Counting up to Christmas

CBeebies asked David McCue and I to come up with an animating advent calendar. We decided to create a present unwrapping itself using stop-motion.

After doing some test animations we created a sequence with the present on a hand-operated turntable and a 'cobra cam'.

The cobra cam was our homemade rig to take the digital stills camera from the side of the box to the top of the box.

To make the present grow in size, we made 25 scale presents and shot them in sequence. To do this we had to buy the entire supply of red ribbon from John Lewis's haberdashery department but it was all worth it in the end!

The sequence was shot against a chroma key and composited using After Effects. Again this was a great project as I learned so much, most of all how useful Excel can be when calculating exponential deceleration in degrees of rotation.

Autumnwatch '06

Storyboards from Autumnwatch

Three months after creating Springwatch for CBeebies, the BBC asked David McCue and myself to create the logo and title sequences for their next series, Autumnwatch.

Having learned so much from building and shooting the set the first time, this time round we could plan things far more comprehensively.

Autumn is all about colour and leaves, so this is where it all began.

I had always wanted to use laser cutting in a project and this was the perfect opportunity. Having artworked all the leaves and branches for our Autumn forest scenes, we sent more than 200 sheets of lighting gels to be laser cut. The finished leaves looked wonderful especially when backlit and with the use of a hair dryer on set even moved like leaves.

To create a cosy and autumnal feel the use of materials was a step on from the paper we used for Springwatch. So the set was made of various colours of crushed velvet and the characters were all made of materials too.

This is the set in mid-production. We used an old SLR with a 50mm lens. This gave us the exact same field of view as the Sony we would be shooting on, and allowed us to plan each shot very accurately.

To get enough space to light the 11ft x 45ft backdrop, we hired a theatre (much cheaper than a studio and comes complete with lighting rig etc.).

We shot on a Sony HD750 and a 4ft Ronford slider (http://www.ronfordbaker.co.uk/slider.html) – this meant that the track of the camera would be hand-operated but it gave much more control when bringing the camera to a stop.

We used cracked oil to create a misty twilight atmosphere which worked well. The lighting set up was very quick as we had had plenty of time to plan it all.

This is a frame from one of the sequences, showing the spider's web, which was soldered together creating a shimmering effect as the camera tracked past.

This is one of my favourite frames, the pond is a sheet of Milar and the reflections worked really well. The textural material on the tree trunk worked brilliantly too looking convincingly like bark as well as providing lovely shadows. In the background you can see the park bench which was made of rough sawn pine and then airbrushed with orange ink.

This is a frame showing the final comp of the HD footage.

This was a fantastic collaborative project between me and David. It would also not have been possible without the generous help of Suzan McCue for the set build and shot, Peter Scoones for the camera and invaluable advice, Kate Morrison-Lyons with the lights and grips, and Richard White for his help with the HD transfer. I am very proud of the final results – if only all projects could be this fun.

CBeebies Autumnwatch '06 was nominated for best Pre-school live action BAFTA.

Springwatch '06

CBeebies's Springwatch was launched in 2006 and consisted of a 40 minute daytime show for the under five's.

Working in collaboration with designer / director David McCue, we were asked to create four individual title sequences, the overall brand for the show and the graphics.

We wanted to create a tactile and engaging world which was handmade and full of fun.

We built a multi-functional set, which allowed us to rearrange the props thus creating the four separate sequences.

All four were based on a left to right pan to suggest a sense of narrative and also to make best use of the depth and parallax of our set.

In the bottom right of this shot you can see a grey box which housed an old gramaphone clockwork mechanism which was used to pull the camera at a steady rate - a sort of motion control - with a few squeaks.

We attempted to capture as much as possible in camera so for this shot we mounted the magnifying glass on the dolly and created a puppet caterpillar which was operated from below.

This was a hugely satisfying project, I learned a huge amount about lighting and camera work and just how important space is when you are working on this scale.