The smallest bird in the british isles came by.

Production was delayed today by a fledgling jenny wren, who flew in through the window and settled happily in the kitchen. I managed to persuade it to fly out but it made came straight back in. It was about the size of a ping pong ball but with a voice the size of a football, as for the rest of the morning I could hear an imperious cheeping from the window box.
"Let me in so I can do another dropping on your table"

squirrels beware

I
must
have
a
new
paintbrush

Insulex - the animator's friend

I have a maximum of 275 minutes to shoot any one shot before my battery runs out. Removing the battery to recharge it means starting again with framing and exposure. So I am grateful to Nina Pope for my insulex tea pot which has a layer of air inbetween its inner and outer casing. The tea easily stays hot for 275 minutes. Now I just need some self control, to stop me eating all my biscuits in one go.

cock up

I spent the day filming the autopsy scene from above, and lost a morning's work due to the following obvious mistake: Thomas parr is (deceased, aged) naked. I erased his willy because it didnt look floppy enough and forgot to put it back.

God it's hot.
I thought the same thought when I was animating The Witches in a small black box, but I was in Scotland then and this is 400 miles nearer the equator plus Ive got four lights instead of two.

Goalposts.

Even though it's hot, I've managed to get a script I like, and today I spewed out a scrappy storyboard and basic animatic.
Since going to Zagreb for Animafest I decided to start my animation again and try to draw with more economy. Everything I've shot so far is very busy on the eye and brain. So tommorrow I'll make a shotlist and start animating again, with a view to finishing the animation by the end of August.

Script wrestling

There’s no quick way to finish a script is there? My scriptwriting days always involve many cappucinos and nail-biting and long days without going out. Today I happen to know it’s beautiful out there and I need some tinned tomatoes for later, but I must stay in 1635 until I’ve got the order of things. I miss bouncing ideas off Mark Jenkins, the editor with whom I’ve worked with on my other films but he’s very busy and I also think I should be able to wrestle with this on my own.
I'd also like to try and write my script before I finish animating. This would be good professional practice, but counter intuitive. Sometimes you need to see a character moving before you know where they're going to.