rick's thick

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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 ♫

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

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

who wins? you decide ...

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

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

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

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

sc at hmv

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

Dan's Speechless

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

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

drawing & painting

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

Dave Daniels' monthly typographic calendar continues...

born at the end of august

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

it's that cat again

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

cinema dates

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

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

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

a right pair of shorts

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

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

... YouTube channel.  

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

TANDEM ON YOUTUBE

www.youtube.com/tandem

txt trlr

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

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!

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

tandemfilms.com redux

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

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

orange maps

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

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

a whole lotta wholegrain

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

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

steve moo queen

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

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.