BBC WebWise - Social Media Basics

Does the world of social media confuse and perplex you? Have no fear! Simply visit the BBC WebWise website and watch these 9 short films in which Jim Hammersmith will explain the basics.

The films were written by me and directed by George Sander-Jackson. They were produced by Arthur Cox and Aardman. Jim Hammersmith is played by Chris Grimes who also did the voice of Little Face in my short film of the same name.

Even if you are not confused and/or perplexed by social media watch the films anyway, you may still enjoy them.

British Animation Awards Public Choice

Anyone who likes Adam Buxton or animated yellow blobs on legs may be pleased to know that my film Little Face (which features both), that I co-directed with Ben Lole, is being screened tomorrow  night (the 9th February 2010) at the Watershed at 6pm as part of the British Animation Awards: Public Choice 3.



If you go along you will also have the opportunity to vote for your favourite film, which may or may not be Little Face. A list of all venues and dates for the BAA: Public Choice screenings can be found here.

I perhaps should have blogged this sooner to give people more time to change the plans they have already made for tomorrow night but unfortunately I didn't.

out of focus group c

On Friday the 13th, which was five days ago, Little Face was screened in front of a public audience for the first time at Adam Buxton's Out Of Focus Group C at the BFI on the Southbank. It was a thoroughly entertaining evening of stand-up, music, poetry, Famous Guy and Little Face.

Joe Cornish and Adam Buxton's Baad Dad were sitting in the row in front of us. I don't know what they thought of Little Face but afterwards Adam said he liked it although found it hard to watch himself in films. But he did say he liked it and for that I am pleased.

Played hangman on the train afterwards. We worked out that during the 1.6 hours of play we averaged 3.2 minutes per game.

little face publicity stills

Here is the full set of publicity stills I have created for Little Face in chronological order. Two of them I posted a few posts ago but they have been tweaked since. Spot the difference.

















Off to the Sundance film festival tomorrow. I hope that in a weeks time I will be able to post a picture of me standing in deep snow.

little face achieves italic status

Before Christmas comes and goes and flowers start growing again it seems appropriate for me to update my blog. It has been quiet sometime since I last updated my blog and some people thought I had died. At least I assume that is the case. No one has called.

I also think my co-worker and flatmate Felix Massie has become tired of saying "you should update your blog Matthew" to which I always reply "I know, I will". The other week I even teased Felix Massie with the possibility by spending an hour and a half writing an extensive post detailing the months exploits which I subsequently failed to post.

This is not that post. It is all new (except for the paragraph about the UK Film Council, I copied and pasted some of that).

Two events of note have taken place in the many weeks since my last post; Little Face was completed and I went to Taiwan. But not in that order. That was the order I hoped those events would happen but Little Face (note the italics, that is because it is now an actual film and not a film-to-be) has been like the Duracell Bunny, he just keeps going and going. Or at least he did until we finally finished it just over a week ago. Even the Duracell Bunny will die eventually. Surely.

We did have some last minute comments from the UK Film Council (who funded the film) during the last week of production. They had various problems with it and had a lot of comments and suggestions. It was frustrating at first, a few of the comments we disagreed with, but some we did agree with and it made us look at the film in a new light and try to address some issues that we had been ignoring or failed to recognise before. It was good because I think we had got to a stage where we were so close to the film that it was hard to have any perspective on it. I haven't liked the film much for a while now but I've not been sure if it was because it wasn't very good or just because I was utterly sick of it. The feedback helped Ben (Lole, co-director of the film) and I take a step back and recognise the things about the film that we didn't think were working and that could be improved.

I am very pleased that Little Face is finally finished although my feelings about the film itself are mixed; I am somewhere between completely hating it and not liking it very much. I have been too close to it for too long and am very much sick of it so hopefully my opinion is not an accurate reflection of its qualities. People who have seen it so far seem to have liked it but its going to be at least two years before I can watch the film with sufficient distance to decide if they were being truthful or just polite. Chris Grimes, the voice of Little Face (no italics here as I am referring to Little Face the character not Little Face the film title, I don't know why I have explained this in brackets or even made that distinction), said he really enjoyed it so I was really pleased about that. Adam Buxton, who played Nathan, has not seen it yet so he does not know what he thinks of it.

Regardless of whether the film is any good, Ben and I are pleased with what we achieved. It was a good experience that we learnt a lot from. I look forward to making a live-action film that doesn't involve the added head-ache of trying to incorporate an animated character with out any prior technical experience. On the subject though, I think the compositor Jon Biggins, did an excellent job of making Little Face look as convincing as possible next to Adam Buxton, who was very convincing.

I will post a clip and some publicity photos when we can bring ourselves to do the work necessary to make that possible. It has been nice spending a week doing things that have nothing to do with Little Face. It has been a year since the film was commissioned and it is strange that "How is Little Face?" is no longer a very valid question.

Now for that other event; Taiwan. That was much more fun then Little Face and I only allowed the fact that Little Face was not finished worry me a little bit. I went to Taiwan for the Golden Horse International Film Festival in Taipei. John and Karen was nominated in the Animation Shorts competition. The festival is primarily feature films and lasts 10 days, the animation competition took place over 2 days in the middle of the festival. I was there for 8 days altogether and I had a really good time. I did not want to return (and not just because Little Face was waiting for me). I loved Taipei, especially the night markets. The food was really cheap and really good, I don't think many people cook in Taiwan. They all eat out.

I hope I can go again sometime. The more time I spend outside of the UK the more boring I find the UK. If I was a politician or a celebrity I would probably have to apologise for that comment but I mean it. I'll take night markets over Joe Kebab any time.


Karen was on the other side and she was also to scale!


Probably a restaurant.


The traffic in Taipei consists of mopeds, taxi's and other.


Shilin night market!

the medium non-permenant green Stabilo marker

Two and a half weeks of animation left on Little Face. Progress has been made but a disturbing development has developed. My green pen, the one that I use to colour in the boxes on the route sheet, is running out.

The deep rich green of previous boxes is slowly becoming pale and unsubstantial. What was once a beautiful block of colour is now becoming an uneven gradient. Rather then one smooth satisfying scribble to fill a box a now have to apply pressure and move the pen slowly and deliberately to make a mark. Sometimes I have to make two or even three passes to achieve a suitably visible shade of green.

I fear that after only a few more boxes the pen will be making marks barely visible to my already short sighted eyes, particularly in the low light conditions of the long evenings ahead of me. I may end up having to make so many passes that I will be spending more time colouring in boxes then I will be animating which in turn gives me fewer boxes to colour in which will create a reductive cycle that eventually leaves me colouring in a single box forever. Not only is it counter-productive it also means I have to re-assess my continued use of the pen. This is unfortunate as the pen, a medium non-permanent green Stabilo marker, saw me through the entirety of my previous film Operator and has made it through the majority of Little Face. I have become quite attached to the pen and, with only a scene and a bit to go, it is sad that it looks like it is not going to make it until the end of the film. This is largely my fault for making a film with so many shots and using an already well-used pen to fill in the boxes.

A natural solution would be to discard (or at least put away) the green pen and use another working pen that I have to hand to colour in the remaining boxes. This is of course a ridiculous solution. To use another random pen will ruin the consistency, symbiosis and psychological constant that the green pen and the coloured-in boxes provided me. I have not been creating a patchwork. I have been creating a solid bar of beautiful green colour that represents my progress through the film, much like the red bar that will show viewers their progress through the film when they watch it on YouTube (although at 12 minutes I don't think it will fit on YouTube). The bar must be maintained and nurtured through to the end, otherwise it will just be like the point at which the viewer clicks the back button when they realise the film is 12 minutes long. The bar can not change now.

I have only one course of action. Tomorrow I will go to the stationary shop down the road and buy a new medium non-permanent green Stabilo marker. If they do not have any medium non-permanent green Stabilo markers I will go to the stationary shop up the road and buy a medium non-permanent green Stabilo marker. If they don't have a medium non-permanent green Stabilo marker then I don't know what I will do, but I will do something.

little face catch up

I am currently deep in to production on a new short film entitled Little Face. It is being produced by Calling the Shots for Southwest Screen and the British Film Council as part of the Digital Shorts scheme. It is about a man who has a chance encounter with his imaginary friend from his childhood and they spend an afternoon becoming re-acquainted.

It is my first live action film, although I haven't strayed too far from my comfort zone as Little Face is being achieved with the magic of animation. The shoot was completed in June and since then I have been mostly busy animating Little Face and struggling with the complicated nature of believably compositing a yellow blob in to a live action environment. Fortunately I have some good help with the compositing, unfortunately I do not have any help with the animation so time is running out and there is still quite a lot to do.

I was intending to post some Little Face stuff on a blog but never quite got round to it so I am now going to post some Little Face stuff on this blog in a retrospective manner. I figure a good place to start is near the beginning so here are the original images that I created for the pitch to Southwest Screen. I used my flatmate and co-worker Felix Massie as a stand in for the character of Nathan (eventually to be played by Adam Buxton who is a better actor then Felix Massie and is on the radio and TV and I have never heard Felix Massie on the radio or seen him on TV but I look forward to when I do).




As part of the pitch I also made the following storyboard for a scene that didn't make it in to the final film...

That was the pitch. It all seemed so simple back then. 'How hard can a film about a yellow blob on legs be?' I thought. Turns out it's quite hard.