New Logo

 

Crisis: A Long Way From Home - Exhibiton

December 11th - 14th | 12-6pm | A-Side B-Side Gallery Hackney

Tonight (Thursday 11th December) at A-Side B-Side Gallery in Hackney Downs it is the private view for an exhibition that we're taking part in. It's a brilliant exhibition organised by Super-Illustrator James Davies and for every single thing sold each and every penny will go to the homeless charity Crisis.

We are making some paper christmas decorations as DIY kits for sale. As well as some of our paper animation puppets.

If you can come down or help spread the word then hopefully we can raise as much money as possible.

Here are some of our preparation photos:

And the finished decorations that you can make with the DIY kits:

What is a Catfish Collective?

This is a lovely 'who are Catfish Collective and what do they do' video. It was made by the very talented chaps over at Belafonte. Go and check them out if you like laughing.

New Website!

Over at Catfish HQ we've been having a bit of a re-brand. We've got a new logo and new website. Click HERE to have a look!

New Catfish Collective Showreel

Here is our new and updated stop motion animation showreel. It'd be very nice to know what you think of it.

What went in to animating Flora 'Wrestlers'?

There was a lots of cutting, sticking, cutting, animating, drawing, camera malfunctioning, tea, biscuits and cutting.

New stop-motion animated Flora "Wrestlers" by Josh. Animated & Directed by Catfish Collective.

So finally, FINALLY, I'm allowed to talk about the project we've been frantically working on since January at Catfish Collective HQ.  After months of research animatics, followed by months of pre-production and endless cutting out we finally began animating. Once the animating was done we moved on to days, hours and weeks of post-production. And below is our finished ad for Flora.

It's part of a new £12 million rebrand campaign for Unilever and will be accompanied by new packs, print work, in-store displays, posters and on-line elements.  It's quite exciting. Tiring, but exciting.

The ad has shocked a fair few people but at the same time has had people lolling their little socks off.  What do you think of it?

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Here is a 10 second ad, which stars the endlessly energetic bouncing Bernie!

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Exciting...

I will very soon be able to tell you all about a very exciting, very secret project that I've been working on this year. Yessss!

Do a good deed..

Do a good deed today and help some incredibly talented chaps make a fantastic film. Only 9 days left so you better hurry! 

 

Click below to contribute, there's some brilliant rewards up for grabs!
http://igg.me/at/littleredfilm/x/2226651

Brand new Catfish 2013 showreel...

Catfish Showreel 2013 from Catfish Collective on Vimeo.

Help Stop UK Puppy Farming

Now, I know this isn't animation related. But it is dog related, which is even more important.

There has been a petition set up by Super-vet Marc Abraham which will hopefully stop UK puppy and kitten farming.  I've only been aware of puppy farming since we got our bundle-of-fluff Bernie a year and half ago now. If it's something you don't know about it's definitely worth having a look into (www.pupaid.org).  Once you've looked into I'm pretty sure you'll be sharing the petition around as much as you can to try and get the signatures required to put an end to it.

Puppy farms are where puppies are bred purely for profit. They are kept in truly awful conditions with no consideration for their health or happiness.  The puppies are then taken away from their mum and sold to pet shops, online or through other dealers and are usually very poorly and in pain.  Many of the puppies often die within a few days of arriving at their new home. 

'Most dog owners say they'd never buy a dog from a puppy farm, yet a large number will due to common scams especially by private dealers. This is exactly why Pup Aid have launched this e-petition. We need 100,000 signatures from the nation's animal lovers to make the Government listen and hopefully end this needless and preventable suffering for good.' - Marc Abraham

All photos are from @Pupaid

So please sign the petition & share it around wherever you can:           http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49528

Late Night Work Club #1: Ghost Stories

www.latenightworkclub.com

Ghost Stories Trailer from Late Night Work Club on Vimeo.

Design Juices talk Animation with Catfish Collective

Catfish Collective have a feature on the front page of the Design Juices Website. Why don't you have a little look, you know, if you've got nothing better to do. Click 'ere.

Skwigly banner

On Friday 4th January I made the un-advent banner for the wonderful Skwigly.co.uk website! Every day after Christmas there has been a banner made for the website by different artists and animators each to represent a different day.  My day was 'first day back at work'.

A peek under the post-production bonnet..

Have you ever watched an animation and thought 'yeah, but how much have they actually animated in camera?' or 'how did they make that sky look so gosh darn magical?'.  Well, we decided to make a little video to show some of our favourite Catfish shots from our most recent animation 'The Invitation' before, during and after the post-production stages.

The Invitation: Post from Catfish Collective on Vimeo.

A Catfish Collective christmas animation

My fellow Catfish Collective partner Joe Orton and I have recently finished this Christmas animation.  It's all paper cut-out stop motion which we animated on a good ol' multi-plane table.  

The Invitation from Catfish Collective on Vimeo.

Being Bradford Dillman and Shorts International

Being Bradford Dillman has been signed to Shorts International! Hooray! So they will hopefully be spreading the BBD word all over the big wide world.

Oh. Mime. God.

Hello.
  
This morning I'd like to share with you all a lovely little short film written, filmed, edited and cried over in a mere 48 hours for "The 48 Hour Film Project London". It won the International Competition and is now, today, released online.  It's written by my embarrassingly talented boyfriend Joe Patrick along with some other equally embarrassing people.  It stars Martin Freeman, he's in a new film this year called 'The Hobbit' or something. I'm not sure. I haven't heard much about it...

The Girl Is Mime

Enjoy!

Ps. I did the costume on it too.

The Girl Is Mime - Starring Martin Freeman from Tim Bunn on Vimeo.

Late Night Work Club

Here is the trailer for a mysterious animation project i'm involved in... Enjoy it.. Share it.. 

Hope you like it!

Late Night Work Club from Late Night Work Club on Vimeo.

#LNWC

Selfridges Christmas display..

The other week I helped out EEP Studios with making the Christmas in-store decorations for Selfridges in Manchester. It involved making hundreds and hundreds of giant paper chains, loads of staples and A LOT of glitter. Like, imagine being covered in glitter and then times it by more glitter. That's how much. There's still sparkles embedded in my carpet.

And here is the end result! 

It was definitely worth all the weird looks on the bus.

Being Bradford Dillman hits Vegas!

Molly and Bradford have won the Golden Reel Award at the Nevada Film Festival! 

It's been a very good week.

Being Bradford Dillman and the Academy Awards 2013

I found out yesterday the Being Bradford Dillman has been screened for consideration in the Animated Shorts category for the Academy Awards 2013! I was kindly pointed in the direction of a post where the animator Michael Sporn had highlighted on his blog some of his favourites and Being Bradford Dillman is one of the lucky few that he likes the look of! This is a huge compliment as some of my favourite animators and some of the best animations I have seen are in the list! Good ol' Michael.

So we should hopefully find out soon which films have made the long list, short list and then the finalists! Fingers and toes crossed!