Concept and creative process
The titles for a nationwide search to find the best new stand-up talent in the UK, were computer animated by Mark Shirra, who recollects: “The brief was to design a fun, captivating intro for the New Comedy Awards show. I got the punchy music from the Producer very early, which was inspirational and great to work to. The big opening beats suggested a similarly big camera move to me. I initially storyboarded the entire concept out on paper in pencil as thumbnails. My basic idea for the scenario was to show an audience in an undisclosed desert location looking rather uninspired at seeing the same old gags. Suddenly its world is rocked by a spaceship descending from the stars above, from which appears a comedy genius aided by a manic microphone.
I initially drew all the characters and backgrounds as black & white line art in pencil, then scanned all these elements in. Ink & paint was done in Photoshop, using a Wacom tablet. 3D was done in Infini-D on the Mac, the animation on the characters faces was done by projecting various QuickTime movies onto the 3D models, with some mild bump mapping applied to give them a little more pop. Post effects (blurs, the aged film effect, the fire coming out of the comedy spaceship dude) were all done in After Effects, as was the final grade.
I was surprised the production let me keep in the guy literally splitting his sides because he was laughing so hard. The microphone logo was later added to some Gobos and projected around the studio during the show, that was so much fun to see!”