The 'Moving Image' Industry | North West | The Neighbourhood

Found these people from google search, there based in manchester and from their website, they look like a really good company.

The Neighbourhood

They have a very fancy website, but whats the point of having a good web site if their work is crap. Luckily The Neighbourhood's work is also really really good, fresh and exciting!

They have loads of information about themselves on the website; what they believe in, like... big ideas, animation, architecture, good design. But they don't take themselves too seriously, they also believe in Random encounters and smiling... still relevant and adds humor!

Some of the stuff they do include...Product Visualization, motion graphics, 3D animation, directing film shoots, t.v stings, idents abd illustration.
They do a wide variety of things and being open to lots of different disciplines means their client list is pretty hefty.

Here are some of their clients...

Advertising & Design - TBWA, Publieis and Elmwood

Broadcast - BBC, CBBC, Five and The Mob

Architecture & Properties - Derwent London and Urban Splash

Brands - Nike, Sony Europe, ghd, Toyota and Visa


To see any of their videos like their show reel etc, you have to go to their website and navigate round it. I can't embed them here or send a link to them, just have to go to the website and find it...

They were commissioned by channel five to do an ident for 2010 Valentine's day which was only shown for that one day.

They also were asked by Manchester City Football Club to do a promotional video...on their website they have two videos (short clips) of a birds eye view of Manchester, which are really dull (because of are magnificent weather here) and it showed how they made it go from dull hazy view of Manchester, to a bright sunny one. The also added a bit of blue to the pictures because of the Football Club they were promoting.

Marge Hair

I saw for the first time ever, the new Simpson's introduction, what they've done is touched up and brought the intro into the 21st century and made fit in with the newer episodes. Obviously most programs (like The Simpson's) are now done on computer apposed to hand drawn, but back in 1990, when people saw clouds part to reveal golden letters spelling out the name of the now famous program for the first time, all the animation would have been hand drawn. 

The analogy below sort of sums up the new introduction.



I always liked this bit in the introduction when Maggie gets scanned by the cashier at the supermarket because of Marge's hair...

...the follow through is well timed and really smooth, its very exaggerated but looks right. So it uses the animation principles and as a result we get a very good seconds worth of animation.

Now lets see the new one, sorry about the poor quality...

The 'Moving Image' Industry | North West | Firestep

Firestep was set up by two people; Steve Maher and Jon Doyle, they have both worked in the television industry for many years and also have both worked at Cosgrove Hall. Doyle worked on Danger Mouse and Count Duckular when at Cosgrove Hall and also directed and produced a kids t.v show called Foxbusters, which won a Bafta.
Both Doyle and Maher were big Doctor Who fans and set up Firestep in Manchester to make the animated spin off series from the revamped doctor who.
After the company was set up, Imposable Pictures (a company in  London) made a deal with Firestep and now Firestep is a company of Imposable Pictures. Link


I read about them and firestep about two years ago in the M.E.N after there first T.V program came out called 'The Infinite Quest' which was the spin off of Doctor Who.


What interests me about the company is the two people who founded it,  both came from good backgrounds in animation. They both worked at Cosgrove Hall as Director, Art Director and Producer at some points during their time there, then teamed up together to start a company because of a common interest.


The Firestep website doesn't specify any clients but the BBC has to be one of them

The 'Moving Image' Industry | North West | MI

MI

Came across these people when searching on Cartoon Brew to see if they have picked up on any talent in Manchester, and they had an article on this studio called MI. 

They make 'outstanding imagery, animation and visual effects' and looking at their work, its pretty good stuff. Especially like there stuff which isn't really done for a client, like, they did this beach ball bouncing off their building (it was on the contact page so people knew what the building looked like) 

They also did, during the recession, a short animation of an unemployed robot who was meant to be part of a production, but because of the recession it got canceled and now he roams the streets of Manchester looking for work...

There stuff they've done for clients like, 'The BBC, Distiller Records, Land Securities, Marketing Manchester' are good, but its these things i talked above are the ones which interest me the most.

Here's their show reel...

The 'Moving Image' Industry | General | .....

I've looked at some of the jobs involved when working on a project, but i want understand the process of how things work, like, is it all done under one roof or are people and companies employed to do certain bits in the project? For bigger projects is it different?

I've emailed a studio called firestep who are based in Manchester, they did a television series which was a spin off to the doctor who series called 'Doctor Who - The Infinite Quest', so hopefully they will get back to me with some answers of how they work etc (they've got back to me in the past about work experience, but with no luck, but at least they got back to me which I thought was really nice of them)

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Whilst waiting to hear from firestep i'll talk about someone...

Joanna Quinn is a pretty well known animator who's debut film 'Girls Night Out', made during university but not finished untill she had graduated and moved to Cardiff, racked up 3 awards at the Annecy film/ animation festival in 1987.

Since then she carry's on doing short films and also has a studio called Beryl Productions which works on adverts and also the short films. One advert which i've seen before which Beryl Productions did was the Charmin Adverts with the bear who whips his ares on the toilet paper, you know the one...

Joanna found her place in the world of moving image from having a very strong short film, with a unique style and character called Beryl (her production company has the same name if you've noticed) and from that kept on making short films, entering them into festivals and also started up a company to make adverts which brings in the money.
Here's a day in the life of Joanna Quinn...




I don't think you can plan to what Joanna Quinn did, you can't be sure your short film will be a big success and that clients will be wanting your style for adverts. But I suppose that's what freelancers do. Freelancers get there name out there and wait for clients to want their style then build up a client base where you always have steady work, although steady work isn't really a known work in a freelancers dictionary!

Working for your self, for me, isn't what i would like to do, its too free. I would rather at this moment in time, work for a company and gradually gain more skills and move up...