Introduction

Compositor, using Adobe After Effects and Combustion. Extensive experience as a cut-out animator. Writer of Interactive Fiction (Text Adventure Games). I do not have my own company as such but my website is www.groundchuck.co.uk

Provenance

I was born in Leicester and have lived and worked in London for eleven years. I write, paint, make films and am a bit obsessive about working out. I have my own flat with an overgrown garden. My favourite colour is red. My shoe size is 10. I left Beauchamp College in Leicester with 4 'A' Levels, and went on to do an Art Foundation course at what is now De Montfort University. I went on to do a Graphic Design degree at The University of Humberside, specialising in animation. After completing a PGCE in Art and Design Education I left Leicester for London where I looked for work in the Animation industry, starting out as a line tester on the film "Space Jam".

Professional Experience

I have worked on several feature films, including Space Jam and Lost in Space, and on innumerable television commercials for products including Budweiser, Reach toothbrushes, Silentnight beds and Hubba Bubba, as well as idents for TV stations including BBC1, MTV, The Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. I have also contributed to short films including "Meat and Electricity" directed by Martyn Pick, "Mr. Rivet" directed by Luc Chamberland, "Lofty Life" directed by Josh Pulman, and "Eva Goes To Foreign", an information film directed by Neil Ross for The National Drug Council.

Career Apex

The most memorable moments of my career would have to be the two live-action shoots for "The Visitation". I had never directed a live-action film before, and the first shoot was an all-day shoot, outdoors, with five actors, so I was really throwing myself in at the deep end. At the second shoot I was directing Paul Darrow, a childhood hero of mine. We had only spoken once before, and I had been almost too nervous to talk to him over the phone, so my abiding memory of the shoot was that somehow I managed to pull it off.

Professional Aims

I like coming up with and developing ideas. I live for ideas. Ideally I would like a machine like a special hat that would simply translate my ideas straight to the screen, or that someone else did it while I come up with the next one.

I Like

Walking, especially in foreign cities, sunshine, the sound of rain on windowpanes, chili con carne, legs.

Film Taste

I tend to like different films for different reasons. Richard Linklatter's "Slacker" was hugely influential, as was the early work of Peter Greenaway, and Resnais' "Last Year in Marienbad". I also like westerns, particularly "Once Upon a Time in the West" and Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man". The old West has a mythic quality about it that these films capture. For pure enjoyment you can't beat "Duck Soup" by the Marx Brothers or one of the Pink Panther films.

Music Taste

I tend to like "difficult" music; there is hardly anything in my collection that you could play at a party. I like the worst excesses of Sixties psychedelia; early Pink Floyd especially, and the soundtrack to the musical "Hair". I also like electronic music from Orbital to Tangerine Dream, and any music that has a sense of drama, such as Muse and Radiohead.

Book Taste

My all-time favourite book is "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. It is quite simply the best comic novel ever written. I also love "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman". For a 250 year old book it is incredibly modern and very funny. At present I am re-reading the brilliant "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon.