Loomie App is live

Excited to see the Loomie App get launched recently!  I had a hand in helping with this project and it was great fun to work with my ol' supervisor from DreamWorks Mahesh (along with a great crew of people). The app is available on Google Play the apple App Store and can be added to networking platforms like Slack!

Check out all the cool avatar projects in the works at Loom.ai

Full Racing Legends Ride Video

You can now check out the full Racing Legends ride video from Tau Films.  Really fun getting to see the final rendered result! I helped out with the cars/cameras for the opening sequence, the ride around Rome, and the final Future Track.

Eric Miller Animation 5 Years

Today marks Eric Miller Animation Studios 5th anniversary. It was very nice to see my name included in the social media posts. It's also fun to see this pose of Bink that I created several years ago pop up again! 

Eric's company was one of my first big freelance gigs after leaving DreamWorks, and was one of the most satisfying projects I've done. It also gave me confidence that I could be successful and enjoy this new teaching/freelancing life I had chose. I can't wait to see what Eric accomplishes in the next 5 years...

Orlando Film Commission

Ran across this on Twitter today. The Orlando Film Commission tweeted about the Dart Frog animation we helped out with awhile back. Fun to run across a familiar face!

Highway Rat at Annecy

The Highway Rat is screening at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this year - and has been nominated in the TV Films category!  Congrats to the whole Triggerfish crew who put together some amazing animation.

Updated Reel

Summer break is always a good time to update the ol' animation reel.  It includes new shots from The Highway Rat, Planet Blue, and Racing Legends.  Check it out!

Bink Storyboards

Eric Miller posted the original storyboards for Bink on his YouTube channel.  It's a fun chance to see behind the scenes and see what we start with as animators.

Orlando Mayor Talks Wizard The Frog

Here's a video from the local Fox News 35 interviewing Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer about voicing the blue dart frog in Planet Blue.

Highway Rat Wins At NYCIFF

The Highway Rat just won the Audience Award (age 3-6) at the New York International Children's Film Festival.   It was also it's North American premier.  Congrats to Jeroen Jaspaert and everyone at Triggerfish!

Here's the final animation of Wizard the Frog for Planet Blue.  Lots of fun animating this little guy. 

You can also see Wizard as part of the extended trailer at https://vimeo.com/259407570

You can learn more about the Planet Blue series at the Arrow Sky Media site:  https://www.goplanetblue.com/

Frog Ref

I always tell my students that animation is reference, reference, reference.  Well, putting my money where my mouth is I took the two boys down to the Nashville Zoo for the day.  We love the zoo and go often, but this time we spent an extra long time in the "Unseen New World" exhibit so Daddy could watch and record the poison dart frogs.  These are quick and tiny little buggers.

New Trailer Gig

Heather and I have a new gig we're both working on!  We'll be working with this blue poison dart frog that's part of a series of trailers they've done for Planet Blue - a pilot series about the environment. It's a partnership between  Arrow Sky Media and Magnetic Dreams. We're both excited to work with Magnetic Dreams, and got to catch up with several former co-workers from DreamWorks Animation and Rhythm & Hues Studios when we had our meeting at their studio.

Highway Rat Shots!

Here's my shots from The Highway Rat!  Enjoy!

Highway Rat Credits

It was a nice surprise to see that I was in the credits for The Highway Rat!  All of us who came in for the last month got credit - which is very cool of Triggerfish to include us with everyone who worked so hard for the past year.

I finally got to see the final film - and it was really adorable and looked amazing.  I'm hoping to post my shots soon.

Merry Christmas & "The Highway Rat" Premier

It's Christmas time once again!  It seems that animation is a natural fit into family holiday traditions.  Most of us have fond memories as kids watching the Charlie Brown Christmas or the Rankin/Bass stop-motion specials (personally, I'll always have a spot for A Garfield Christmas and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street).  There's nothing like cuddling down on the couch after a big holiday morning and relaxing with family & friends watching the Christmas shows on TV.  Well, I'm excited to have had a small part in crafting a new holiday special.

With any luck you might be able to stream The Highway Rat on the BBC One site after it premiers. It may depend on what side of the pond you live on.  Check out the link HERE

Here's to a busy and eventful 2017.  May 2018 be as eventful, but maybe a little less busy...

First Clip from Highway Rat

Here's a first clip posted by the BBC!  Can't wait to see this (although, for those of us in the US, we might have to wait until a Netflix debut next year...)

BBC One Christmas Promo

The first few clips of The Highway Rat show up here.  I had to laugh watching the promo, because they are also airing Home which I worked on and Big Hero 6 that my wife worked on.  About a third of the BBC Christmas movies have someone from the Raymond household involved :)

First Highway Rat Review

The List has the first review for The Highway Rat, and they gave it a 4 out of 5.  They said that "if you've got kids this is the perfect cute and cosy addition to the Christmas TV schedules."  Just two weeks until it'll premier on BBC-One.  Another quote from the article:

You can tell The Highway Rat is made with love by Magic Light Pictures. The vocal talent is exceptional, with Rob Brydon narrating, David Tennent as the eponymous rat, and Nina Sosanya as the Duck, even bit parts are filled by actors of the stature of Tom Hollander and Frances de le Tour. The animation is big and chunky bringing Axel Scheffler's illustrations to vivid primary coloured life.

Bink at CTNx This Year

 

While I'm unfortunately unable to attend CTNx this year, it's fun to see that Bink and Eric Miller Animation are going to be there in booth form!  Pretty fun to see the 3 foot cutout of Bink from one of the promo poses I did :)  Hope they have a great time at the conference!

Highway Rat Press Begins

The initial press screening (along with the original book authors) took place this week.  It looks like we'll be seeing a lot of press and some new images coming out soon - like this one from RadioTimes