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'STAN'From an era before the media, marketing and publicity agents build big stars from mediocrity, Sir Stanley Matthews was a legend in his lifetime. Adored around the world, STAN was a true star who could add 10,000 fans to the gate of any game he played in. Yet there was another side to STAN that few people know about. BAFTA Award-winning animator, Tony White, is animating a tribute to the great man ~ inspired by the books of Geoff Francis and endorsed by the Sir Stanley Matthews Foundation. This is his production blog...
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March 24th, 2014.
Quick render of a scene hinted at already - although its not really the 'final', final scene - as the audio has to be added and the action edited accordingly. Nevertheless, for the benefit of our sponsors and potential sponsors, its a glimpse of one of three visual styles that will run through the film, each one depicting a different aspect of Stan's life…
March 24th, 2014.
Lots of sickness delays in the house recently, so progress has been somewhat delayed. However, I'm getting back into the saddle now and will share some new 'work in progress' here soon. In the meantime, here's a link to an interview I did with the 'Max the Mutt' school owner, Maxine Schacker…
http://maxthemutt.com/tony-white-animation-artist-shares-thoughts-us
http://maxthemutt.com/tony-white-animation-artist-shares-thoughts-us
Nice to also be endorsed by the 'Sir Stanley Matthews Foundation'…
http://sirstanleymatthews.com/news/spirit-of-the-game-movie
http://sirstanleymatthews.com/news/spirit-of-the-game-movie
March 24th, 2014.
Two great Stan quotes from the book "Black Man with a White Face", written by Geoff Francis…
"My way was to put something back into football."
"The enjoyment I got from soccer was little to do with the money."
"My way was to put something back into football."
"The enjoyment I got from soccer was little to do with the money."
March 24th, 2014.
Just some 'work-in-progress', re my previous blog posting. There's still a lot to do on this scene yet but I thought I'd share the look of the old football cigarette cards style coming to life with Stan. The audio narrative track will make more sense of all this eventually! (And please ignore glitches at the beginning of the animation - they won't be there in the final film!) :)
March 22nd, 2014.
OK, a bit of a delay on progress with the project this week due to illness! However, I'm back in the saddle now and have just created this animated background for one of the STAN 'cigarette card' scenes. Here's an uncolored test of the BG action, created from hand drawn and inked scans imported into ToonBoom Studio…
You'll notice there's a smootheness to this hand-drawn animated action. This is because I used a technique for inbetweening perspective motion that my apprenticeship teacher - the late, great, legendary Warner Brothers animator, Ken Harris - taught me way back at the beginning of my career. Here for example is an illustration of the stages involved in animating a post moving away into the distance…
Briefly…
01: Shows the action to be animated - a post in the foreground moving to a post in the distance.
02: You would think that an inbetween from near to far would be measured exactly in the middle. But it is not, due to the perspective principles involved. Therefore, to find the correct inbetween position draw a diagonal line from the top of the far post to the bottom of the near post - and then from the top of the near post to the bottom of the far post.
03: Where they intersect, that is the actual inbetween for the perspective action.
04: Then, to find the inbetween position from the near post to the mid post, do the exact same thing with diagonal to the two posts involved and place the nearer post at this intersection point.
05: Do the same for the far inbetween position - and continue to do so for as many post positions as you need. (Note: For maximum effect, this kind of animated perspecive action works best if shot on 1's!)
06: This simply demonstrates the fact that the further away the posts are animating the closer together the inbetweens will be. Realize too that this is also a good process for drawing perspective on regular fences, buildings, telegraph poles, etc. for single illustrations too!
01: Shows the action to be animated - a post in the foreground moving to a post in the distance.
02: You would think that an inbetween from near to far would be measured exactly in the middle. But it is not, due to the perspective principles involved. Therefore, to find the correct inbetween position draw a diagonal line from the top of the far post to the bottom of the near post - and then from the top of the near post to the bottom of the far post.
03: Where they intersect, that is the actual inbetween for the perspective action.
04: Then, to find the inbetween position from the near post to the mid post, do the exact same thing with diagonal to the two posts involved and place the nearer post at this intersection point.
05: Do the same for the far inbetween position - and continue to do so for as many post positions as you need. (Note: For maximum effect, this kind of animated perspecive action works best if shot on 1's!)
06: This simply demonstrates the fact that the further away the posts are animating the closer together the inbetweens will be. Realize too that this is also a good process for drawing perspective on regular fences, buildings, telegraph poles, etc. for single illustrations too!
March 13th, 2014.
I spent a couple of hours this afternoon, excitedly blocking-out STAN 'fast dribbling' a football - his back to us. There's still a long way to go with the scene yet. But ultimately, it will look like a vintage cigarette card version of him running away into the distance. It was important to get the basic blocking-in of the action working first - hence this penciltest. (I should add this comment here I think folks… Perception is all about context! Therefore, when you next see this Stan run it won't give the effect of it being so 'cartoony'. This film is not like that at all really - indeed, far from it! That said, in the scene that this action appears the narrative demands that this kind of action will work best and that's why I've animated it that way.)
March 13th, 2014.
Just got this from Facebook friend, 'Cartoonist Chris Altham'…
"Sir Stan's brother lived 8 doors along from me. Stan would pull up in a big black chauffeur driven Citroen (from memory) & would have a quick kick about & chat with the kids before he went into the house. A great ambassador for all sport. I must have been about 10 years old at the time. I didn't realise then what a massive star he was but saw a kind gentleman. Your site is really interesting & I will be sharing the pages with other Stokies. All the very best."
It made me wonder how many of our current-day sports 'megastars' would turn up in a chauffeur-driven limo and then have a quick kick-about with kids in the street. I am told that STAN's favorite poem was Rudyard Kipling's 'IF' - which he apparently tried to live by every day of his life. I am therefore reminded of a line in it… "If you can walk with kings, not lose the common touch"! :)
"Sir Stan's brother lived 8 doors along from me. Stan would pull up in a big black chauffeur driven Citroen (from memory) & would have a quick kick about & chat with the kids before he went into the house. A great ambassador for all sport. I must have been about 10 years old at the time. I didn't realise then what a massive star he was but saw a kind gentleman. Your site is really interesting & I will be sharing the pages with other Stokies. All the very best."
It made me wonder how many of our current-day sports 'megastars' would turn up in a chauffeur-driven limo and then have a quick kick-about with kids in the street. I am told that STAN's favorite poem was Rudyard Kipling's 'IF' - which he apparently tried to live by every day of his life. I am therefore reminded of a line in it… "If you can walk with kings, not lose the common touch"! :)
March 11th, 2014.
Hey, we've already got a write-up in "The Sentinel" online paper in the UK - before a scene is even animated! A good omen I wonder? :)
March 10th, 2014.
Starting to block-out specific scenes for the final animatic, in preparation for animating the film. Here STAN's ghost will be seen standing in the Stoke City FC stadium, reminiscing on days gone by.
March 7th, 2014.
Excited to finally purchase a full set of Ogdens cigarette cards depicting football player caricatures, illustrated by 'MAC'! Wonderful material for the traditional, hand-drawn animation style I intend to use in parts of 'STAN'! :)
March 4th, 2014.
Announced the winners of the 'Design STAN' character design competition I recently launched. I want young designers to get a break so I'm committed to animated the winning designs and crediting the folks who designed them in the film. I'll probably use the winner's work in the final credit sequence. 'Bravo' winners - and everyone else who took part of course!
February 14th, 2014.
Finalized the first edit of the film animatic. Got it down to about 8-minutes but its going to need more trimming if I'm going to get it all animated by February, 2015! The problem is that there's just so much rich content from Stan and his life that its hard to leave anything out! But as a director you have to 'be cruel to be kind' and I think I'll just have to be ruthless to reflect the core majesty of the man. (Leave everyone wanting more with a short film - which is exactly the effect that 'HOKUSAI' had on audiences.) I've also just re-discovered the wonderful cigarette card genre that kids all loved to collect and play with in my day. Many of the designs are quite wonderful! I do plan to bring some of them alive in the film. Here's a very early sketch of one I'm working on for the animatic...
February 5th, 2014.
Found some great Stanley Matthews interview recordings and have signed up the rights to use edited versions of them for the short. I love his voice as it is filled with the warmth and wisdom he always expressed in everything he did. Compare him to many of today's soccer 'stars'!
January 28th, 2014.
And so it begins! Today I have decided to embark on a short film tribute to the late, great Sir Stanley Matthews - to be screened on the 100th anniversary of his birth, February 2015. It will be a real tough challenge to animated a film in that time but so inspired am I by Stan's life and philosophy that it seems his centenary is too good a moment to miss. The question is how to tell the story. My gut is telling me that I should return to a similar format that I used for my first ever, BAFTA winning biopic - "HOKUSAI ~ An Animated Sketchbook".
Sir Stanley Matthews - reference gallery:
Film montage of Stan's recorded moments
Sir Stanley Matthews ~ a filmed record of an amazing career:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks about Stanley Matthews:
Desmond Tutu talks about Stanley Matthews to Geoff Francis (author of 'Stanley Matthews: Black Man with a White Face' and 'Spirit of the Game').