Below are some of the latest projects we’ve been working on:

BILL BAILEY’S BIRDWATCHING BONANZA

TITLE: "Bill Bailey's Birdwatching Bonanza"

CLIENT: Fever Media for Sky One

BRIEF
To create titles and packaging reflecting the comical edge that Bill Bailey brings to this fun bird-watching competition

TREATMENT
Bill Bailey appears in various guises in different locations interacting humorously with various birds in their habitat and finally flies onto the endpage of the titles as an owl.

HOW IT WAS DONE
Images of Bill Bailey and birds were coloured and treated to give them a bright posterized look, they were then animated in After Effects in a stop motion style to match the pace of the music.
The concept was designed by Keith Robinson and created and animated by Thiago Maia and Ralph Pinel.

BRITISH COMEDY AWARDS 2009

TITLE: "British Comedy Awards 2009"

CLIENT: ITV / BCA Productions

BRIEF
To create titles and packaging reflecting the superhero theme of the 2009 British Comedy Awards stage set.
To create a logo for the British Comedy Awards that would have a life beyond the 2009 production.

TREATMENT
Host Jonathan Ross and other award-nominees race through a noir-ish comic book city, dressed as superheroes. Each character is summoned by a search light ‘bat signal’ bearing the Comedy Awards crown logo. Various sight-gags ensue as in the rush, the heroes are thwarted by comedy-basic mishaps.

HOW IT WAS DONE
Marvel comic artist Mike McKone drew the superhero characters, based on storyboards by animator Keith Robinson. Robinson used After Effects to animate the characters and create the 3D comic book city.

KROD MANDOON

TITLE: “Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire”

Starring Matt Lucas ("Little Britain") and Sean Maguire ("Meet the Spartans")

CLIENT: Hattrick Productions for BBC / Comedy Central

BRIEF
To produce titles that reflect the personality of the show: “A groundbreaking action-comedy that is equal parts workplace comedy and sword and sorcery fun.” Using actuality footage, the sequence had to introduce the main characters and incorporate cast credits and the eponymous Flaming Sword.

TREATMENT
The intention was to play it straight with the title sequence, creating the look of epic drama but letting the comedy shine through from the actuality footage of the characters. The visual style of the sequence references fantasy art of the ‘70s and fantasy films of the ‘80s, as well as more modern epics such as Lord of the Rings. The titles resolve in a character montage reminiscent of fantasy and sci-fi film posters.

HOW IT WAS DONE
Compositing and VFX were completed in After Effects, with additional
3D elements created in 3ds Max, using Fluid Dynamics to create the flaming sword effect. The end-board was produced by roto-masking and time-warping individual characters. These were composited with stock flame footage and logo artwork to create an archetypal heroic montage.

It was directed and animated by Keith Robinson, with additional 3D animation by Ralph Pinel.

2012

Against solid competition, we won the contract to design, direct and produce the films for the Olympic and Paralympic handover ceremonies for London 2012

Our 1 min 15 second film kicked off the opening ceremony setting the tone and spirit of the London Olympiad and was viewed by a global audience of over 2 billion

Martin Green Head of Ceremonies said. “Skaramoosh London won the tender against diverse and stiff competition. We are delighted to be working with them on this unique project as their design solutions capture the wider spirit of the shows we are producing.”

For the first round of the pitch we produced a 6ft long tapestry style storyboard we call a moodstream (it’s a great piece of wall art in our studio now). The films are a combination of live action, 3D animation and After Effects all produced in our London studio.

You can watch the film here

PHILIPS

TV promotion for CNN/Philips
 
TITLE: "The Heart’s Journey"
  
CLIENT: Turner Commercial Productions for Philips
  
BRIEF: To use a design palette and animation style to reflect the sense and
simplicity brand positioning of Philips, explaining how a device can transmit essential ECG information ahead of a patient, in an engaging and involving way.
 
Martin Pickles at Skaramoosh London designed and animated simple characters and objects using the Philips colours in Saul Bass inspired scenes to create a fluid and playful animation with seamless transitions between the scenes. It was directed by Adam Woods.

The whole animation was created in Flash.

IN THE WOMB

TITLE: "In the Womb"

CLIENT: Pioneer Productions for Channel 4 and National Geographic

BRIEF: To create and animate 3D models of larvae, viruses and other cells that lends itself to complete the picture that the live action footage is describing.

Using 3D models and live action footage as back plates, in-depth scenes of the internal processes of the incubation of wasp larvae in a caterpillar's body was created.

We produced 3D scenes that showed how the wasp injected its eggs into the caterpillar with a protecting virus. Also how the wasp's injected virus attacked the caterpillars own defence system and how competing larvae attacked each other to stay dominant within their host.

WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO?

TITLE: "Who Wants To Be A Superhero"

CLIENT: BBC

BRIEF: To produce a title sequence and graphics for the Children’s BBC version of the American adult show of the same name but to give it that London edge.

The premise of the show is 14 kids who want to be a 'Superhero' living together and undertaking challenges every episode after which one of them is eliminated and finally we are left with our 'Superhero'.

How it was done:
Stills of the contestants and the London Skyline were combined with other 3D and 2D elements to create a “Comic book page” which was used as a framework for all elements of the graphics.

Jo Kheir designed the sequence and created the elements which were
composited in After Effects by Wolf Winter who also created the 3D animation.