Concept and creative process
The title sequence for the BBC's biennial competition, 'Young Musician of the Year' (since 2010 called ‘BBC Young Musician’), which celebrated emerging young British musicians between the ages of 12-18. The brief was to turn what was considered to be a ‘stuffy’ BBC programme into an edgy, modern, youthful programme to attract a younger and broader audience beyond the classical music lover. The concept was based on a before and after, off-stage and on-stage idea. A set was designed using creative and quirky references to musical elements like actual instruments, musical notation, metronomes, nature that creates sound (shells) and imaginary sound creators (pipes) etc. A stage was created representing the behind the scenes rehearsals (off-stage) and the front of house (on-stage) performance and the atmosphere of a concert hall. Using stop-frame animation the movement began below stage in a space that represented the rehearsal room until it ascended into the performance stage where the imaginary instruments fully came to life, culminating in the title frame. Specially commissioned music created the soundscape of instruments being tuned in the downstairs off-stage scene to fully-formed melodic music in the upper on-stage scene. The title frame was also used to create the award trophy presented to the winners. Working with the excellent team from 3 Peach Animation, I created the imaginary set using paper, cardboard, wood and metal shapes, parts of real instruments and imaginary soundmakers, all replicated in miniature form. This was then animated using real time stop-frame animation. It was a painstaking exercise to animate all the various elements, which took days to complete. All of the sequences were then edited on Quantel Harry into the final title sequence.
Model animation – Three Peach Animation.
Designer/Director - Ruhi Hamid.
Winner of the International Monitor Award.