Steven Cleary

That is superb! I really get the feeling the ball has some life in it. The parent ball looks appropriately sinister with it’s expressionless glare. Great use of colours; not too bright. The shot selection is spot on and I particularly like the stillness and timing: there’s nothing that bothers me more than excessive camera movement! The sound and music are sublime. When I saw the last shot of the robot raising it’s arms, I immediately thought of Tom from the animation ‘Bertha’, one of my favourites. I thoroughly enjoyed this animation and thanks for pointing us towards it, Dale. Pass on my appreciation of his skill to Mr.Hopkins, Steve.

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He has a great look to him and the colours are fab. I agree with Nancy on the observations of the soles; they look too small for the shoes. The hands look natural and not ‘constructed’ and the shirt poking out from the jacket is nice and flouncy I’d perhaps make the trousers not dip in at the end of the torso and let them lead pretty much straight to the knees (which I think should be raised a bit as the shins look too short). I’d definitely make sure every hair isn’t perpendicular to the head and straight - that always suggests ‘unnatural’ to me. I hope that helps and doesn’t annoy, Steve.

Yep, I enjoyed my first BA:M meeting quite a bit. I was intrigued by Sam's character's changable setup; made me think about new things I could develop for my own rig. The clip he showed looked fab and I can't wait to see more. John's gallery animation was great and I was suitably impressed with his paintings he created for the background. Stephen asked some questions about my rig (such as the switching between auto and normal movement) which has now got my brain cells twitching (left and right side, John ). I'm hoping to have something worked out by the end of today. I'm glad Gary found my setup interesting. It makes a difference talking about such things with people who know what you're on about. I'm used to this glazed look people have whenever I yap on about constraints and such. I like the short sections you showed us, Gary, and I think you should definitely make the shorts you are thinking about, especially the lighting the broomstick one. I tried to bore everybody with my Flash animations, concept artwork and my setups for face and body. It was about 50/50 between A:M and politics which was better than I was expecting One word to sum up the meeting: Corduroy. Steve.

Count me in. Are you able to get your hands on the 'Amazing Projector' for the meeting? I'm assuming the 'Incredible Laptop' has a CDrom drive as A:M wouldn't be able to run, so I'm bringing all of my images, films and model setup gubbins on CD. Steve.

Good stuff. I'll try to be there next week. Do we need to advertise this in the main section of the forum? Just to confirm, are there any costs at all? Thanks for all your efforts, Sam. Steve.

Ah, just had a look at the films to be shown on Saturday at South Hill Park and they've got one starting at 5:00pm so I guess we'd have to wrap up in the cinema by about 4:00pm - 4:30pm. Hearing about how things progressed last time, I'm not too sure whether that would work or not. Any thoughts? Steve.

If people are willing to pay a joint rent of £30 an hour (if 6 of us go that would be £5 per hour each) for a small cinema, we can go to South Hill Park and I think it's available during the morning and afternoon on Saturday (I'd have to check, of course). I have no problem waiting for a February date at the Choccy Factory. I like free venues Steve.

I'm needing to know if I still need to keep next Saturday free for the meeting. How's it looking, Sam? Steve.

Vong - now you've said that, I won't be able to look at her without thinking that Jim - Great work. If somebody I knew wanted to see what A:M is capable of, I'd show them your renders as they are sublime. Steve.

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I worry that increasing the ambience might make it look even more out of place, based on projects I’ve done in the past. I’ve seen a program recently that had a very definite atmosphere which could be said to have been glowing. I’d try lighting the Earth with a brighter light to give it a definite light side and then perhaps put a spherical shell around it with a faint blueish xray-type material with a touch of ambience that fades out the further from the surface it gets. I’m thinking out loud here, but maybe having a glowy atmosphere would be quite effective. Steve.

The Earth looks out of place being so dark. I'd experiment with stylising it a touch and perhaps including it in the lighting scheme you've got for the lettering - at the moment it’s looking alien to them. I think you need to have another look at the lighting as the sides of the letters are lit in varying ways that distract the eye and doesn’t give them enough depth in some cases. The 'n' has much brighter sides than any other letter which does seem a little odd. The 'u' is so brightly lit it’s reflection looks out of place. Of course, you've probably only put temporary lighting in place just to show the logo, so ignore these comments if this is the case. These are only suggestions which always should be taken with a pinch of salt. Steve.

Ooo, I've just realised that my typings about Tony Hart might give the impression he's not around anymore. He is! He is! He is! Sorry for my inept use of words. I was just reminiscing about his shows and I miss them. They should just repeat the originals. They're full of great stuff and I guess Dale wouldn't mind the repeat of his animations. Especially if there are royalties! Here's Tony's website. Great bloke. Steve.

Yay! Hartbeat! Just seeing that small clip of Tony at the end of one of your animated shorts made me all nostalgic. *sniff* I miss Tony... Did you meet him at some point? 'All talk' looks familiar and is ringing a faint bell in my head but I can't quite place it. Was it part of another programme? Are there any outlets for animated shorts like that nowadays? It was great to see yours as they brought back the memories of gawping at the TV after school. Have I made you feel ancient now? Well, you did make them 20 years ago I hope you realise that it's shorts like yours that sparked my interest in animation. There's a great freeware (for personal use) computer dictionary here and a good freeware word processor with spell checker here. I use both all the time. I'll keep an eye out for 'Haunted Horace'. It looks very atmospheric and has a definite colour scheme which is great to see. Your site has got me trying to remember all the cartoons I used to watch, so thanks for creating it. Dangermouse. Trap door. Duckula. Steve.

Saturday 29th January is good for me. Now I've got to finish up some projects and decide what to bore everyone to tears with.

Looking at the lack of posts, do we need to start a new thread called ‘BA:M British Animation:Masters’ so that people don’t think it’s just for London based users? How about putting a message in the main ‘Animation:Master’ section incase people aren’t aware of this thread? Obviously I’d prefer to go to South Hill Park as it’s just down the road from me, but if everybody wants to go to London, I’ll tag along. Grudgingly Steve.

Oh, Parlo, your message appeared after I had finished typing my piece. Free sounds good Can we get at that projector you mentioned a while back? John - how much did it cost travel-wise to get to the Choc Factory? Steve.

Crikey. Just had an unexpected phone call from South Hill Park and the cinema sounds as though it is available almost every morning including weekends. He instantly dropped the hire price by 50% (with some carefully worded phrases from me ) so that 5 hours would be £125 which would make six of us going have to pay a total of £20 each. Obviously the more people that go, the lower the cost for each person. He said the connection point for the laptop is at the front of the room just under the screen so the person making the presentation is in the same room. The screen is bookable from 9:00am on a Saturday and 11:00am on a Sunday. There are some Sundays that have matinee performances so we’d need to make sure of about that. You can pre-order your grub from the bistro there so that won’t be a problem. There’s sandwiches and the like available all day. Is that more in the price range we are looking at? I want it to be as low as possible as well (as I’ve got no work in at the moment), with just the price of travel as the only cost. But to get a cinema; I like the sound of that Steve.

You've got a definite style Shaun, it comes though in all your work. Great stuff and great interpretation of the audio clip. I like the subtlety of the father there. I think the child's big reaction is the one to take centre stage and perhaps if the dad has equally as big a reaction it might be too much, so I think you've got it just about right. The only thing I might change is maybe putting a little bit more emphasis in the formation of the child's first couple of words. Oh yeah, the teeth of the yellow fish throws me a little. Human style teeth in a fish? Creepy I really like the green one though, great design and movement. Steve.

I’ve had a response from South Hill Park saying that each room they have is £50+VAT an hour (£58.75). He said that they try to “accommodate the varying budget constraints of our varied client base” so we might be able to knock a few quid off that. The 60 seat cinema they’ve got there also costs £58.75 per hour and he says laptops can easily be connected to the projector. What do you think about just hiring the cinema room and using the projector to show stuff? Just a though. It’s unclear exactly when rooms are bookable as so many groups use the place and it varies so much, but it sounds like rooms are frequently available even at short notice. So, if six of us go, that makes it £9.79 each per hour. How long did you book the room for last time? Do you think we need access to the Internet? They have a digital media suite there which can also be booked. Let me know what you think. Steve.

South Hill Park is only about 1.5 miles from the station, and I think there are regular buses to there. Could even get a taxi. You could be the taxi That or a slight jog... It's been a while since I've been there and I'm not entirely sure what's available, but they've been renovating and expanding so I'd guess there's something of the right size. They've even got a small cinema there. I'll give them a tinkle if people think it's within range to see what's available and how much it might cost. The 'Rose of Kingston' looks like a great place. We could ask for the Green Room or something and I would imagine it wouldn't be too cold. Might be cheaper because it's still under development. Maybe we could be part of the hall of fame there: "The 'British Animation:Masterers' woz ere" poster on their notice board saying we were one of the first people in there. How could they pass that opportunity up? Steve.

Are there any plans for a meeting this holiday period? Any suggestions for a new venue? John, what do you think about 'South Hill Park' as a venue? ( http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/ ) Steve.

That set is absolutely fantastic. I'm a big fan of duller / less saturated tones in animation so your colour scheme is right up my street. The sharp contrast is great. The characters are well balanced and move superbly. If I was pushed to give a crit (yeah, you really want one ), the red chap's eyebrows might be a tad too rigid and might do with a bit more dynamic movement, maybe making them move up and down in the centre more. Still, I don't think I've seen enough of that bloke to make a character assessment so ignore me if it suits him. I've been waiting for more stylised cartoon style in 3D for yonks, so thanks for creating this. I know, I should have done something myself. This is the kind of thing A:M is suited to, in my opinion. Steve.