Live Action/ Animation mix

Ok so here's the 1st official post... WHOOOO!!! 

Below are two style frames I whipped up for a project I'm working on with co-director Ewen Stenhouse (Angry Natives).

It's more an experimental project (than anything else) that came about from a commercial we directed/ animated in 2008. The commercial was a government funded campaign by the C.O.I titled 'Try life in Another Language'. Aimed at encouraging teenagers/ young adults to take up learning a foreign language, the main concept was to make the ad seem as though it was a Hip Hop (French) music video half way through. We decided mixing live action with 2D animated characters/ elements was the way to go.

Cut a long story short we headed off to Paris to shoot the vid which was great as I'd never actually been there before; spent two days there then came back to London to begin the real work! We got the commercial done alright but (as was to be expected) wasn't without a few challenges; such as having to animate everything on 'one's' in order to blend well timing wise with the live action. Other issues were trying to achieve seamless interactions between the animated elements and live action and also matching animation to complex or erratic camera moves. Suffice to say we learned a lot through this technique!

On completion of the ad it received great reviews, had high hit rates on pretty much every social video sharing site it was uploaded to and was even featured in Creative Review online; the sad thing was we were so swamped with other work afterward we didn't get a chance to really explore the medium further... Which brings us to the now! Now we have a little more time on our hands we figured this was the chance to get back to it. So plan of action: head out to town (soho/ central London area) with my Canon DSLR to scout around & take snaps of cool locations we could shoot the L/A in. Here are a few choice snaps of the reconnaissance mission...

I guess to conclude, the main aim again of this is just to delve a little further into the medium and hopefully produce some great looking pieces whilst we're at it. We'll be doing roughly around 5 sequences each, with each clip lasting between 5/ 10secs; Possibly we'll combine them all into a compilation reel once we have enough. Oh here's a linetest of sequence No1:

& the Final:

So the concept behind this once I get the other shots done is a sort of Parkour action chase sequence between two guys; characters using the city as an obstacle course, jumping off buildings, running on roof tops, doing stunts etc (that kinda thing). Well hope you like it? I'm working on sequence 2 right now so more to come very soon! Feel free to drop in comments & feedback... I wont bite >= (