BBC Three - Relaunch Idents
It was a real trip directing the hands on their disruptive journey through the world of BBC Three. They’re a gloriously immature comic trio you can get totally lost with. The more time I’ve spent with them, the more I’ve had to wonder- am I directing the hands? Or are they directing me?"
We came on to this project partway through- the hands existed but we had to solve a problem- they weren’t loveable yet! We had to want to go on a journey with them, we had to want to be their friends. It’s a pretty hard brief- usually you make something friendly by giving it a nice face, while faceless characters can be pretty creepy. I realised that in the Addams Family, Thing has three modes - little person, an actual hand, and little spider. We applied these to our characters with some additional changes- we made the little spider into more of a dog.
The production of this was so much fun- a real Blinkink bonanza. We did a massive writer’s room to come up with about 60 scripts, and I rehearsed them with legendary puppeteers Jonny and Will. By the end, we’d created something truly loveable. It really got to that point where the characters had such a life of their own that we all instinctually knew what was in-character for them to do- truly a magic moment when you’re creating anything.
Credits:
BlinkInk
Director – Robert Strange
Executive Producer – Bart Yates
Producer – Rebecca Little
Composer - Benjamin 'Fryars’ Garrett
Hand actors- Jonny and Will
3D Hand design- Toby Barnett
Dirk van Dulmen- Storyboards
Mysie Pereira- Storyboards and animatics
Thomas Harnett O’Meara- Storyboards and animatics
Script writing- Robert Strange, Renee Zhan, Natasha Hodgson, Chris Bristow, Sam Campbell
BBCC
Director – Justin Bairamian
ECD – Paul Jordan
Creative Director – Susan Ayton
Creative – Russell Hendrie
Creative – Paul Bailey
Head of Production – James Wood
Producer – Sarah Bradbury
Production Manager – Jess Fenton
Production Co-ordinator – Emi Bozzi
Senior Designer – Mirjami Quinn
Designer - Steve Campbell
Motion Designer – Andrea Stragapede
BBC Marketing
Portfolio HOM, BBC Two, Three & Four - Niki Carr
Marketing Manager BBC Three - Sarah Davies
Marketing Executive, BBC Two, Three & Four - Caroline McAvoy
Superunion
Executive Creative Director - Stuart Radford
Design Director - Peter Hollstein
Mid-weight Designer - Eva Bashford-Harrison
Mid-weight Designer - Dan Cramer
Client Partner - Suzanne Neal
Senior Account Manager - Simi Sehra
Strategy Director - Adam Sefton
Strategist - Selin Clayton
Design Intern - Mar Diez
The Farm & Ghost VFX
VFX Creative Director – Matt Richardson
Senior VFX Producer – Hannah Entwistle
VFX Producer – Tommy Leigh
Re-recording Mixer – Neil Haggerty
Head of Short Form Post – Damien Lynch
Online Editor – Frank Peterson
Social Films / Riff Raff (Production Company)
Directors: Rich Hall, Piers Dennis, Natty Kasambala, David Wilson, FA + FON
Head of Riff Raff – Matt Fone
Executive Producer – Laura Clayton
Producer - Rosie Litterick