Tapocketa at the Creative Enterprise Gala

Eleanor with fellow Female Founder cohorts Kath Shackleton, Natasha Hawthornthwaite and Alixe Lobato

Eleanor and I had the chance to venture outside our studio and travel to Birmingham (a first for me) to attend the Creative Enterprise Gala.

Creative Enterprise funds our research and development project The Locksmith, a story-led augmented reality experience utilising our distinct animation style. They allocate funds from the British Film Institute and the National Lottery for screen based innovative storytelling.

Creative Enterprise have been funding innovation in screen-based storytelling for five years and decided to celebrate their huge achievements over that time at the Grand Hotel ballroom in Birmingham.

Eleanor and I got the chance to catch up with other supported businesses and share our experiences, which is a big part of the support that CE gives.

Starting up as a creative micro-indie company can feel a bit of a lonely endeavour sometimes especially when you are making inroads into an unfamiliar industry, so the chance to consult with those who are either going through, or have gone through, a similar experience is invaluable.

I’ll leave you with this shot of me obscured by a candelabra…

We all thought it best that I be obscured by the table decorations

School Results

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Eleanor and Trevor losing whatever remaining dignity they ever had

There is no hiding anymore, time to step into the spotlight and sink or swim.

A collection of harsh little critics file into the school hall and sit down and deliver their finest harsh critic gazes towards us. This is just the first of seven sessions presenting our book to the children of Commonswood Primary School.

Now, something we had created from scratch, will be laid out for children to see, and critique.  We came armed with big colourful images and big colourful masks. I would narrate and Eleanor was to act out all the characters.

Eleanor slapped a cardboard crown on the front of my Velcro'd head and we were away.  There followed a slightly awkward, ad-hoc rendition of the book., with the children helping us by providing the sound effects such as fanfares, sword-swishing and booing (now, hold on there -we had asked them to boo, it was part of the story, honest!).  We'd given ourselves a lot of mask-swapping and prop manipulation and it was quite a challenge.

Making it in the world of kid's lit takes nerves of steel

I can't claim that our first performance was a finely polished masterpiece, but we had given it our best shot.  This was our first time after all.  I was happy we had made it through.

Then we showed them the trailer and explained how we created some of the characters from bits of card and showed them some of our models.  Then we answered some of their questions (thankfully no 'why are you here?'), handed out activity sheets/feedback sheets (more about those in future blogs) and they filed out to make way for the next class.  This was exhausting and we had only done one.  Six more to go.

However, as we went from performance to performance throughout the day, we got better and started to realise where to put our focus, involving the children more and spending more time showing them the models and the process.

A few of the children had their photo taken wearing the masks and holding the props and they loved it.

A couple of masked heroes

In a future blog I will detail more of what we learnt and the feedback we got.  Safe to say it was a very valuable experience and I'm glad we stepped out of our comfort zone to do it.

Discerning Palettes

Our initial palette choice

When we started Galdo's Gift we knew that we had to be strict over the colour choices we made.

All to often, if the decision over what colour palette to use is ignored, the resulting imagery can lack coherence.  We decided early on that we would choose a few images (in our case illustrations) which contained colour combinations we liked and thought would compliment our style. 

That is what you see in the photo above; the three images we picked.  They had some beautiful muted tones and fitted with the colour palettes we had noticed in folk art and the Victorian paper theatres that also inform our work.

Scanning these images into the computer and constructing a project palette within all our graphic software meant we could remain consistent across all the imagery we produced.

Of course rules are there to be broken, so yes, we have strayed in our colour choices from time to time, but we always have the original palette choice to bring us back in line.

Animated, Like Clockwork

Do the squirrel rock

Mesmerising isn't it?  There's something so relaxing about watching a squirrel chomping away over and over again, forever.  

This is just one of the many critters that inhabits Galdovia and many of them lead very repetitive lives, but they don't mind.  They find something comforting in the familiar, even if it is familiar frequently as in the case of old 'scoff chops' here.

If he reminds you of an old Christmas nutcracker toy soldier, then top marks to you.  For those of you dribbling and scratching your head in bemusement, a diagram is in order....

Essentially a wooden toy for cracking walnuts shells and releasing the tasteless walnutty goodness within.

As good a starting inspiration as any, no?