Acorns 5-Year Anniversary!

Can’t believe my student film Acorns is now 5 years old! I made this in about 9 months at the University of Wales, Newport with over 2235 drawings, 232 storyboards, many revisions and a small army of amazing colourists. 

Thanks to all my wonderful friends and family who contributed and supported me through this film. There’s still a few things I’d love to go back and make better, but I think I’m still happy with the film as is… although now I think it’s about time I made a new one! :)

—

Winner of the Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 Award for Student Animation.

“Well told and animated with just the sort of design and animation idiosyncrasies that tickle my fancy. Brilliant.”
Robin Shaw, Co-Director of ‘The Snowman and the Snowdog’ (2012) and 'We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ (2016)

Order the DVD now on my Storenvy online shop for behind-the-scenes and extras:
http://amberdust.storenvy.com/collections/211119-all-products/products/4751698-acorns-dvd-2012

Upon a hill grows a grand Oak tree, which also happens to be home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, a curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and throughout the seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Every day the Spirit gives Amber an acorn to plant, but the little girl is naive and threads them onto a necklace instead. One night, disaster strikes and Amber must realise the importance of caring for nature.

“Acorns” (2012) is a short 2D animated film by Animator and Director Gemma J. Roberts and her final year film at the University of Wales, Newport.

AWARDS AND SCREENINGS:
Klik! Amsterdam Animation Festival 2013
Blackrock Animation Film Festival 2013
ANIMA - Córdoba International Animation Festival 2013
The Inconnu Festival 2013
The Mecal Festival 2013
The Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 - Animation: “Acorns” by Gemma Roberts & Team
Festival Noche de Monos 2012
Banjaluka International Animated Film Festival 2012
Newport Animation & Games Graduation Show 2012 - Won “Best Animation” and “Best Overall Film”

Music by Ben Rusch: http://benrusch.com/

Visit the Production Blog at: http://www.littleacornfilm.blogspot.co.uk/
Find us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/littleacornfilm

Copyright © Gemma J. Roberts 2012 and the University of Wales, Newport.

Acorns is now Online! DVD Pre-Order!

Guess what everyone? Acorns is finally online! Most of the festivals I've entered are over now so I thought it was about time I got it online! Hope you enjoy it :)

A year of very hard work, my sisters, lecturers, friends and a small army of colourists and my devoted 'scanner' made this film possible and I'm very pleased with what we were able to accomplish. A year and a half on, sure there are some things I would change but I think it's done well for what it is. :)

"Upon a hill grows a grand Oak tree, which also happens to be home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, a curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and throughout the seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Every day the Spirit gives Amber an acorn to plant, but the little girl is naive and threads them onto a necklace instead. One night, disaster strikes and Amber must realise the importance of caring for nature."

Winner of the Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 Award for Student Animation.

“Well told and animated with just the sort of design and animation idiosyncrasies that tickle my fancy. Brilliant.”  

Robin Shaw, Co-Director of "The Snowman and the Snowdog" (2012)

Please watch/like/share/insert-social-networking-norm-here and most of all, hope you like it! I'd really appreciate any comments you might have so I can take note for my next film. :)

In other news, I also have a Pre-Order for the DVD on my Storenvy page! If you use the Early Bird code ACORNFILM2014 you can get 20% off at the checkout!

Acorns [DVD] Storenvy Pre-Order

I've worked very hard to get a professional product together with nice motion menus on the DVD and it will have a mini full-colour art booklet too so it's not to be missed!! I plan to have the DVDs ready to dispatch early this year! Also note that although the currency on Storenvy is in US Dollars, the DVD will ship from the UK!

Hope you enjoy it! :)
Love Gemma, Amber and the Tree Spirit x

New Acorns Poster

I made a new poster for Acorns this weekend for advertising the film. It was a lot of fun to add all the awards/festival selections to the poster! I have recently had some more invitations to festivals and a couple more I've entered into myself, so sadly I think I will have to delay the online release of Acorns for the time being! I am working on some cool stuff for the movie including my own DVDs and little artwork booklets which I will have available to buy sometime next year, so keep an eye out!

I was also interviewed by Creative Skillset last year after their Animation and VFX Showcase in London about how my Graduation film helped me get my first job, and it's just been printed in their 2013 Yearbook! Thanks to my connections through Newport University and an animation graduate from Lupus Films seeing our graduate showcase, I was hired there to work on last year's The Snowman and the Snowdog! I can't wait for the DVD this Christmas! :)

Click the image below to enlarge the interview.

Until next time! :)

Acorns Wins 'Royal Television Society' Wales Centre Award for Undergraduate Animation!

On February 22nd 2013, my graduation film Acorns was awarded First Place in the Undergraduate Animation category from the Royal Television Society (Wales Centre Student Television Awards 2012). The award was presented at the Ffresh Student Moving Image Festival of Wales Awards Show taking place at Glyndwr University.

Although I had attended the festival and volunteered there this year, I sadly was unable to attend the awards show, but thankfully my fantastic friends Bryony Evans and Zara Williams (also nominated for the award) were able to collect the award for me (and surprise me with it at lunch the next day!), thanks guys! I was completely unaware I had even been nominated for this so it's such an incredible surprise!

The RTS Jury had this to say about Acorns on their website:

Acorns was also very accomplished and felt a very complete animation project. It was classy, enchanting and sophisticated, providing a captivating representation of the seasons through colour and it also featured a stunning piano score. Overall, Jury Members were unanimously impressed by its sophistication and high quality.

The first prize winner in each category will also be submitted for judging at the UK final of the RTS Student Television Awards, to be held in London during April.

For a full list and breakdown of the nominees for the award, please visit the Royal Television Society website.

I was absolutely astounded to have received this award for my film and am so thankful! Months and months of constant hard work and dedication went into realising it as well as the invaluable help of my crew without whom the film would never have been finished! 

As such, I give a huge thanks to Co-Writer and Colourist Emily Roberts, Lead Colorist/Additional Art Director Eleanor Roberts, a beautiful musical score by Ben Rusch, production scanning by Alex Huxley and Alex Brewer, additional compositing by Cosmo Wallace and Michael Alfred, my army of Clean-Up Artists and Digital Colourists, Nadine El Kheshen, Cassie Austin, Gemma Ursell, Ying Sun, Kojo Acquaah Harrison, Emmanuel Viscarra, Victoria Clark, Zara Williams, Nina Ashill, Sarah Huxley, Paul Littlefair, Eva Wagner and Stephanie Walker, my fellow film makers Rob Morgan, Jess Leslau, Zara Williams, Bryony Evans, Claire Spiller and Vikki Clark, my Uni lecturers for never-ending feedback and tutorials and of course my Mum & Dad, grandparents and friends & family for their unwavering love and support. <3

Without further ado, here are some pretty pictures! 

And then our family cat, Mila wanted to get in on the fun!

Thanks to my sister Emily for my fab photo!

Thanks everyone for this amazing award, I still cannot believe it! :)

The Snowman and the Snowdog Trailer

It's nearly here everyone, the long awaited sequel to Raymond Briggs' "The Snowman" from 30 years ago! The Snowman and the Snowdog is a brand new film from Channel 4 and Lupus Films in London that I have had the incredible privilege and pleasure to work on this year... one of the many reasons I have been so busy since Uni!

The film is set thirty years on from the original and features a new boy, the same old Snowman rebuilt again and a new Snowdog! Some have frowned upon a sequel to the original who feel like this is just a 'remake', but it is a totally new adventure and is a real treasure to watch as it respectfully celebrates the original while also updating the beloved story. 

I was invited to join the crew in London as a 'line tester' so I was testing the original hand drawn animation under a camera (everything was drawn properly on paper like the original, not with a  computer!) to show the animators and Director how the scenes would look before they are scanned. I did this for a couple of months before joining the rendering department where I hand coloured scenes in pencil for the final film! It was an incredible experience and I loved every minute.

So without further ado, here is the finished trailer for the film, which will have its full broadcast premiere on Channel 4 this Christmas! Don't miss it!

P.S. I haven't forgotten to update you all on Acorns! I've currently submitted it to several festivals for next year so I will update if it gets selected for anything!

Acorns Official Trailer

At last, here it is! I finally found some time this afternoon to edit a trailer for my graduation film, Acorns. It's a short 30 second mash-up that hopefully establishes the story enough to keep you interested! Enjoy!

It was difficult to edit to say the least as I needed to keep it very short but also cohesive. Other short film trailers just have an excerpt from the very beginning of the film, but I felt that didn't work here so I had to experiment with different shots and kept cutting lots out until it worked (which hopefully it does!). Expect the full film to make its' online debut sometime next year! :)

Comments and feedback welcome as always!

"Acorns" is now Complete!

I am very happy to announce that my graduation film, "Acorns" is at last finished and handed-in as of Thursday 30th May 2012!

Although our course deadline was originally the 14th May, we were given an extra week to finish our then very incomplete films and the top 11 shortlisted films had a little longer too just to get them polished (or in my case coloured and composited!). My film is also one of the shortlisted films at Newport and I must say they are an excellent year, and congratulations are in order for everyone's hard work as well as those who unfortunately did not make it on the shortlist, they are all brilliant films and well worth the time and effort that clearly went into making them. :)

It's certainly odd to think that it's all over now and I have officially finished my three years worth of University, but it's been a wonderful experience and I hope to end it with some happy memories with my friends and colleagues at our grad show later this month.

Sadly I will be unable to upload my film in its entirety for some time as I think it deserves a good festival run in the coming year, however I have a brief clip of it online in this compilation reel of our shortlisted films that myself and my fiancé edited yesterday. Please enjoy!

For more films and grad show info, you can check out our blog here: http://newportanimation2012.wordpress.com

I will also have lots of production goodies to show in the next few weeks in the run up to our graduation show on the 13th June and beyond and will be editing a short trailer for my film on its own, this won't be for another week though as I am off to the Annecy animation festival tomorrow for the whole week so won't be able to make any posts for a while or promote my film just yet! When I am back, I will have some well-deserved rest and be back on the case with promoting my film!

In the meantime, here are a few funny "alternate" colourings of the tree Spirit that my younger sister Eleanor did while helping on my film. :)

And with that, I am off to finish packing! See you all in a week! :)

Summer Ideas

Over Summer I had several ideas for the film I wanted to pursue before I settled on "Great Trees from Little Acorns Grow" (Working Title). First, I would like to surmise my aims and goals for this coming year.

My Final Film will be very important to me, it will be the first narrative-based piece of fully animated work that I have created. I have made half-and-half film/animation before, abstract animation and animation snippets and some animatics, but not to the scale I want this to be.

My main goals for this film are:

• Entertaining characters and story
• Personal meaning to me
• Fun to work on so that I can stay enthusiastic/passionate about it
• Makes a statement that appeals to my demographic
• Displays my abilities as a character animator, designer and storyteller to interest potential employers

To begin with, my issue was not coming up with enough ideas, the problem is coming up with the right idea.

After writing a couple of shorts that would work well as storybook animatic videos (but not my final film) I came up with a short animation idea about the creation of Earth, but from the perspective of twin creation students (or Gods-in-training). One (sister) is creative and passionate, while the other (brother) is wise and logical, so, naturally, they bicker and everything goes wrong. I also dabbled with the prospect of them creating humanity too, but eventually I decided against this one as the characters just aren't involving enough. Perhaps I will reattempt it at a later date.

Michelangelo's Adam and God

It would have been a part Science-Fiction, part Creationist take on the creation of the Universe, taking inspiration from Greek myths, but in the end it just wasn't that personal to me.
After this, I watched a DVD of Pixar shorts with the Director commentary on to discover the creative decisions behind the shorts and also their meaning. I wrote a list of what I thought each short was trying to say, for example, For the Birds is about the injustice of bullying and peer pressure where the bullies get their comeuppance and Day and Night is about envy (the grass is always greener on the other side) but also reconciling your differences with one another. After this I wrote a list of my own messages that I want to say, such as self-acceptance and letting go.

Eventually I realised that the kind of story that would most connect with me and my intended audience would be a sentimental one. I'm a very nostalgic person and the loss of treasured possessions or even friends means a lot to me, which is why films like Pixar's Up and Toy Story 3 get me very emotional. Thus, I wrote a story that is centered around the sentimentality of youth and the loss of something/someone dear. Here is an image illustrating  three of my ideas following my "Creation Students" story. 

• The first, Princess-in-Waiting is all about a short-tempered Princess who is fed up of waiting for her Prince so she travels on her very own pet dragon to seek Mr. "Charming" for her revenge! She's a modern, independent girl who much prefers black glasses and leather jackets to her embroidered dress and tiara! It's a bit of a joke short as just when she thinks she gets what she wants (peace and quiet) suddenly there are Prince Charming's everywhere, all desperate for her hand in marriage. So this is a fun short, but it's not particularly personal to me and a little too "Shrek-like" for my liking, so it's more of a back-up

• Second is an untitled film where I was thinking about self-acceptance through physically destroying your inner demons. This would take place in a surreal world, perhaps in this girl's mind, where she has trapped herself with her own thoughts and fears. I thought a series of trials would be interesting to see her tackle them in different ways until she at last realises the answer lies in eliminating the negative aspects of her personality, rather than killing the demons her mind has conjured around her. Not a lot of development on this one, but might be interesting at some point to do a crazy Alice in Wonderland/Labyrinth style tale.

• "Great Oaks From Little Acorns Grow" or "The Girl Who Won't Grow Up". This is my favourite story so far as it's personal and has an emotional character arc. It's about a little girl, Amber, who grows up in and around this majestic oak tree, it's got a tree house, a swing and her friends would go there to play. We see snapshots of her life as she grows up, but she remains as childish as when she was young. It's gonna be all about growing up, letting go and moving on, but in an emotional and maybe touching/heartwarming way if done right.

I also had an idea about a lone traveling nomad but I think that's a film for another time. The rest of this production blog will cover my development on my final idea, "Great Oaks From Little Acorns Grow".

Ideas Pitch

Hello and welcome to the production blog for my final film at Newport University. :)

Today was the pitching session for my fellow third years and I. Overall our ideas were well-received but there is still much to do to make our films stand out from the crowd!

My film is about an unlikely friendship between girl and tree spirit, how they grow up together and eventually move on from the loss of that friendship.

This is the synopsis that I presented today:

Upon a hill grows an ancient Oak tree, which also happens to be  home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, an imaginative and curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and through the years and seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Eventually Amber reaches adulthood and although her personality is no different from the little girl she once was, the Spirit knows it’s time for her to grow up.

One night, the Oak and Spirit that was once the centre of Amber’s life is struck down by lightning. Heartbroken at the loss of her dearest friend, she breaks down. But when she sees a tiny sapling tree rising from the destruction, the seed of change starts to grow inside her.

And here is some of my initial concept art for my main character, Amber, and the grand old Oak Tree.

My feedback basically suggested that I put limitations on my animation to reduce the workload and avoid the "full" Disney-style animation that I'm used to as I'm working individually on this. Possibly even animating mostly in silhouette... all these decisions will be worked through in the coming months. All my progress will be posted here so do check back for more updates.

Thanks for reading, see you again soon!
Gemma