Creativity... on TV?

Watching TV back in Blighty, I used to feel that besides the odd BBC or Channel Four drama / documentary, the best thing about TV was the adverts (commercials).

Such creativity, imagination and often humour, goes into commercials. I'm not necessarily inspired to go out and buy the product advertised, but I am inspired by the concise and often magical little bit of storytelling that they are.

Today I decided to share a few favourites on this blog. The first few examples are British, followed by two American examples (I don't see enough US TV to have great American examples to hand - but if you can think of something fabulous that I've missed then leave a comment!)

As for what I've been doing lately... I have had to create a number of absolutely tiny fairy shoes for a commissioned project... snapshot of this below. ;)

Lloyds TSB bank commercial (UK). Made by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

John Lewis commercial (UK). Made by Adam & Eve /DDB and OMD Manning Gottlieb (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

Watch the behind-the-scene making of here.

Bacardi Metz commercial (UK). Made by HHCL (London).

My personal favourite. Filmed in Budapest using a hand-cranked Arri camera and inspired by German Expressionist cinema and Grimm fairytales.

W H Samuel commercial (UK). Made by St. Lukes (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

Marks & Spencer commercial (UK). Made by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

National Lottery commercial (UK). Made by Studio AKA (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

Guinness commercial (UK). Made by AMVBBDO (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

Cadbury's Dairy Milk commercial (UK). Made by Fallon (London).

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.







And now a couple of American examples of beautiful, creative commercials. The first is one I love for the production design. It was filmed in a real forest in Washington state, and the fairytale characters are CG. The second example below is a behind-the-scenes image from a commercial made by New Deal Studios using miniatures and miniature model sets in 1:24 scale. Naturally this is going to appeal to me!

Fed Ex commercial (USA). Made by BBDO (New York).

Learn about the making-of here.

Click the thumbnail to open the video in a new window.

DirecTV commercial (USA). Made by New Deal Studios (California).

Click the thumbnail to zoom in on the image, or visit the New Deal Studios website to learn about this commercial.

Close to the Edge

If anyone who reads this blog loves progressive rock as much as I do, you'll appreciate how chuffed I was to spend last night at the Greek (brilliant open-air theatre built in 1930 in Griffith Park - within walking distance of my house), watching Yes perform. I used to listen to Yes constantly throughout my teens and through university. The performance was just fantastic. (If you don't know Yes then I insist you listen to this (YouTube video)

The album art for Yes is wonderful - created by artist Roger Dean - his website is here. The image on the left is from the album 'Keys to Ascension'.

Photo below is one I took at the Greek of Yes performing.

The previous night was my talented artist friend Nico Marlet's birthday party (I've shown some of his artwork on this blog in a past post here), so I made him a miniature birthday cake with candles of about 1 mm in diameter and 5 mm in height. 

It was the least I could since he had recently drawn me meeting one of his famous dragons! Scroll past the photos of the miniature cake to see it, click to enlarge. I adore this drawing of me because he had been looking through some of my past miniature work and liked my crows, pumpkins and snails, so he put them in the drawing! He even got my signature 'humbug' dress in there...

Trained Dragons - from France

I've never been a girl to underappreciate a dragon. When 'How to Train your Dragon' was released by Dreamworks in 2010, guess who was first in line to see it? It was of particular interest to me as well because my book 'The Hidden World' has a chapter on dragon rearing! The writing was second to none, the performances great, but it was the character design and visuals that made this film such a stand-out success. Imagine my delight in meeting the lead concept artist behind the film's success - Nico Marlet - just three and a half years later. Turns out we are neighbours - living in the same part of Hollywood.

That's what this little blog post is about. I've been so busy lately (I had to fly back to England only two weeks after I last left, to attend to an urgent matter), so my own creative progress has been rather abysmal of late. I like to keep this blog active, and since I have spent so much time in the company of talented and wonderful Dreamworks artists, mostly Nico Marlet, I wanted to give his work an unneeded 'shout out' (as they say here).

Toulouse-born French artist Nico creates the most incredible and unique characters. He's responsible for Po of 'Kung Fu Panda' (2008), various monsters of 'Monsters Inc' (2001) and 'Monsters University' (2013), the characters of 'How to Train your Dragon' (2010) and the just out 'How to Train your Dragon 2' (2014).

If you enjoyed the first 'How to Train your Dragon' then the sequel is not something you want to miss - go and see it now whilst you're able to see it in theatres in 3D. There are more glorious and colourful dragons which can only have sprung from the imagination of this crazy Frenchman, another interesting and tough female character and emotional twists you wont expect.

This is my fabulous signed dragon print, given to me the other day by Nico. Below are some of his sketches and the last photo shows his sketchbook which is filled with his wonderful drawings which he does in his own time (not commercial artwork).

You can buy a copy at Amazon here.

Funnily enough Nico Marlet doesn't have a website or blog up, but he's mentioned that he's going to have one created in the near future. I'll include his link as soon as he does. Until then you can enjoy his work by watching the mentioned Dreamworks films, the short film 'French Roast' and by buying his 'Sketchbook' as mentioned. It's inspiring stuff! ;)

Size Matters

When people see my work as a miniaturist or discover that I recreate / design worlds in scale miniature for a living, the assumption is often that I "must love tiny things". That's not strictly true. For me it's an interest in scale - seeing ordinary things in a size you wouldn't expect to see it (large or small) and perhaps above all, I work in miniature in order to have complete control over an environment I create.

I haven't blogged for a bit as I've been preoccupied (celebrating my birthday on a Vegas - Sedona - Grand Canyon road-trip) and completing a miniature viennoiserie / bakery project. So I thought I'd say a few words now about scale...

An artist I admire who likes to play with size to make an impact is Ron Mueck. He creates 'hyperreal' sculptures of people in different scales, sometimes 2/3 life-size and often giant-sized.

In this interview here, he explains that he doesn't make life-size figures because it doesn't interest him, as "we meet life-size people every day" and that seeing an irregular sized representation of a person "makes you take notice in a way you wouldn't do with something that's just normal".

Once you discover his work you won't be able to take your eyes off these sculptures - they're completely captivating. Of course, I already knew and loved him from his work on 'The Labyrinth'...

But what about miniatures? What's the appeal?
And what's the point in using them today in filmmaking?

From the moment Georges Méliès created a miniature capsule to be propelled into the eye of the moon in 'Le Voyage dans la Lune', the possibilities of what could be accomplished on film using miniatures were endless.
How else could you have a spaceship soar through space, King Kong climb a building or vast fantastical castles on screen? You've all seen miniatures in film without knowing that was what you were looking at. (There's a fun list of popular films which used miniature fabrications here).
The 1990s saw a turning point when computer effects become good enough to replace miniatures for the most part. Since then miniatures are sometimes still used - often in instances requiring physical interaction with fire, explosions and water.

So today there isn't really a huge need to use miniatures in film. But I think that might be part of the appeal. When you look at the painstaking work that has gone into hand-making every character, set, prop and scenery in films such as Tim Burton's 'Frankenweenie', 'Corpse Bride', 'Nightmare Before Christmas', Nick Park's 'Wallace and Gromit' films, Laika's 'Paranorman' and now the eagerly awaited 'Boxtrolls'; it's these miniature hand-crafted worlds that the audience wants to be immersed in.

This image shows a hand place a miniature prop in place for a scene in 'Boxtrolls' (2014). The scale is 1:9.

The very nature of the 'Boxtrolls' theatrical trailer confirms that appeal, as we watch human hands sketch, sculpt and arrange the miniatures that make up the film.
Another example of the mass appeal of hands-on miniature storytelling, was the John Lewis Christmas 2013 advert, which had people Googling the 'making of' and watching the behind the scenes process (here).

These are photos of my recent project mentioned above. The scale is 1:12.
Boy, I can't wait to stop working on projects like this and begin working full-time on my own miniature short!

Since we're talking about scale, I'll leave you with a photo taken on my recent birthday trip of me on a giant chess set looking like a miniature!