Lee Hardcastle: Visiting Professional

After graduating he wasn't in work, looking but made music videos for his band in the meantime. Approached London studios and managed to get a job, was there for 3 years. Whilst he was there he learnt After Effects, however he never gave up on doing work that he wanted to do - Stop motion/Claymation animation was the best expense. American Festival for GI Joe Fest, sent him dolls to animate with, in which helped him to start a professional relationship whilst making the videos - with sound, had access to an amazing studio for the sound production.

Competition are amazing - taking briefs and understanding what work they are going for - get success from them but it is disheartening to not get feedback however when you do get feedback it makes a huge difference. He quit his job to work in a cafe in the south of France - needed to get away from his work. He was writing a script for a feature film - went back to making work for competitions.
Google sent him a video, asking if he wanted to make some money, meaning his videos on Youtube would have pre roll adverts etc but it would mean he would be paid for the advertisements - it was a way to make money, not alot but it was something.

Found another person who made gory stop motion and he made a sequel from this persons animation, it became very successful. He understood Youtube and made money from it through the amount of viewers. Animation today however doesn't get as many viewers as they aren't suggested on the side of the videos. Did a music video - First proper paid paycheck - for a New York band 'Automatic' currently near 2 million views - then did The ABC's of Death, he did the animation 'T for Toilet' which was a competition and he won.

He got copyright issues with his animation 'Pingu the Thing' and unfortunately had to take it down. Momentum Pictures got in contract with him offered to pay him to remake a brand and he has also made some short animations for Adult Swim.

When animating he uses Dragon Frame to piece everything together. As he animated action sequences he tries to figure it out himself and these scenes end up being 5 frames long. He has found that learning the theory on camera shots has helped him immensely.

I really like the work that Lee Hardcastle has made, not only is the humour and moment in the animation successful for the target audience, you can really tell how much fun he has had making them. I can see this through the attention to detail that he adds which enhances the humor and action well.