random tandem

Rennie Happy Tummies

2012-02-13T14:00:00.003Z

Our new TV commercial for Rennie has just aired on UK television today! Rennie 'Happy Tummies' is a charming hand-drawn animation from TANDEM director Jeroen Jaspaert for agency JWT.

Jeroen (and his small team) hand-drew the animation into Adobe Flash using our fancy new Wacom Cintiq tablet/screen devices.

Simon Draws : Simon

2012-02-13T12:46:00.002Z

In the sixth episode of Simon Draws, we show the talented Simon Tofield drawing a self-portrait... with cat.

simon draws: rabbits

2012-01-11T23:59:00.000Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR...
In this fifth episode of the ongoing web series Simon Draws, Simon Tofield draws some very cute rabbits!

police 101 film is now at large

2011-12-14T17:49:00.001Z

The 101 Non-emergency number public information film we made for The UK Home Office (agency M&C Saatchi) is now showing up all over the web as the UK regional police forces all seem to have their own YouTube channels these days.

TANDEM director Chris Gavin shot the film almost entirely as still photos which were then 'stitched together' using some smart compositing techniques to add depth and movement to the piece.

Simon Draws: The Dog

2011-12-09T17:30:00.001Z

In this short film from the webisodic Simon Draws series, Simon Tofield shows us how he draws The Dog.

dave daniels live in madrid

2011-12-05T01:52:00.003Z

TANDEM director David Daniels was recently invited to Madrid for the Punto y Raya (Dots and Lines) Festival; a special event celebrating the best in abstract film-making. Dave gave an illustrated lecture about his commercial and personal animation/design work. His talk was recorded and an excerpt of this has just appeared on Vimeo. (see above.)

Simon Draws : The Hedgehog

2011-12-02T18:23:00.002Z

Here's the third video in the new Simon Draws series. This time, Simon Tofield shows us how he draws his Hedgehog characters.

Simon Draws : The Kitten

2011-11-27T21:06:00.001Z

Here's another Simon Draws video we've put together. This time Simon Tofield shows how he draws the new (and very adorable) character from his Simon's Cat films and books... The Kitten.

Simon Draws : Simon's Cat

2011-11-20T21:44:00.002Z

Here's a lovely short film showing how Simon Tofield draws Simon's Cat.

Heinz Pasta Pouches

2011-11-01T15:16:00.013Z

TANDEM has created a new television commercial for Heinz Pasta Pouches, through advertising agency AMV BBDO London. The 30” spot was directed by Daniel Greaves. You can see the film here.

chris's home movies in smash hit music promo

2011-10-30T21:36:00.003Z

Greetings pop-pickers... riding high in the UK top 40 hit parade at the moment is this song Video Games from US artist Lana Del Rey. (Embedded here from the artist's official YouTube upload is the promo video.)

Fans of TANDEM will probably have spotted already that some of the fragmentary 'old movie' footage used in this music promo has been sourced from TANDEM director Chris Gavin's super8 cine films. You can see Chris's 2008 home movie California08 here. See if you can spot the clips that have been used.

simon's cat on the big screen

2011-10-21T18:51:00.011+01:00

Two weeks ago, Simon Tofield celebrated the launch of his third Simon's Cat book Kitten Chaos with a special event held at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. The event was also the world premiere of Simon's new film Double Trouble.

It was great to see the Simon's Cat films on the big screen at last and we put together this short film for Canongate Books (above) to mark the occasion.

david daniels retrospective, madrid, november 2011

2011-10-11T12:51:00.004+01:00

David Daniels will be showing examples of his abstract music based films at the 'punto y raya' festival in Madrid on the 5th of November. For more information go to:

http://www.puntoyrayafestival.com/retrospectiva_daniels_eng.php

tulip 5

2011-10-11T11:42:00.002+01:00

Number 5 in a series of 8 abstract films created by David Daniels responding to the music of Dustin O'Halloran. Work created with printed wooden blocks of varying geometric shapes.

Police 101

2011-10-01T15:20:00.021+01:00

At TANDEM we were recently invited by agency M&C Saatchi to make an on-line public information film for the UK Home Office.

The public are being asked to call the new number 101 to contact the police for non-emergency issues that don't warrant a full 999 response.

TANDEM director Chris Gavin decided on a visual styling composed almost entirely from a visual collage of stills photography followed by some considerable effects compostiting to add movement and bring the whole thing together.

The film has been placed on YouTube already on the Devon and Cornwall Police, so we've embedded the link here for you to see...

TANDEM sign three new directors

2011-09-26T16:28:00.001+01:00

After a busy summer, TANDEM is happy to announce the signing of three new directors - End of the Pier Films, The Neighbourhood and Caroline Attia.

End of the Pier is a director duo consisting of Andy Kaiser and Cadi Catlow. They both started off specializing in stop-motion animation and have gradually begun to combine various animation techniques in their work. Clients include Dulux, Celebrity Death Match and CBBC.

The Neighbourhood is an award winning, design-led animation company that employ various techniques including high-end CGI to make incredible work for many clients including Heston Blumenthal and Sony.

Caroline Attia is a talented designer, illustrator and director with a beautiful, illustrative style. Most recently, she designed and directed the music video Elevator Operator by American singer/songwriter, Jim Bianco.

Animatti animation workshops 2011

2011-09-15T16:26:00.004+01:00

TANDEM's Chris Gavin will be running animation workshops at this year's Animatti event in Alghero Sardinia and giving an talk one evening too. Highlights from last year's event can be seen here...

Canongate 'The Canons'

2011-08-31T16:29:00.008+01:00

Publishing firm Canongate has launched 'The Canons'; a newly-minted edition of twelve of the finest and most-loved titles from the Canongate list. The chosen books represent a dazzling variety of authors and stories, each and every title an acknowledged classic.

Canongate asked TANDEM to make a short on-line movie to showcase some of the titles and announce the new range to the book-loving public.

Here is the short animated film we made to launch 'The Canons'...

NEWS June 2011

2011-06-08T14:55:00.009+01:00

Fans of Simon's Cat (and there are more and more by the day!) will like to see the splendid new website over at www.simonscat.com
The all-new site is a portal for all things Simon's Cat; a platform for Simon Tofield's sketches and musings, yet also a thriving community space for cat-lovers too.

crash bang wallow (reloaded)

2011-06-07T11:32:00.002+01:00

Here's another chance to see Jon Dunleavy's short film 'Crash Bang Wallow'. Since May last year, this short has pulled-in around 320,000 YouTube hits. The film won top prize at the 6th NFB (National Film Board of Canada) / Cannes on-line film competition.

best of animation 5

2011-06-07T08:27:00.004+01:00

The new 'Best of Animation 5' DVD has now hit the shelves. The compilation is put together by the good people of the Stuttgart Animation Festival and includes their pick of ten films from the 2010 edition. There are many fine world-class short films to be seen here including our very own TXT ISLAND!

'A Family Portrait' dir. Joseph Pierce
'Horn Dog' dir. Bill Plympton
'La dama y la muerte' dir. Javier Recio Gracia
'Logorama' dir. Francois Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain
'Love & Theft' dir. Andreas Hykade
'Prayers for Peace' dir. Dustin Grella
'Runaway' dir.Cordell Barker
'Sam’s Hot Dogs' dir. David López Retamero
'TXT Island' dir. Chris Gavin
'YELLOW CAKE' dir. Nick Cross

world's most awesomest police chase action video

2011-05-31T12:33:00.002+01:00

If you stay up late watching really bad TV, it wont be long before you encounter these Police Chase Action Video clip shows. Here's Tandem director Chris Gavin's Flash animation tribute/pastiche of the genre...

See Chris's own film-making blog and more films etc. at chrisgavin.com

Bold Type

2011-05-16T12:24:00.006+01:00

A bold and eye-catching typographic TV commercial from TANDEM director Dave Daniels.
'Sportsbook' is the third in a series of William Hill Adverts and is now on air. Dave worked closely with agency creatives Ben Walker and Matt Gooden at BMB on the spots to continue a collaboration that started with the award-winning Honda Campaign.

See William Hill 'Sportsbook' Here.

a site for more eyes

2011-05-11T15:38:00.004+01:00

Some visitors who find this blog may not yet have discovered the main TANDEM website over at www.tandemfilms.com Well, I can highly recommend a visit; especially now that we have the entire site re-engineered over the last few weeks.

Visitors will now find a lot of new content (we've posted lots of new work) and better tools for searching and watching the movies. Behind the scenes, the site is all database driven now, so easy for us to update and easier for search engines to sift through.

The site is no longer using Flash technology, so even users of the various Apple IOS gadgets will find it all works for them too now, what's not to like?

is he really STILL plugging TXT ISLAND?

2011-05-05T17:47:00.000+01:00

Since being included in the 2010 'Craftwork' Programme of the ONEDOTZERO festival, Chris Gavin's typographic epic TXT ISLAND has received many additional screenings at festivals and events around the world. News has just come in that on May 9th 2011, the film will be shown at London's Saatchi Gallery as part of the COLLECT Contemporary Art Fair.

NEWS TANDEM releases third Canongate Books promo

2011-05-04T15:11:00.014+01:00

Chris Gavin has just finished his second promotional film for the publishing house Canongate Books.

Chris has created a compelling and original short film 'Our Tragic Universe' inspired by the latest novel by author Scarlett Thomas. The one minute film combines stop motion animation with snippets of live-action footage to evoke locations and themes from the book.

See Our Tragic Universe on the Canongate YouTube channel

our tragic universe

2011-04-28T17:37:00.009+01:00

TANDEM director Chris Gavin (that's me writing in the third person again) has completed a new short film for Canongate Books to help promote 'Our Tragic Universe'; the new novel by Scarlett Thomas.

NEWS April 2011

2011-04-26T12:12:00.008+01:00

At TANDEM we've had a busy start to the year.

David Daniels directed a series of spots for the new William Hill campaign, collaborating with Ben Walker and Matt Gooden at BMB and a new campaign for Nokia on which he worked with creatives Richard Dorey and Mark McCall from Wieden+Kennedy.

TANDEM directors have created two short films based on novels for publishing house Canongate Books. The brief was to give an essence of their chosen books through a short animated film, giving the directors a blank canvas on which to create their perception of the story. Chris Gavin made a stop-motion film for Dan Rhodes' latest book, Little Hands Clapping. His minute long film has been featured in Shots and Creative Review. Daniel Greaves made a film to promote the book The Last Werewolf, by Glen Duncan. Russell Pay of Shrooty created the sound on both films.

Chris Gavin also directed a series of five idents for I-Robot. The idents use a combination of 2D and 3D to great effect.

William Hill 'Goals'
Nokia 'Range'
Little Hands Clapping
The Last Werewolf
I-Robot 'Pet Hair'

little hands clapping

2011-03-06T12:20:00.005Z

Here's the short film we've just made for Canongate books to mark the paperback release of 'Little Hands Clapping' - the latest novel by Dan Rhodes. This one minute stop frame short was directed/animated by Chris Gavin.

another sun spot

2011-03-04T12:33:00.003Z

Another TANDEM broadcast TV commercial that seems to he been released recently without any blog here coverage at all... until now ...
Dan Greaves directed another commercial for SUN dishwasher products (Our third one now). The spot again features our high-end stop-motion animation techniques; yes that's right, it's all real crockery and cutlery inside a real dishwasher. Once again this was filmed in TANDEM's very own basement studio space and clean-up and set extension post production work was performed in-house too.
Sharp-eyed viewers will spot that this is in fact quite a fancy shoot, with a motion control system being used for some of the animation shots and RED One camera used for the live-action product shots.
The commercial was made for broadcast in France for agency Lowe Strateus in co-production with 85bis.

pete's wagon

2011-03-03T17:20:00.003Z

We somehow forget to mention the Volkswagen idents that we made recently. Director Peter Baynton and his team put together some delightful hand-drawn 2D spots with a refreshingly retro illustration style. A live-action hand sketches the illustrations for the four idents representing classic cartoon strip scenarios. The idents are currently showing on the Discovery Channel and promote VW's range of Caddy commercial vehicles. You can view one of the idents, 'Explorer' here.

simon's cat in 'sticky tape'

2011-03-03T17:00:00.002Z

A new Simon's Cat film! Over a million views in the first week and counting... Watch as the Internet's favourite feline has an adhesive adventure...

NEWS February 2011

2011-02-28T16:19:00.018Z

Peter Baynton directed four idents for VW Caddy and the Discovery Channel. The playful idents co-produced with Iris use traditional 2D animation that interacts with Daniel Greaves' hand.

Despite the months of preparation for the all consuming role of the hand in the VW Idents, Daniel Greaves managed to find some spare time to direct the third in a series of adverts for Sun Dishwashing Detergent, co-produced with Lowe Strateus and 85Bis in Paris. The spot is currently airing throughout France.

Simon Tofield, Creative Director on the VW Caddy idents, released a second Simon's Cat book entitled 'Beyond the Fence'. Already the fifth most subscribed UK channel on YouTube, the views of his YouTube channel over Christmas smashed through the 100 million mark and have now surpassed 110 million.

Sun 'Race'
VW Caddy 'Explorer'
Simon's Cat 'Beyond the Fence'

have we got mews for you

2011-02-21T17:46:00.005Z

Simon Tofield and his inspirational cats have been featured in the Daily Mirror (one of the UK's most popular newspapers). The Mirror has chosen to run Simon's Cat cartoon strips daily, starting today! The Mirror article introducing Simon to the readers can be read here.

Simon Tofield, the Mirror's Poly Hudson and a cat.

Non-UK readers can also enjoy seeing the strips online at the paper's website here.

stuttgart 10

2011-01-07T09:59:00.001Z

A Happy NEW YEAR to you.
Here's wishing you all good things for 2011.

But first a little glance back to May 2010. While I was at the Stuttgart animation festival I recorded my experiences of the trip using the little Lumix camera I had with me at the time. It wasn't until I had some 'spare' time over the Christmas break that I put together this little montage of the event...

Stuttgart 10 : shortfilm by chrisgavin from Chris Gavin on Vimeo.

NEWS October 2010

2010-10-31T18:03:00.004Z

On 28 October, Nathan Love unveil a new spot for Kodak. On 1 November, they release another new spot for Oregon Lottery. They've had a very busy summer including commercials for Stridex and NBC, completing series of five idents Baskin Robbins and following up on two previous campaigns with a new Pop Secret based on When Harry Met Sally, and a new Chips Ahoy spot for Draft FCB China.

simon's cat in "cat chat"

2010-10-12T12:56:00.001+01:00

There's now a new and appropriately autumnal Simon's Cat film 'Cat Chat'. See this and the other films over on the Simon's Cat YouTube channel.

simon's cat book 2 hits shelves today

2010-10-07T10:27:00.003+01:00

The new Simon's Cat book hits bookstores in the UK today! 'Simon's Cat: Beyond The Fence' is the follow-up to last year's Sunday Times bestseller, 'Simon's Cat in His Very Own Book'. Congratulations Simon! Take a look on Amazon UK here

NEWS September 2010

2010-09-30T18:52:00.001+01:00

TANDEM has had a very busy summer, packing in jobs for the Royal Mail, Carphone Warehouse, Sun Dishwashing Gel, Swisscom, Betfair, DAP Dog, BBC and Feliway.

Directing collective Nathan Love have been busy in the US of A creating spots for NBC, a campaign for Baskin and Robbins – check out their website.

On 7 October the second Simon's Cat book has its UK release followed soon after by its worldwide release. Simon's Cat merchandise is now available at www.simonscat.com. Simon's eight films have received over 80 million YouTube hits.

On the festival scene, Jon Dunleavy's Film Crash! Bang! Wallow?, Peter Baynton's Save Our Bacon, Daniel Greaves' Speechless and Chris Gavin's TXT Island have continued to wow audiences.

shoot happens

2010-09-15T12:37:00.005+01:00

Exciting times at TANDEM. It's good to see our in-house studio space being used again for another TV commercial shoot. It's been a week of intense stop-motion animation shooting and today the RED camera is here to capture some live-action / product shots. Without giving too much away, here's a wee glimpse behind the scenes.

The TANDEM studio space.

D.O.P Pete Ellmore working his D.O.P. magic.

The Red camera is fitted with a pretty special Borescope lens for getting close-up live-action shots of subjects in some pretty tight corners.

NEW simon's cat film is unboxed

2010-08-18T12:46:00.003+01:00

Well here it is! Simon Tofield has completed a new Simon's Cat film. This time, everybody's favourite online feline encounters a cardboard box ...

a right pair of soho shorts

2010-06-29T12:00:00.006+01:00

Well done to the two TANDEM directors with their films selected for this year's Rushes Soho Shorts Festival. Competing within the 'Animation' programme are 'Crash Bang Wallow' by Jon Dunleavy and 'Save Our Bacon' by Pete Baynton.

The RSSF 2010 Animation programme will show at the ICA and Soho Film Labs in July, details here.

postcard from annecy

2010-06-15T00:29:00.007+01:00

Your roving Festival Correspondent has just returned from France after attending the Annecy Animation Festival. This year celebrating its 50th anniversary, the event was a suitably grand and truly international affair.

Over the week of the festival, over two hundred films (shorts and features) were shown in the 'Official Selection' in addition to countless other supporting screenings and conferences etc. Two TANDEM directors had short films at Annecy this year; Jon Dunleavy's 'Crash Bang Wallow' and Chris Gavin's 'TXT ISLAND'.

NEWS May 2010

2010-05-31T19:00:00.002+01:00

Crash! Bang! Wallow? by Jon Dunleavy is shortlisted for the "Official online shorts competition at the Cannes Film Festival presented by the National Film Board of Canada and the Short Film Corner." Known as OOSCATCFFPBTNFBOCATSFC for short – it's a competition that requires people to vote. Please click on the link below and vote if so inclined. All votes are welcome. Feel free to pass this link on to anyone who might enjoy the film.

YouTube vote: http://bit.ly/dskErg

Facebook group: http://bit.ly/97hxK9

Congratulations to TANDEM director Simon Tofield whose first book, based on his internet phenomena Simon's Cat, has sold over half a million copies since its release on the 1st October 2009. The book is on sale in 23 countries and his films have now had over 64 million views. The second book will be released on the 1st of October 2010.

crash bang winner

2010-05-21T10:34:00.003+01:00

Congratulations to TANDEM director Jon Dunleavy for winning the National Film Board / Cannes Festival online competition. Jon's lastest short film 'Crash Bang Wallow' is the poetic tale of a down at heel Hollywood stuntman. You can view the winning film here.

postcard from stuttgart

2010-05-10T13:00:00.002+01:00

The 17th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film has just concluded and your international festival correspondent can happily report that the screenings of Speechless and TXT ISLAND both received a nice response from the festival audience. Both films screened well with appreciative chuckles in all the right places.
The ITFS was packed with great work; lots of inspirational stuff, both in the International Competition and numerous other programmes.

Oh yes, and there was also some fantastic sousaphone-based hip hop...

Simon's Cat Book breaks 1/2 million in Sales

2010-05-06T15:32:00.003+01:00

Congratulations to TANDEM director Simon Tofield, whose first book based on his internet phenomena, Simon’s Cat has sold over ½ a million copies since its release on the 1st October, 2009. Due to all the pat's on the back Simon has received because of this good news, he is now working out of his home, with his bruises covered in arnica. To avoid a similar fate on the 1st of October, 2010 when his second book is released, Simon is having an inflatable body suit constructed. The 1st book is on sale in 23 Countries and his films have now had over 64 million views.

rick's thick

2010-04-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

TANDEM's very own Rick Bland is back on stage again, this time appearing in his self-penned play 'Thick'. 'Thick' is a black comedy in which we travel with Rudolph, a sweet-natured simpleton, through a bleak but beautiful landscape of chance encounters, deceased realtives and family secrets.

'Thick' will be playing for two nights at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington (2nd & 9th May); to be followed by a run at the Brighton Fringe Festival at the Nightingale Theatre (14th-18th May). Further details can be found here.

pete's pigs

2010-04-12T13:01:00.001+01:00

Following on from the success of 'Over The Hill', TANDEM director Peter Baynton has just completed work on a new animated short film.

'Save Our Bacon' tells the story of an honest Lincolnshire farmer squeezed by the insatiable supermarket economy and struggling to survive. Dennis hatches a desperate plan to boost his herd and resorts to a spot of DIY genetic modification...

The new film was produced under Channel 4's 4mations Digital Shorts scheme and will receive its festival premiere soon.

in the mag

2010-04-11T11:30:00.000+01:00

TANDEM director Chris Gavin (that's me writing in the third person again) wrote a couple of articles for Digital Arts magazine recently. Here's how the spreads turned out...

coming soon on dvd...

2010-04-06T16:44:00.003+01:00

Simon's Cat 'TV Dinner' and 'TXT ISLAND' are amongst the many fine short films selected for the upcoming 'Best of British Animation Awards #8' compilation DVD. The disc will be available at specialist retail outlets soon, or check out the BAA website for further details.

sun 'theatre' has european release

2010-03-26T17:13:00.014Z

Sun 'Theatre' produced by TANDEM for Lowe Strateus (Paris), began airing this week throughout Europe. The spot, for Sun dishwashing tablets, is directed by Daniel Greaves and in it he once again fills inanimate objects to the brim with character. TANDEM director Tobias Fouracre, one of the country’s top stop-motion animators, uses his sublime skills to hilariously bring the cups and plates to life. To see the spot, click here.

taylor james release first UK commercial

2010-03-26T12:17:00.017Z

TANDEM directors Taylor James have released their first UK TV commercial, for Calor. Produced by TANDEM and co-directed with Yoav Segal, Think Tank combines realistic yet stylized CGI visual effects with 2D animation and has just been released. Though the first UK commercial, it marks Taylor James 3rd commercial in 6 months – After 10 years of honing their skills as a world leader in photographic retouching, their move to Broadcast is the natural progression. To see the spot, click here

baa uk tour continues

2010-02-23T18:47:00.004Z

The British Animation Awards Public Choice programme continues its extensive UK tour until February 28th. Animation fans might appreciate an overview of the short films on offer provided by Nick Bradshaw on the BFI website. All three of the TANDEM shorts in the programme fare well in his summary; he gives a nice nod to Speechless, TV Dinner and TXT ISLAND.
Read the article here.

Special thanks to Jayne Pilling at the BAA for passing on this link.

cool for cat

2010-02-17T18:28:00.004Z

Did we mention that Simon Tofield has released a new Simon's Cat film? Here's Snow Business for you to enjoy...

♪ this is the dawning of the page of aquaria ♫

2010-02-16T16:20:00.010Z

Some of our web graphics / animation work is now on-line at the new website of Aquarium Architecture. As part of the relaunch of the site, Tandem's Chris Gavin was asked to make the 3D animation sequence on the 'Case Studies' page and the map illustrations on the 'Contact' page.

top cat

2010-01-25T17:53:00.002Z

Simon's Cat is in the Sunday Times Bestseller Top 10 list for the third week running this month!

who wins? you decide ...

2010-01-22T14:30:00.011Z

At 27 cinemas all around the country throughout February, the film-going public will be asked to vote for their favourite short, promos and ads for the British Animation Awards 'Public Choice' Award.

In amongst the 3 screening programmes BAA have put-together, 3 short films by TANDEM directors will be shown.
See the full list of films and venues and dates of the screenings.

'Speechless'
by Daniel Greaves

'Simon's Cat - TV Dinner'
by Simon Tofield

'TXT ISLAND'
by Chris Gavin

the url of TXT ISLAND

2010-01-17T09:02:00.008Z

TXT ISLAND gets its own website at last.

The film has been selected as a Finalist for the 'Best Short Film' award at this year's 2010 British Animation Awards (known as the BAAs), and it's in the Public Choice category too. As part of the BAAs Public Choice programme, there are to be numerous cinema screenings of the film all over the UK.

The place to watch the film on-line, find details of screenings and read further TXT ISLAND news ? you guessed it ... www.txtisland.com

december 2009

2009-12-18T10:57:00.004Z

The last page of Dave Daniels' 2009 typographic calendar. It's December, a week before Christmas and it's snowing today, Seasons Greetings to everyone and all best wishes for 2010.

november 2009

2009-11-18T20:23:00.005Z

Whoops, forgot to upload this month's page of Dave Daniels' calendar, better late than never...

sc at hmv

2009-10-27T13:12:00.003Z

Simon's Cat has overtaken the window of HMV's flagship store in London's Oxford Street.

Dan's Speechless

2009-10-20T10:16:00.003+01:00

TANDEM's Daniel Greaves will premiere his new film Speechless at the prestigious 53rd London Film Festival this week. Dan will be at the Directors' Q&A session at the BFI on 21st October then the film will have three screenings (22nd, 23rd and 25th October). (All fully-booked already!)
The LFF website is here.

Mashmatic

2009-10-19T14:22:00.005+01:00

TANDEM director Chris Gavin has submitted an entry for the Getty Images 'Mish Mash' competition. The brief was to create a music video (of 1 to 3 minutes length) in a mash-up style using music tracks, footage and stills from the Getty library.
See the film Mashmatik (and the other entries) over at the competition website.

october 2009

2009-10-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

drawing & painting

2009-09-17T16:26:00.007+01:00

Our latest commercial work (now showing on TV) is another 10-seconder for the Guardian and Observer. Agency Wieden+Kennedy needed to promote instructional guides to drawing and painting to be included with this weekend's papers. The script called for an artwork to be created in reverse (i.e. from finished painting back to blank page) to highlight better the various stages involved.

The one-day shoot took place in TANDEM's basement studio last Monday. Director of Photography Simon Paul set-up a high-def camera shooting down (rostrum camera style) to capture the illustration talents of visiting artist Eri Griffin.

Eri creates artwork under the camera.

Eri's artworks at various stages.

D.O.P. Simon Paul monitors the shoot.

See the finished commercial here.

september 2009

2009-09-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

Dave Daniels' monthly typographic calendar continues...

born at the end of august

2009-08-18T16:39:00.003+01:00

Denmark's BornShorts Festival, held on Born Island on the 28th and 29th August will play host to 3 productions by TANDEM directors in the Animation screenings. TXT ISLAND will play at the Scala Cinema on Friday 28th and the following day's screening on the 29th will include 'Two Little Girls' by Peter Baynton and 'Simon's Cat: Let Me In' by Simon Tofield. Full details can be found at the festival website here.

august 2009

2009-08-03T00:00:00.000+01:00

it's that cat again

2009-07-27T10:54:00.010+01:00

Simon's Cat is back for the fourth time, this time witness the insect antics of 'Fly Guy'.

cinema dates

2009-07-23T12:50:00.018+01:00

The London screening dates of the 2009 Rushes Soho Shorts Festival Animation category have been announced. This year the films will get showings at the I.C.A. (Institute of Contemporary Arts) Cinema.

Friday 24th July 6:30pm (Cinema 2)
Tuesday 28th July 9:00pm (Cinema 1)

Tickets for what promises to be an entertaining and engaging programme of animated shorts can be ordered from here. Oh yes, the show includes two films from TANDEM directors; Simon's Cat 'TV Dinner' and 'TXT ISLAND'.

online feline

2009-07-21T17:16:00.004+01:00

The world's favourite internet pet now has a website www.simonscat.com was put together by TANDEM's Mike Cook and will become the official portal for all things Simon's Cat.

shortfuse online

2009-07-02T20:56:00.007+01:00

We've just posted to our new YouTube channel a classic TANDEM film featuring Daniel Greaves' character 'Mr Shortfuse'. Click this link nowwwww!!!!!!!!!!!! www.youtube.com/tandem

july 2009

2009-07-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

a right pair of shorts

2009-06-01T16:23:00.007+01:00

The news embargo is now lifted; TANDEM has had not one but indeed two short films selected for the Rushes SohoShorts Festival in July. Festival audiences will be able to enjoy Simon's Cat 'TV Dinner' and TXT Island at various West End venues T.B.A.

june 2009

2009-06-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

we've got a website, we've got a blog and now we've got a...

2009-05-29T18:33:00.008+01:00

... YouTube channel.

Watch out for our first high street store. (Only kidding.)

TANDEM ON YOUTUBE

www.youtube.com/tandem

txt trlr

2009-05-21T11:04:00.004+01:00

TANDEM's multi-tasking director Chris Gavin celebrates his last few weeks of bachelorhood by completing 'Txt Island', his stop-frame pegboard opus. Click here to view the trailer and watch for updates on where to see the full-length film at a festival near you.

oliver, elbow and that

2009-05-21T10:40:00.004+01:00

We're long-time fans of Oliver East's illustration work and recently had the pleasure of hooking up with him at TANDEM's London HQ. Famed for his splendid cover art on the Mercury Prize-winning Elbow album, 'The Seldom Seen Kid' (another TANDEM favourite, in fact), Oliver recently made the journey from his native Manchester to show us a sneak preview of his latest book, 'Berlin and That'. Watch this space for a future collaboration - and in the meantime we strongly recommend his lively blog.

read all about it!

2009-05-13T13:16:00.007+01:00

We've got to know Paddington Bear pretty well here since last year's Marmite ads, so the Evening Standard people called TANDEM when they needed to illustrate an article penned by Paddington's creator Michael Bond. The double page spread illustration was created by Jeroen Jaspaert over the weekend; just in time to hit the newsstands for Tuesday's edition.

Hold pages 20&21! Jeroen admires his handiwork...

may 2009

2009-05-01T00:00:00.001+01:00

tandemfilms.com redux

2009-04-06T12:03:00.005+01:00

The new TANDEM website is now live. Our own Mike Cook has reworked the previous site from the ground up, enlarging images and improving navigation throughout. See it now at www.tandemfilms.com

guardian on the box

2009-04-03T14:52:00.010+01:00

This weekend's Guardian and Observer newspapers will contain 'Secret Britain' pull-out guides to quirky and 'off the beaten track' attractions to be discovered around the UK. Agency Wieden+Kennedy came to TANDEM for the 10 second television commercial now airing to promote the supplements.

Stop-motion animator Tobias Fouracre ponders his next move.

TANDEM provided a really joined-up set of expertise and facilities... Gordon's Art Department used our in-house workshop facilities to construct an 'attic' set and the main prop, an ingenious Union Jack puzzle box of sliding panels and drawers. Stop-motion animator Tobias brought these elements to life shooting ultra high res. digital stills in our basement studio space; compositing and sound design duties were also performed in-house.

The finished commercial, 'Secret Britain', is now on TV.

april 2009

2009-04-01T00:00:00.000+01:00

orange maps

2009-03-31T12:58:00.014+01:00

TANDEM Director Hélène Friren has just completed a charming 90 second promotional film for Orange. The mobile operator will use the film on-line to present the new mobile mapping service now available to Orange customers. Hélène and her team completed both English and French language versions of the film which offers a light-hearted illustration of various aspects of the new mapping service.
You can view Hélène's 2009 Director's Showreel here.

TANDEM is establishing a fine portfolio of production work commissioned specifically for on-line use. We've been bringing our film-making experience to the Internet for a while now; check out links to client sites, such as Tate&Lyle, Big Yellow Self-Storage and the RSPCA to name but three!

studio makeover

2009-03-16T10:48:00.016Z

For the last few months we've had the builders in... (thanks Gary and Jack). The layout of our studio space is even better now; old walls have come down, new walls have gone up. Our main shooting area is larger, we've got brand new client space, edit suite and kitchen areas and Russell our in-house sound designer (a.k.a. Shrooty) has totally revamped his workspace too. All in all we're very excited about the improvements and will be adding details to the TANDEM website soon. Our Studio is an extremely versatile space ideal for film or stills use; it's also available for hire. Please call us or email Jo for further details.

march 2009

2009-03-01T00:00:00.000Z

a whole lotta wholegrain

2009-02-11T13:07:00.012Z

Dave Daniels has just completed a 20 second TV advertisement for Nestlé. 'Not All Cereals' promotes the Green Banner motif signifying wholegrain content across 6 of Nestlé's cereal brands. The commercial employs a mostly typographic technique lending maximum clarity to the message. See it online here.

puns just got cornea

2009-02-03T16:01:00.008Z

Jeroen Jaspaert has directed 8 x 10second sponsorship idents for Acuvue promoting their 'TrueEye' disposable contact lenses. The idents will be shown every Thursday on LIVING during the new series of Grey's Anatomy.
Each short is a mini hospital drama illustrating an eye-based pun.
To see all 8 animations, click here

february 2009

2009-02-01T00:00:00.001Z

steve moo queen

2009-01-15T16:27:00.005Z

Tony Mines has directed a new 40-second commercial for Anchor Butter through advertising agency CHI&Partners. Developing the stop-frame fuzzy felt seen in last year's Anchor productions at TANDEM, the new spot is a pastiche of the famous chase sequence from 'The Great Escape' starring Steve McQueen - except this time the part of the man on the motorcycle is played by a cow. See the full story on Campaign magazine's website here.

january 2009

2009-01-01T00:00:00.012Z

TANDEM director Dave Daniels has just produced a calendar for 2009. Fortunately no nudity is involved; Dave has opted for some rather tasteful hand-printed wood block typography. Following a regime of compositional experimentation Dave has created a textual representation of each calendar month. A limited-edition run of the printed calendars will be sent out to friends and clients of TANDEM. For the enjoyment of our on-line audience, we'll be posting the pages monthly to this blog.
Best wishes for 2009 from us all.

simon looks good on radio

2008-12-12T10:26:00.010Z

Simon was interviewed last night on BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row'. He talked about his famous cat, the new RSPCA film - and the comedy merits of, erm, 'bodily function' sound effects... If you missed it, go to www.bbc.co.uk/frontrow, find Listen to Previous Editions and select Thursday (this service will be available until 18th Dec).

rspca film

2008-12-02T17:54:00.006Z

A new Simon Tofield film, in support of the RSPCA's campaign to tackle pet obesity, will go live on www.youtube.com/simonscat next Tuesday, 9th December. Watch that space!

rspca tees

2008-11-11T18:27:00.005Z

500 limited edition Simon's Cat t-shirts are on sale at www.simonscat.com, with proceeds going to the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

gosh spot

2008-11-10T11:09:00.005Z

Helene Friren has directed a 60-second commercial for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. A combination of live action testimonials from patients and their parents, and animated imagery designed by Helene, the commercial aims to invite donations of £3 per month to help fund research, equipment and beds for parents. See the commercial at the GOSH website here.

suzie joins tandem

2008-11-03T11:20:00.011Z

Just back from Amsterdam where we spent some time with our latest director signing, Suzie Templeton. Suzie won the Oscar this year for her stop-frame adaptation of Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' and she's now keen to develop her work in the context of commercial production. Here's a link to this week's news coverage in shots magazine.

birthday bear

2008-10-07T10:37:00.007+01:00

Paddington Bear's latest encounter with Marmite sandwiches is now showing on UK television. Crafted at TANDEM, the production team was careful to use the same techniques employed in the original 1970s television series. This has resulted in an authentic nod towards a much younger Paddington Bear, who this year has hit 50 years old. Above you can see part of the painstaking work that was put into the TV commercial, with every single character being cut out by hand multiple times.

To see Marmite 'Birthday' click here.

design by daniels

2008-07-25T12:10:00.011+01:00

Dave has just posted a microsite to contain his non-animated work, including design material that led to his animated productions for Honda, Led Zeppelin and NatWest. Click here for inspiration.

the cat comes back

2008-07-16T12:20:00.008+01:00

Big news! The third (and much-anticipated) episode of Simon's Cat hit YouTube last night. The internet release was timed to follow the UK television premiere on BBC2's Culture Show.

For anyone who missed The Culture Show, Simon's Cat 'TV Dinner' will be shown again during tomorrow's edition of The Culture Show Uncut (Thursday 17th July at 11.20pm! on BBC2). The screening will be accompanied by an interview with the director himself; TANDEM's very own Simon Tofield.