Upstart Crow Credit

Upstart Crow Credit

Sometimes I do work for television although it is rare nowadays, though in my earlier life most of my out put was for TV, mainly commercials. This series, 'Upstart Crow' has just finished its run on the BBC, with another series in the wings. My job was to create the drawings for the title sequence and the location inserts under the direction of my talented friend and director/ animator Kate Sullivan, whose web site is here. The comedy series is written by Ben Elton and stars David Mitchell, as William Shakespeare with a good supporting cast. Upstart Crow was commissioned as part of the 400th year anniversary of Shakespeare's death, strand of programme. The title sequence, and the style of the art obviously reflects the drawings of the day. Sadly, due to BBC rules, I only get a credit on the final programme of the series!
The artwork itself can be seen on my website, here.

Martin Davey credit on Upstart Crow

 

news at bedtime BBC animation artwork

news at bedtime BBC animation artwork
humpty dumpty/ princess Di sketch
news at bed time main news desk. The animated characters heads, sitting up in bed, would be added in later.
Humpy dumpty death location This is a collection of artwork created for the BBC comedy 'news at bedtime' animated sketch, that can be seen here..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMXENnwd-hE. It was written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, and stars the voices of Jack Dee and Peter Capaldi, and was based on a audio recording for BBCradio 4. This animation was done during late 2009 and early 2010. The basis of the sketch is a news programe,with all the current contempory issues we see every day, but presented visually in a fairytale setting, based on old labybird book illustrations. It has been animated to the existing recording using 'flash' to move pieces of artwork. The artwork itself was created in photoshop by me, a selection of which you can see here. This artwork is production artwork as supplied to Kate, and so it is missing animation elements, which is why some images seem 'empty'. The animated sequence itself was cleverly directed and animated by Kate Sullivan, and you can see her own web site here http://www.katesullivan.co.uk/, which contains other great work done by her for the BBC as well as 'News at bedtime'.. For this project she would import artwork of a character for example, prepared by myself which would have a body with seperate arms and head. She would then join the individual limbs to the body in the 'flash' programe, and then animate the character to the BBC audio, bringing the visuals and humour to life!
I supplied a few 'bits and pieces' for some of the other projects Kate has done as well that can be see on her site.It is hoped that this 'news at bedtime' small movie will get the go ahead to be made in to a proper pilot for TV, which in turn might become a series.


unused artwork for title (lady godiva),with a nod to the carry on film type poster artwork.this is for a joke (unused) about micheal jackson as peter pan. The head is missing as it would be added in the animation.
A selection of items that would be animated. Many other pieces were provided for the animation, not shown here.