Finished All Concept Designs - YAHZAA!

After 21 months of relentless hard work - but many laughs along the way - we have finished the concept designs for The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers! Episode 78 - "Rivals of Wrath", was delivered to Studio B (our Canadian studio who do storyboards and animation) on Tuesday evening.

That means that Sarah Roper (Production Designer) has now left the building! She has designed 72 of the 78 locations. Both Sarah and I started the production with six month old babies in tow. Sarah finished the production sporting a HUGE tummy and is due her second baby in May. She is expecting a girl.... perhaps Enketta, Xanielle, Adina... ...hang on - that works - I'll put it to her!!!

Still: Concept design - Rivals of Wrath

Dick Arnall

Found out some sad news last night. Dick Arnall, the highly respected british short film producer has died. He will be greatly missed by the animation community.

I have a lot to thank Dick and his partner Marjut Rimminen for, as they gave me a lot of encouragement in the early days. Marjut was my tutor at West Surrey College of Art, she was very supportive in the final year with honest criticism and enthusiasm for my film. The following year I struggled to get a foot in the door, and Marjut came to the rescue giving me my first proper animation job. I worked from their house in Islington and got to know Dick then. They both had great faith in me even though I felt totally lost a the time.

And although over the next 15 years I have moved into a much more commercial world - having sold my soul to Cartoon Network! ;-) I can honestly say that I wouldn't have had the privilege of drawing for a living if it wasn't for these guys.

Dick Arnall was an inspiring, enthusiastic, innovative and charming man, who always had his finger on the pulse of emerging new media (he taught me what an e-mail address was back in 1994!) He had the rare qualities of being both a highly intelligent conversationalist as well as having a great sense of humour, and a genuine interest in people. I will always picture him chuckling cheekily as he fiddled with his roll-ups!

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/halloweenshortfilmfestival

Let me take you back a few months...

...It's the 26th of November 2006... This was the moment of glory where we won the BAFTA for best children's animation for "The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers!"


Pictured here is David Hodgson (Producer) Dan Chambers (Director, creator and voice artiste extrodinaire!) and Me (Series Director). The prize was awarded to us by Burn Gorman of Torchwood... shame it wasn't the guy who got voted off the X factor 3 weeks before, now that WOULD have been exciting!!

It was a star studded occaision - Keith Chegwin, Esther Rantzen and that ginger guy off Eastenders partying on til the early hours!

Ten of us who work on the show went along... here they all are after far too much champagne!

(L-R) Gary Boller (Character Designer), David Hodgson (Producer), Andrew Brenner (Script Editor), Dan Chambers (Director), Mark Huckerby (Creator / Writer), Melissa Venet (Production Co-ordinator), Steven Lenton (Art Director), Claire Underwood (Director), Paul James (Music and Sound Designer), Nick Ostler (Creator / Writer).

BLOGTASTIC!

Welcome to my brand spanking new BLOG!

I hope to keep it up to date with news from the Pesky animation studios as we launch our kids TV series "The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers!" across the world in 2007.

You can already catch it on ITV (UK), YTV (Canada) and ABC (Australia) - but over the next few months it will launch on Cartoon Network in the UK and most of Europe and Asia.

You can find out more about the Adrenalini brothers at www.adrenalini.com, and more about Pesky at www.pesky.com, as well as see the original 10 shorts on www.miniclip.com

ENJOY!