We managed to turn it around in a month from green light to delivery, big thanks to the band, cast and crew for making it possible.

'Falling Out' Nominated for Best SciFi at Screentest

My 2011 short Falling Out has been nominated in the Best SciFi / Fantasy category at Screentest National Student Film Festival 2012.  You can check out my interview here.

Davey Horne - Deep Down MUSIC VIDEO

Please check out this great music video for Davey Horne's new track Deep Down.  It was directed by Rose Hendry and shot by Ian Forbes.  I was assistant director and did the colour grade.

Under Exposure

In this series I have experimented with under exposure to capture the dramatic high contrast light I found on Arthur's Seat this Sunday.  These stills were taken in RAW at up to two stops under the metered exposure.  After reducing contrast and pulling in the black levels and exposure to retain all the dynamic range, I opened the images in Photoshop at 16 bits per channel.  I then gamma'd down the image with a curves layer, then painted back important details by placing a masked exposure layer underneath.

'META' Trailer

Here is the trailer for my 2010 short film Meta

Stills from Portobello

I've been back in Edinburgh since last month and staying by the sea has given me a few great opportunities to capture some stills.  Here are four of my favourites.  All have been processed in RAW to recover all available dynamic range and then in photoshop at 16 bit.