Monday 3 May 2021

Roy

 It's so incredibly sad to say goodbye to my friend and colleague Roy Naisbitt, who died last week, just short of his 91st birthday.




Roy was such a huge part of The Last Belle, and there are many posts on this blog detailing his work on the film. But aside from his magnificent work on screen, he also supported me in so many ways during the making of the film. I would visit his house weekly, where he had kindly set up my video line-test equipment, doing a wonderful carpentry job in the process (readers of this blog will know that Roy trained as a carpenter in his youth). We would sit up in his studio attic, he'd put on an old jazz gramophone record (forgotten treasures salvaged from charity shops, for a pound each usually) and get to work drawing and talking and shooting line tests. It was a tremendously happy time, and an absolute privilege.



I have known Roy for 37 years, and cannot begin to say just how much I have tried to learn from him... how to approach a problem, how to do the research, how to get through an artistic 'block', when to follow rules and when to break them... endless stuff, learnt from an absolute Master.  But the best example he set us all was in keeping his good humour when the pressure was on, staying absolutely calm, and always... always... being pleasant and encouraging to the people around him. Roy loved all people, and would strike up a conversation with anyone, making no distinction between the Chairman of  a vast Hollywood company, and the person who was employed to empty the Chairman's bins. 

So it is no surprise to me that there has been such an outpouring of affection across social media, since the news broke. Roy gifted the world with his absolutely unique vision, but for those of us lucky enough to know him, he was simply the nicest and kindest man.   

Friday 8 February 2019

Kensuke's Kingdom Cast!

We can finally reveal the cast to our forthcoming movie 'Kensuke's Kingdom'...



Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and Raffey Cassidy will be bringing their amazing talents to this classic story, based upon the much-loved book by Michael Morpurgo.

You can read more about it HERE

Monday 26 November 2018

Thief Memories

I certainly wasn't expecting to end up on stage last night, at the end of the BFI screening of 'The Thief And The Cobbler: A Moment In Time'. But it was a delight to go up and be interviewed next to my two mentors Richard Williams and Roy Naisbitt - both absolute animation legends.

(Left to right) Neil Boyle, Richard Williams and Roy Naisbitt being interviewed by Justin Johnson.

It's 26 years since the film was shut down, mid-production, in London, but it was great to hear this assembly of unfinished footage still getting a lot of laughs and applause. It lives on... Bravo!

Sunday 5 August 2018

Behind The Scenes On Sherlock


The dvd release of Sherlock Gnomes includes a little piece about the hand-drawn 'Mind Palace' sequences that I designed and then brought to life with my co-animator Aude Carpentier.



Huge thanks to director John Stevenson - and all the production team - for giving us the freedom, support and expert guidance we needed to create these little sequences, dotted throughout the film. It was such a fun project, I've never had a happier experience on a movie.

The link to the clip can be found HERE!

And for other bits and bobs, there is always my WEBSITE



Saturday 24 March 2018

Sherlock Gnomes



Sherlock Gnomes has been released this weekend in the USA. I was invited to join the production last year in order to create some short hand-drawn sequences that would illustrate the inner workings of Sherlock's brain.

Working alongside two encouraging producers, Carolyn Soper and Steve Hamilton Shaw, the fabulously supportive director, John Stevenson, and the amazing vocal talents of Johnny Depp,  I designed the sequences in a black and white, pen and ink style (a small nod to the original illustrator of the Sherlock stories, Sidney Paget) and then animated them with my frequent co-animator Aude Carpentier.

It was a tremendous fun to work on this project, and I am delighted that many film reviews have singled out our little moments for praise:

"'Sherlock Gnomes' even boast a few moments of genuine inspiration. Whenever Sherlock Gnomes enters his famous 'Mind Palace', in order to sort through every piece of information he has in his enormous brain, the animation shifts to dynamic 2D black-and-white, and the film takes on a playful, buoyant energy."  WorldProNews

"One very peasant surprise was the use of 'old-school' 2D drawn animation to show the inner workings inside Sherlock's head (the end credits call it his 'mind palace'). In one sequence his Baker Street digs become an M C Escher maze of curling staircases, all rendered in a 'pen and ink' style that recalls master animator Richard Williams."  WeAreMovieGeeks 

"Depp's voice performance as the quirky Sherlock Gnomes...takes off during fantasy sequences done in a lively black-and-white line drawing animation style that illustrate his peculiar brain and way of thinking."  LATimes

"...cartoon dream sequences illustrating Sherlock's leaps of deductive logic serve to shake up the movie every now and then."  Entertainment

"...it has occasional fun ideas, such as rendering the inner workings of Holmes's mind in hand drawn black-and-white."  NYTimes

"...clever 2D black-and-white sequences."  Hollywood

"...the whole film should have been done in this style."  Letterboxd 

I feel tremendously privileged to have worked on this film alongside such a talented, and happy, crew. And it's always lovely to see London on film, particularly from the viewpoint of 8 inches off the ground, which was the average gnome-sized viewpoint of this movie!


(For more information on my various projects, go to www.neilboyle.co.uk or CLICK HERE


Thursday 23 March 2017

Gorillaz

Just released tonight - the latest Gorillaz music video!




I've had enormous fun animating on this the past few weeks, with a room full of great artists.

To watch it click HERE

To watch the 360 interactive version then CLICK HERE

Enjoy!

Sunday 22 January 2017

The Simpsons - rebooted post

Back in 2014 I wrote a blog piece about my involvement as animation director on the Sylvain Chomet-designed opening 'couch gag' for an episode of The Simpsons. Within 24 hours I was asked by the production company to remove the blog piece as they preferred to credit only the directors they represented, and not the hard working crews who toiled behind-the-scenes to bring these short films to life. Personally, I love the talents of the crews I work with, and many of these artists I've worked with again and again so that they've become a kind of 'family' to me - they're people I admire, and learn from, and who I completely trust to deliver great work when the pressure is on. Sadly the production company for this sequence recently went into liquidation, but that does mean now - finally - I can reinstate my post and once again celebrate the great work of this fantastic crew. Time for the back-room boys and girls to come back into the spotlight once again  :-)

Here's the original post:


Look kinda familiar?
Rough animation drawing of French-style Homer,
by Neil Boyle

Toward the end of 2013 Sylvain Chomet was approached to create a special one-off 'couch gag' for the opening titles of The Simpsons. To bring his ideas to life he turned to London-based production company 'th1ng', where he was then represented as a commercials director.

Once Sylvain had written a script and redesigned the Simpsons family in his distinctive style, our small crew in London set to work.


Model sheet by Sylvain Chomet

The shot was designed to work as a single, locked off master shot, with each of the characters having their own moment in the spotlight as the gag progressed. In a long shot like this I think the hardest thing to keep control of is clarity: figuring out what happens, to whom, and when. The 'blocking' of a shot should ensure that your eye is directed around the screen seemingly effortlessly, without everything descending into a confused muddle. Because the blocking needed to be so precise I decided against planning the sequence in static storyboard form and instead opted to draw up animatic drawings, full size onto 15 field paper, plotting the positioning and timing of each character on a line test machine.


Neil Boyle at work on the animatic


Getting everything roughly posed  and working harmoniously took me about a week and a half of sketching and shooting. But it was enormous fun. Figuring out the blocking is one of my favourite parts of the film making process - it's a strange combination of performance, psychology, geometry... and general plate spinning.



The animatic - plotting out out the action in pose form.


In the meantime Kirk Hendry set about creating the colour scheme for the Chomet-style Simpsons living room, as well as the overall lighting scheme: the lights going off, flickering back to life, and the ambient glow of the TV screen bathing the room in a bluish glow. He also created many moving shadow effects, and dozens of subtle optical effects to add extra texture to the shot.
   


Kirk Hendry, creating lighting and textural atmosphere...



...as well as subtly different colour temperatures for the 'feel' of the shot.

When all this work was sent off to France and the USA for approval by Sylvain Chomet and the Simpsons producers, we got to work on the animation itself. Because we had 'fenceposts' for the timing and positioning of the characters already roughly blocked out in the animatic, it was easy to split the animation between myself and fellow animator Peter Dodd, knowing we wouldn't be obscuring or overlapping each other's work.


Peter Dodd, animating Bart and Lisa locked in combat.


As I've written in many posts here, the animatic system really helps keep things on course, while still allowing a great animator like Peter to improvise with his own creative touches.



Inside the mind of a great animator: Peter Dodd's amazingly labyrinthine workings-out look like a work of art unto themselves. But the end result looks effortless.


As each piece of rough animation was completed, the team of assistant animators leaped in, either doing touch-up and inbetween on the original roughs, or a full clean-up and inbetween, depending on what was required.


Assistant animator Justine Waldie


An emaciated Santa's Little Helper - my favourite part to animate.
Animator Neil Boyle, assistant animator Justine Waldie


Assistant animator Aude Carpentier


Assistant animator Aude Carpentier assisting Peter Dodd's animation of the
goose, escaping its fois gras destiny.

It turned out we created quite a mountain of paperwork: sixty seconds worth of animation, featuring seven characters (including the snail on the TV!) all of which were scanned and painted by Donna Spencer, before being seamlessly composited and lit by Kirk.


Assistant animator Alan Henry



Assistant animator Angeline De Silva



Kirk Hendry at work compositing: at this stage only Homer, Santa's Little Helper, the goose and the foreground snail are in colour and in place.


Gerry Gallego simultaneously assisting and growing a magnificent moustache
for charity.


Assistant animator Jay Wren


Assistant animator Katerina Kremasioti


Danny Atkinson adding the final grading touches at 'th1ng'.

A really lovely job to work on - it's rare you get to create a short piece of commercial animation that is not selling something, but is produced just for its own entertainment value. 



Snail for TV dinner! 

A fantastic treat, and a wonderfully talented crew to work with. Fingers crossed another unexpected treat won't be too far away...