Best of: Directing & Animating the Tin Horse Christmas Movies

Here are some of my favourites over the years of storyboarding, directing/animating and editing the Tin Horse Christmas Movie Missives. Tin Horse are a packaging design consultancy, and a client I owe a great deal to. I discovered my love of stop motion animation (and my love of filmmaking!) through working with them on projects reaching back to when I was still in school uniform. Since those first experiences, it's been a pleasure to stretch and reinvent their Christmas movie missives over the years. Sharing these videos has become an important part of how Tin Horse reconnect with their clients and increase engagement with movers and shakers in the packaging design industry. They present their idea, we collaborate to develop the story, I come up with a storyboard and budget and plan the project to fit their team's schedule.  Something I really relish about these projects is that they are a wonderful window on the whackier side of the business, it's always playful and a little off the wall. Getting everyone in the TH team to get involved with the Christmas movie madness can be challenging in such a busy, focused office but that's where the faithful tin horses come in! These antique toys are a joy to animate, their poses may appear fixed and restrictive but it's incredible how much character you can give them with neatly placed little chocks, a bit of costume and SFX. Recent successes with this channel include making a horse fly, collaborating with a drone pilot and Christmas 2020 even featured the digital world of zoom and a new foray into AE Motion Graphics. Maybe I should apologise for giving you a Christmas song for an earworm if you're not watching these in December, possibly November? Sorry!!