Pre-Production
Sherrington:
Our first Film and Animation project for Foundation involved creating characters and a story based on objects from the Science Museum and British Museum. I chose a reflex cat model and the Gayer-Anderson cat, and envisioned a situation in which the two would interact. Sherrington, the central character, is based on the reflex model cat, and finds family with a group of stray cats (like the ones that lived at the British Museum in the 70's and 80's).
1666:
My final film was based broadly on the Great Fire of London, but specifically on the story of Paul Lowell - an 80 year old watchmaker who was one of the victims of the fire. In the 'Rege Sincera' account of the fire, they describe how Paul's son tried to save him but Paul was reluctant to leave, and that inspired the story of this film.
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo:
Another Foundation project involved adapting an existing story, and I chose Haruki Murakami's short story 'Super-Frog Saves Tokyo'. The dialogue between Katagiri and Frog was the most compelling part of the story for me, so I took some sections to adapt into an animatic and focused on body language and facial expressions.
The Demon is Tired:
On the BFI Film Academy course, our group worked on a film called 'The Demon is Tired', directed by Josh Barran. We really leaned into a rubber hose style with this animation, which was really fun to play with!
Tarrare: The Iron Stomach:
Based on the showman of the same name, as well as taking inspiration from the Cabbage Patch Kids eating hair product recall, this concept was for the 'Terrible Toys' Foundation project. I wanted to make a brightly coloured and obnoxious advert that would make the product feel especially terrible.
The Ceremony:
One of the earliest Foundation projects we did, this was based on the prompt 'Ceremonial Stories'. After a trip to the Horniman Museum to look at ceremonial objects, we tried coming up with our own ceremonies. I wanted to tell a story about a world where light is a very precious and scarce resource, and I also loved the concept of fish wearing astronaut helmets and tanks filled with water, so I combined the two and got this.