My current animation show-reel can be found here.
My current storyboard show-reel can be found here.
More samples of my work can be found at the production blog for my short film Sound Holds the Distance Travelled here.
Show Reels
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Sound Holds the Distance Travelled
Sound Holds the Distance Travelled
‘The Melancholic Wife loved to dance…..she danced to cope with the dark and troubled thoughts that lived in her mind’. Take a journey through the inner world of the Melancholic Wife as she struggles against the manifestations of her own personal darkness. Adapted from an original short comic story, this film attempts to convey the everyday, personal glory we carry through the unromantic walls of our real lives. And portray the power of self expression as a means to thrive, grow and survive.
Directed and Animated by Gareth Gowran
Adapted by Sadhbh Lawlor and Gareth Gowran
From the original comic Splitting Borders presents ‘The Melancholic Wife and her Perpetrating Husband Episode 5’
Narration by Barry Barnes
Sound Design by Tony Kiernan at Moynihan Russell
Technical Specifications
Year of Production 2018
Format 1920 x 1080 HD
Black and White
Duration 03:24
Language English Narration
Produced in Ireland
Trailer coming soon!
A production process blog can be found here.
Sound Holds the Distance Travelled began production as part of the BA(Hons) Animation course at Colaiste Dhulaigh, Ireland in conjunction with The University of Wolverhampton, UK.
Animation Production Diary – Let there be light
Scene Twenty-Seven pencil test without and with background.
Sometimes I think I don’t like myself. A short walk cycle? Okay. Turning on a light switch? Okay. All from a birds-eye view? Sheesh. Capturing the angle was very challenging, the original pencils were close but felt slightly off so I needed to transform the frames digitally with skew and perspective.
But it felt right, having a distance at the end, we have observed and we must not forget that we are observers of an autonomous life. The Melancholic Wife is in her power, she does not need us.
I asked Sadhbh to make two versions of the background, one with the light turned on, one without. There is a prop to be added as well, a notebook and pen that sit on the table. A gentle zoom into the Melancholic Wife and the notebook will be added in tandem with a fade up to white. Also shadows, I do think I have something against myself!
Scene Twenty-Seven digital inks without and with background.
Animation Production Diary – Of magic dust and doors
Having reached apotheosis through a conquering of the dark the Melancholic Wife is ready to return to the ‘unromantic walls of her real life’. But first she’ll need a doorway and one dutifully manifests from the dissipating energies of her embracing and dancing with the light. The main task of these two scenes was an exercise in special effects animation. The light effects that create the door and the few small sparkles that enter through it in the following scene were all animated directly in Photoshop, no pencilling involved this time. The animation of the door itself appearing will be done using masks in After Effects as will the animation of the door opening, using the corner pin tool.
Scene Twenty-Three digital inks.
Scene Twenty-Four digital inks and pencil shaded background.
The rendering of the background of Scene Twenty-Four was created by Sadhbh Lawlor over an A3 printed copy of the original inks. Sadhbh has a very strong ability in achieving tonal depth with pencilling and I wanted to pursue this style to create a strong contrast with the simple backgrounds of the dream space. The shading also mirrors the shading of the claws which grab the Melancholic Wife, indicating that though they are imagined, they draw their strength from real experiences.
Animation Production Diary – Grace and Poise
The Melancholic Wife has drawn the white light to herself with the aid of her ghost and now comes the first moment of exploration and play. She perceives the boundaries of her form in a new way, we see her twisting her hand, feeling the glow that surrounds her and its flow through the space she inhabits. We follow the arc of her rising hand until it meets its twin. There the gathering energy pushes them apart and she has to find the determination to control the power within her.
Pencil test.
Final inks.
This scene was heavily influenced by the desire to capture graceful balletic movement, and in part inspired by early reference like the short film Ballet Rotoscope by Masahiko Sato and Euphrates.
Professional Development – Skills Audit and SWOT Analysis
The Skills Audit and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis represented another opportunity to utilise the visual identity elements created for the logo and business card. Fot the Skills Audit I decided on going with the pencil motif as a straight comparison to a bar graph. For me it also evokes that sense of pencils falling out of a box. I broke the audit down onto technical / software skills and soft skills gleaned and developed through my years of different creative employment. For the skills that defy a rating scale I included them at the bottom as scribbles to help convey the sometimes informal nature of these elements.
For the SWOT I thought of the pen motif and the line coming off as branches into each element of the analysis, vibrant green for strengths, brown for weaknesses, buds for opportunities and thorns for threats. What became clear is that my experience is a tremendous asset to me in terms of creative confidence but that my lack of particular experience in the animation field will be something to stay aware of, especially around technical know how considerations.
Animation Production Diary – Slow it down Scene Eighteen
Scene Eighteen represents something of a breath. There are a sequence of cuts before it between short scenes communicating lots of information and the scenes after it rise up again towards the crescendo of the final dance. So it’s a chance to breath, take a metaphorical pause and have a slow moment to contrast with the quick. The Melancholic Wife’s arms raise steadily, opening up to her power, opening up to the audience.
Pencil test alongside digital inks.
Animation placed in background. Further animation on the background including the spotlight drawing in, focusing on MW and emanating in a glow around her and a ghost clip will be added in compositing.
Professional Development – Business Card
The finalised designs for the front and back of my business card. The front is my logo without the font elements communicating something of my personality. the back holds the information matter and I decided to go for a very strong graphic approach as a contrast to the illustrative dominance of the front. This is an attempt to convey something of the breadth of my experience. I also felt strongly about including the drawing utensils of pen and pencils in some way to give a nod to the fact that I still use these tools as part of my process on a daily basis.
Animation Production Diary – What’s the collective noun for a group of ghosts?
The ghosts, as I call them, first appear in scene seven to correspond with the line; ‘…when she thought about the teenager she had been’. They represent an attempt to express a younger possible self, the adult looking back at herself with compassion, and as such a gateway to possible contentment. One of the ghosts will join the Melancholic Wife in the darkness in scene eleven as a symbol of the connection to this gateway out of the blackness so it felt important to keep them feeling light and unburdened by the weight of gravity. They needed to be instilled with a sense of carefree joy to contest the heavy, laden aspect of the dark thoughts.
My first ghost pencil test with subsequent digital inks.
A second spinning ghost, the pencil test for this was drawn as thumbnails in an A5 notebook as seen below with the next ghost.
An example of the pencil thumbnails for the ghosts along with an inked test of a ghost rising with a slight turn then settling.
All of these ghosts were combined for scene seven with the timings shifted slightly on the same actions to differentiate, the ghost rising animation was re-used the most because of it’s various, differing actions and longer length.
The finished scene with layers of ghosts added in. I changed the opacity on a downward scale from the front to the back of the scene.
Gary Gowran 