Nexus Receives Vision Award from the British Film Insitute

Today it has been announced that Nexus have been awarded a BFI Vision Award for the development of a slate of animated feature films.

BFI announced the Vision Awards of up to £2.8m across 20 film companies, whith Nexus receiving one of the top awards, with a vision for cultivating creative excellence and growing their businesses,

This is the first government development fund in over five years and was highly contested across the whole film industry.

Ben Roberts, Director of the BFI Film Fund, comments:

Each of the companies selected had a strong vision for the future growth of their business and we feel they’re poised to build their profile nationally and internationally, many of them by capitalising on their filmmaker relationships and creative instincts, coupled with an entrepreneurial flair. We think it’s an exciting and eclectic mix, and I’m really pleased we could support UK animation studios for the first time. This sizable investment in development will help to build the foundations of future growth and success for UK film.

The Awards

The purpose of the BFI Production Company Vision Award initiative is to help grow strong and sustainable UK film businesses, each company will receive a Vision Award of up to £200k over two years, with the financial and creative autonomy they need to develop an exciting slate of film projects, grow their business and bolster their company profile nationally and internationally.

Click here for the full list of companies and more information about the announcement.

Very exciting times ahead for the Nexus Studio

Nexus sign Kibwe Tavares and Factory Fifteen

ROBOTS OF BRIXTON DIRECTOR KIBWE TAVARES & FACTORY FIFTEEN COME TO NEXUS
We are proud to announce Sundance prize-winning director Kibwe Tavares and Factory Fifteen (co-founded by Kibwe with Jonathan Gales and Paul Nicholls) will join our roster of talent.

Kibwe, who won the special jury award at the festival in 2012 for his poignant animation Robots of Brixton will be represented for commercials globally by Nexus.

We have also struck a deal to work with Factory Fifteen, the animation and design collective founded by Kibwe alongside his partners Jonathan Gales and Paul Nicholls.

Factory Fifteen’s diverse backgrounds range from architecture, 3d visualisation, engineering, animation and photography. As a result their multi-disciplinary talents and distinctive approach to film making has been engaged by high profile brands including Samsung, Channel 4 and The British Film Institute.

Chris O’Reilly, Co-Founder, Nexus, says: “We are honoured to welcome Kibwe Tavares and Factory Fifteen to the Nexus stable. Kibwe has an unusual talent in being able to blend live-action performance with visionary CG and VFX work. And further we’re also delighted to work with Factory Fifteen and their talented design led moving image work. We see a bright future working with them together and separately on a broad range of projects from ambitious film and VFX projects to high-end design led moving image work”

YCN: Meet the Jury Interview with Johnny Kelly

YCN’s series of interviews with those judging this year’s YCN Professional Awards continues with animator Johnny Kelly.

YCN: What’s the best thing about being an animator?

Johnny Kelly: It’s a career my six-year-old self would approve of. I hope.

YCN: What was the best piece of advice you received when you began working professionally?

JK: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. A singularly dull answer I know, but if you are curious and plague your co-workers with questions you will learn a lot. You may also be fired for being irritating, but it is worth the risk.

YCN: Which project have you been especially proud of?

JK: Probably this video for NB Studio, made in collaboration with James Graham. It’s been a while since I’ve animated something this long myself, so I was worried I might have forgotten how. It was a great excuse to learn lots of new things – bits of Flash and some basic 3D animation. When you work with a designer you trust it helps a lot too. It was a barrel of fun making James’s drawings move.

YCN: How have you approached promoting yourself as an animator?

JK: When I was leaving college I sent my work out to as many magazines and blogs as I could – it’s a good opportunity to really put yourself out there. These days I’m lucky enough to be with a production company (Nexus) who do the heavy selling for me.

YCN: What’s the best thing you’ve ever won?

JK: When I was 15 I did a terrible drawing and won a trip abroad! I was sent to a crumbling sports camp outside Warsaw, Poland for a week. It was the craziest thing, all these kids from around the EU who had drawn a picture or written some poetry, and were rewarded with twelve-hour days of intense sports training. I broke some of my teeth on a trampoline and had to get a root canal when I got home. It was fun though.

YCN: What’s the most inspiring thing you’ve recently seen?

JK: In terms of work I’ve seen and wish I had done, this lovely new video by Joe Pelling and Becky Sloan. It made me particularly jealous, not least because I have a cycling puppet in a thing I just finished too! Becky and Joe are infuriatingly talented.

Johnny is one of 80 creative professionals kindly participating in the judging of this year’s YCN Professional Awards. Discover them all here.

Original Article on YCN

Remix Fashion!

Another Austria Fashion Remix is a new interactive app created by Austrian director Kris Hofmann.

The App that allows people to control a rotating, stop-frame animated film on an abstract turntable. The app remixes the avant-garde looks of emerging Viennese fashion designers with touch gestures—by turning clockwise the disk speeds up, and by swiping anti-clockwise the movements and music slow down.

The remixed industrial, electronic beats of Austrian producer Callrider enhance the enigmatic atmosphere and playfulness of the app.

Made for the Microsoft Surface device, the Windows 8 version of the iPad, the app is also displayed as an art installation at The International Fashion Showcase: Another Austria exhibition taking place at the Austrian Cultural Forum during London Fashion Week. The exhibition celebrates contemporary creative work from the country’s emerging and established artists, which follow the Austrian artistic tradition of being on the forefront of modernity and uniqueness.

Looks by Austrian designers Anna Aichinger, Femme Maison, Gon, Hartman Nordenhols, Kayiko, Madame with a Mission, Mark and Julia, and Pitour are projected onto the wall in the installation showcasing the mix n’ match mechanisms of the app to better appreciate the aesthetic and style of their pieces.

Interactive Woodland at Royal London Hospital

NEXUS & CHRIS O’SHEA TRANSPORT CHILDREN TO INTERACTIVE WOODLAND WORLD IN NEW PLAYSPACE AT ROYAL LONDON HOSPITAL

Chris O’Shea, the artist and interaction designer, collaborated with Nexus Interactive Arts, to create ‘Woodland Wiggle’ – an innovative interactive installation at Europe’s newest hospital, The Royal London, which helps children benefit from the healing powers of art and play.

‘Woodland Wiggle’ is a pioneering interactive game displayed on a television the size of a room. It allows children to enter into a storybook illustrated world enabling them to paint; play music; and trigger sun, rain, snow and rainbows with animated animal characters across a number of woodland scenes.

Working in close consultation with clinical teams at the hospital, and following a series of workshops with physiotherapists and occupational therapists, O’Shea was able to determine the movements that would give children the best health benefits which strongly influenced the format and design of the games created.

O’Shea based the movements on suggestions made by the nurses, staff, and physiotherapists, incorporating a range of motions the staff use when they go on their rounds or as part of the workshops to keep the kids active. Things like spiraling arms for movement of the wind and trickle fingers in the air for rain, which are directly used in the piece. The challenge was in keeping the interaction simple yet engaging.

The Project was commissioned by Vital Arts, the arts organisation for Barts Health NHS Trust with funding from Transformers, funded by The National Lottery, the Olympic Lottery Distributor and managed by ELBA and has been receiving some amazing press:

The Creators Project
The Guardian
Creative Review
LBB Online
Evening Standard

Credits

Artist Chris O’Shea
Producer Beccy McCray
Executive Producer Luke Ritchie
Development Producer Claire Spencer Cook
Production Assistant Carmen de Witt
Illustrator and Animator Felix Massie
Composer and Sound Designer Brains and Hunch
Documentation Editor Dave Slade
Production Company Nexus Interactive Arts