Meet Giles Timms, a director based in California, United States and a member of the StudentFilmmakers Filmmakers Network. See Giles’s Network profile to connect.
Director, Animator, Designer Location: California, United States networking.studentfilmmakers.com/profile/gilesTimms
Work: “Animated, cut-out, short films. I use history and its motifs, to create pop surreal worlds that are grounded in the real – 3D worlds in a flat 2D paper style.”
New Projects: “A recent project was with Academy Award-nominated director, Jeffrey Blitz on his film, Lucky. Lucky, a documentary about the American Lottery, premiered at Sundance 2010. I worked as an illustrator, animator and compositor on the project, alongside Walter Robot Studios, creating animated sequences for several of the narrated factual interstitials within the film.
“Currently I’m directing and animating an animated music video for the band Flyleaf, through my agency, RW Media.”
Inspiration: “Comics, Russian animation, drawing, books, games and film.”
Unique Challenge: “While working on the Lucky project, Jeffrey really pushed us to create the most engaging and creative animation for the narrative factual sequences. This meant a lot of rework and edits. So it was a challenge as an animator to stay flexible enough to be able to meet Jeffrey’s requests and meet all the deadlines.”
Solution for Challenge: “Work, work, work…”
Favorite Tool: “After Effects – it opened up a whole new world to me.”
Technique: “I use a framing guide when I work to help me find the sweet spots in composing my shots. Basically I use a grid overlay that splits up the camera plane into thirds. This overlay reminds me and helps me to compose my shots and to find continuity between shots.”
On the 3D Revolution or Revival: “Very cool and exciting. I want to make my own 3D animated short.”
On HDSLR Movie Making: “HD FTW!”
busy. There is always something to prepare and never a reason to be idle on the set! Start with the key light and then go to your FX light [like kicker] and do the fill light at the end [only if needed]. Always ask to have some tweenies or kino flo’s on standby if more fill or eye light is needed.”
On the 3D Revolution or Revival: “Not going to happen, not this time. It was not able to establish itself in the 60s nor will it after the Avatar hype. Cameras like the new Panasonic AG-3DA1 with twin-lens system might help to give it a certain popularity. Also the new techniques to transform a 2D film into 3D in post production are all interesting. But come on, what have we learned from over 100 years film history? Less the better. That is why 24 frames per second looks better then 50, or why too much depth of field looks cheap. Same with colors. No, I am not saying that black-and-white looks better than color film, because color can help tell the story but, look how a Hollywood color grading is done. They keep the skin color and bring every other color more into a bluish or greening look and desaturate the whole thing.”
On HDSLR Movie Making: “It is a tool and every DP should take it seriously as such. Such a small camera could just allow you that particular shot that would not have been possible with a bigger camera. Their low light performances, dynamic ranges and organic feel are just mind blowing, especially if you consider the price of such gear. It can also make it easier to shoot at locations where you do not have permission, or if you do a documentary and you have to interview people that would feel uncomfortable if you would point a bigger rig at their faces.
“Yes, there are issues, but if you know them, you can find ways to work around them. Even if you got better cameras for your shoot, you should still consider viewfinders. It is so quick and easy to show the director how the shot might look like with such a device, and it just might speed up your work flow, and speed is so important in this industry!
“It is also opening up new possibilities for film students and hobbyists to be able to afford the very same camera with which they are now shooting big production like the new House, M.D. series. At times like this, talent will matter more than ever!”
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