Rocket Shark Studios...animation

Once again, some new games studio needed an animation for their company logo, I decided to animate it for them. Keep an eye out for more dollopes of awesomeness spewing from the great Rocket Shark Studios in the future. For now, just enjoy this short teaser cartoon:

Directed:
Reese Mills

Art Work:
Alec Wood

Animation:
Mike Lawrence

Nar see...Nar...ec (Narec Demonstrational Video)

For three awesome months I was lucky enough to be employed as a paid intern, at Animmersion studios in Middlesbrough Bo-ho. Now that it is over, I will begin to act like a whore and start taking credit for all the work I had a part in the marking of.

Below is a video created for the Narec testing facility, located in the north of the United Kingdom on Blyth dock, Northumberland. The company is responsible for hooking up equipment the likes of wings for aeroplanes, and then bashing the crap out of them to see if they will break...thus saving lives! (also in turn I also helped save lives because I helped them show off their stuff)

In this short demonstration video I created everything!!...except for the parts that were not:

-Character Animations
-Character Testing
-Low Poly Background Buildings
-Wave Machine Building (not the animation)
-Low Poly Dock Equipment
-Submarine Robot
-Truck Carrying The Aeroplane Wing
-Factory Across The River Buildings
-Alterations to Roads
-Car Parks, Road Signs & Fences

...so basically for the most part the stuff that wasn't all that important.

Watch in amazement below.



Myself and fellow intern Chris Thompson spent the better part of a month staring at reference photos taken by our superiors, high quality blue-prints of the dock, and the screen grabs of Google map simlar to the one below this text.

The red areas consist roughly of the parts of land we created, and or helped improve with the use of 3D Studio Max. Yes, as animators and Junior 3D modelers we are Gods! So if you have seen Superman 2...or to make a reference that isn't almost three decades old, The Avengers....

We always intended for the Ewoks to Blink!

Back in 2009 myself and buddy Reese Mills were asked to create an animation, based on the logo for games company Drop Dead Interactive, regular Xblig contributor and GameCity attendee.

Old - 2009 

(as seen at the beginning of trailer for Zombie Concentration: featured on Game Trailers.com)

It was a nice little short cartoon, with a concept story boarded and mostly spear headed by Reese, who created the background art, edited the sound, and added many touch ups to my efforts as I shipped them over to him...by walking the small distance between our room in our University shared student housing.

I created the character by showing Reese a bunch of different ideas based on his art. He pointed at the one he liked, I re-created it in Adobe Flash, he tweaked it, I animated it, and thus there was a piece of film to be admired for the ages!!...until 2012 when Managing Director/Lead Developer of DDI George Lucas Jay Adeloye said something to the effect of: "Do it again but better"

New- 2012

(as seen at the beginning of trailer for Dot Dash)

I believe Reese was asked first, but was too busy at the time with University work...as well as probably hookers and coke (not confirmed), so the work was this time passed to me to do by my lone some.

 The new much better animation was re created visually from scratch, but still heavily based on what was originally made by Reese and I two years back. Below is the concept art I sent to George...I mean Joshua...I mean Jay, who happily approved its re-vamp.

 
So check out. All joking aside, I am very proud of this animation and am very happy to continue to be affiliated with such a fine game company and the awesome games they create.

Don't think I've sold out though. Mike D Lawrence belongs to nobody and will always remain completely unbiased to whatever he works on. As to how well DDI perform as a company and their game sales, I clearly care not.

On an unrelated note. When the game is finished and ready to be purchased on IndieCity, everyone who reads this must buy multiple copies of Dot Dash for your friends and family! If your home is without Dot Dash...might as well just start calling yourself a racist, paedophile, pervert, homophobic, xenophobic, necrophiliac and be honest with yourself.

"...But I do believe in this!"

A few weeks ago at work we were told something to the effect of:

"Hey guys, you know that really cool top of the range, industry standard 3D software you have been using for the last month? Well we now need you to use this thing called Blender for a while instead!".

So in order to have as much "fun" while learning the "wonderful" Blender "interface", I decided to attempt to model Mooby the friendly cow, as featured in the brilliant Kevin Smith's View Askew movies, most noticeably Dogma.

It was my original intent to do the whole body, but thank fuck ...I mean, unfortunately my time using Blender was short lived.

The golden render was added using the much superior 3D Studio Max. Overall it came out pretty good, I mean it looks like a cow alright, but perhaps on par with the likeness of the original Mooby drawings, as the below picture of Matt Damon appose his above live action counterpart.

...Matt Damon!

First Rule of Fight club...

 For the past month I've been working as a 3D junior modeler at Animmersion studios in Boho Middlesbrough; part of my agreed three month gradate internship, set up generously by the University of Teesside. As my first real job within the animation industry itself, I've been learning many useful skills and have created many cool things through the use of Autodesk 3D Studio Max. Most of these would be great to post up here as examples of work and whatnot, But dam it all that darn non disclosure agreement wont let me. 1ST Rule of Work: you don't talk about work.

 

I do however have these lovely j-pegs of a model of the London's tower bridge, which me and my co work / fellow intern Chris Thompson were told to build as part of our training in the first week. 2ND Rule Of Work: you DO NOT talk about work!

I created the bottom half, and Chris the top. Personally appointed Obi 1 type, Jedi master, Studio Max instructor Andy Mcadam (Lead 3D Developer) said we were allowed to use these as part of our mutual portfolio example work, without fear of snipers killing our family's. 3RD Rule Of Work: obey rules one and two.

South Bank University Animated Series

In early May 2009 youtube filmmaker God Jayson Scott Adams asked me if I would be interested in being the animator for a student project, completed as part of his part time film course at South Bank University London. He sent me the audio, which heavily featured *gasp* real freaking voice actors!! (which is awesome to me since at that point all my projects were voiced by me and my friends). I agreed, and a little later we began work on a South Park art rip off inspired project that would take us both to the limits of our mutual sanity. South Park...South Bank...GET IT!!!

Trailer



So a few days after I finished my first year of university me and Jayson started work on all the visual aspects of South Bank. Because I was located in Middlesbrough and he was in London, he sent over to me via royal mail postal delivery, a CD-Rom filed with a tone of "jpgs" files, with all the characters, backgrounds and storyboards etc. Most of the characters were I believed made in Photoshop, modified from one of the various South Park character avatar maker located online. Being the whore I am, I quickly submitted one of myself.

I spent the better part of a week converting the files into transparent "gif", in order to cut around the green background Jayson was used to working with. Because at the time I was a one trick pony and refused to use anything but Adobe Flash, I created my segments using the vector graphic software while Jace would animate pieces in Adobe Premier to help lighten the work load. The two of us slaved for two weeks straight with little breaks, talking by means of audio conferencing over Skype. In the end between the two of us staying away from the outside world for a long amount of time, we ended up with a total of 17 minutes of animation, which Jaybo separated into 6 daily episodes which were posted on youtube to moderate success.

So without further introduction, a cartoon that needs no introduction, I present to you the entire 6 episode run of South Bank University Animated Series. I hope you the viewer enjoyed watching this as much as myself and Jayson enjoyed...actally hopfully you will like this a little more since making this was a bit of a pain in places. ENJOY!! 

Episode 1:

"Become What You Want To Be" 

The staffs of South Bank Uni undertake a new strategy in order to sink the likes of scum such as Cambridge Uni, along with their posh upper-class shenanigans. But what evil limes over this unsuspecting London university campus?



Episode 2:

"Info-mercial" 

Jaybo, John Perkin, John Kennedy, Femi Oskeyie, and Shayne Little volunteer to create an info-mercial, building awareness for the university. With promises of high grades and easy work, will the boys be able to finish creating a 2 minute, simple, little effort addvert in just over 6 months?



Episode 3: 

"Come In And Have a Try"

With the new open door policy in effect, random locals off the streets of London are encouraged to present their all new teaching methods to students. Meanwhile the boys began production on the student film, interviewing said London locals for their valued ideas and input. What could possibly go wrong? *cough*



Episode 4:

"Crazy Goth Chick"

During an interview conducted by the supreme chancellor of South Bank Uni himself, the boys uncover what could possibly the biggest cover up since...the last biggest cover up.

Episode 5:

"Cocksuckinballs"

This episode really speaks for itself. Bad stuff happening, can't write about anything without spoiling the plot and stuff...so um...WATCH IT!!

Episode 6: 

"Attack Of The Loans"

In the final exciting episode of South Bank University Animated series...final stuff happens. Expositions and such. You will like. I do.



While I believe we both almost went crazy due to the insane amount of time and work we put into it, I really love this cartoon. While I had a few years experience creating cartoons with my own characters and scripts, South Bank was the first series type animation I was ever involved in which I had nothing to do with the writing process, art work or voice acting. For the entirety of the project I got to enjoy making this, without having to deal with all the self hating over critical nature I go through while making my own stuff. I got to be a cog in a larger machine, and enjoy the efforts of a whole string of people, from the creative leadership of Jayson who I really admire...also it paid real money, which is always nice.

Based on the positive response from the real South Bank University, as well as various festivals, screenings and what not, Jayson went on to do a follow up cartoon featuring the same characters. The sequal was called "Brave new world". I had nothing to do with it, but my South Park Bank style character does have a pretty awesome cameo. Check it out; see if you can spot me.