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

Newport Animation Grad and Award Show

Last Wednesday, 13th June, was our graduation show at Newport City Campus. We had a wonderful exhibit on the ground floor showcasing our stills, props and business cards and a talk with previous Newport graduates, Nick Rodgers from Frontier Games and Hannah Ferguson from Lupus Studios which was informative and very valuable for industry contacts!

My Acorns exhibit with character cut-out by Sinead Oram!

This was followed by a screening of the shortlisted films as well as a few MA films and the award ceremony and drinks/networking afterwards.

The screening was excellent and really showcased our work in best quality and sound, our technician, Stan Evans, did a fantastic job!

The awards were given out afterwards: a beautiful framed illustration by Martha Ford from Aardman in Bristol. Each category had three nominees and then one winner.

My friend Bryony Evans won Best Sound for her film, Odonata, Jessica Kate Leslau received Best Art Direction for Babbit (Acorns was also nominated for this) and Jon Saunders got Best Script for Thought Cloud.

CGI masters, Sinead Oram and Pablo Parry won Best Technical Achievement which was highly deserved for their amazing film, The Lighthouse Men and Mahmoud Hindawi also got an award for his MA film, The Street Artist.


Acorns was then winner of Best Animation, but as I went to receive the award, Leonie Sharrock (our tutor and award announcer) told me to wait and I stood completely stunned as she then declared that I was also winner of Best Overall Film!

Me and Acorns' award after the ceremony

I was totally humbled and grateful for the privilege and spent the rest of the evening trying to calm my nerves!

The films this year have been excellent, and really show that Newport animation is certainly a storytelling force to be reckoned with. I'm over the moon with how well Acorns has done so far and cannot wait to see what unfolds at festivals this year. I'll be putting my all in with promoting the film and expanding the universe with a picture book and graphic novel so stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone for their support in making my film possible. :)

"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! :)