Tim Allen

Today we had a visit from Tim Allen. After I got over my initial disappointment that it wasnt THE Tim Allen star of Home Improvement and The Santa Clause I settled into what turned out to be a very interesting morning. Tim is a stopmotion animator who has worked on Pretty much every recent piece of of Stopmotion you cane name.. go on try. Postman pat? Yes, Fireman Sam? Yup, Bob the Builder? Check, (my favourite bob after Dylan, Marley doesnt even get a look in) Creature Comforts?, Oui, Corpses Bride? Hell Ya!
So Tim went through his work with us, played us his current showreel, his reel that he graduated with, and sections of the work he has done over the last 9 years. Tim had some great insights into the industry, and it was fascinating just to hear about the working of a big production such as Corpses bride and Peter and the wolf. He also had some very relevant advice of acting, or more specifically character animation. A lot of the the characters he worked with early on in his career don't seem to have had much in the way of facial features to show any emotion or even indicate that they were talking (like a mouth even), so He had to use poses and body movement etc to best put across what the characters were actually saying. Anyway he said loads of interesting and useful things and if I had to sum it up in 6 words Id say Headshakes, Strike Poses, gesture, mime, silhouettes. Hey I know what it means and thats what counts.