Feliway

Here's a cute little ad I animated on.
Although it was a very nice and relaxed job, I learned a very valuable lesson the hard way: in 2D animation, try avoiding stripy animals at any cost. Once starting inbetweening, it's fun fun fun in a masochistic kind of way :)

Kids aren't that smart

OMG - an update.
Here is a commercial I animated for CalciYum,a drink in New-Zealand. Directed by Daniel Greaves and designed by Helene Friren.
With a fairly open brief, basically saying 'have fun with the subject', this was a nice little project to work on. Especially as every animator got one commercial to complete by themselves, it felt a bit like a mini-film.

I also had to turn it into a longer version for the online campaign. To see that one, click here

Paddington Bear illustration

About time this blog got a little update (I seem to say that with every post)

Here's an illustration I did for today's Evening Standard in good old fashioned Paddington Bear style. It accompanies a quirky 'Micheal Bond' article about London.
Hmmm, doing one single drawing and the job's done.....why am I doing animation again :)

Director Reel

Director Reel 2009 from Jeroen Jaspaert on Vimeo.

A little compilation of the jobs I directed at Tandem over the last few years.
I'm enjoying editing clips to music at the moment. Me and Premiere are starting to become firm buddies. Does anyone out there need a show reel by any chance? ;)

Animation Showreel

Animation Showreel 2009 from Jeroen Jaspaert on Vimeo.

I haven't done a showreel since 2001, about time to get the cow out of the stable again! So I collected my many VHS tapes from under the dust (oh yes, the concept DVD was just a whisper in the wind in the olden days), and started something that might easily become a new hobby...posting movies on my blog!
Bizarre though, a showreel; my professional life crunched in 3 minutes. Feels like the world couldn't possibly spin without me ;)

Aren't they nEYEce

Here are some more Acuvue designs I did for the Grey's Anatomy sponsor idents.
And beware, one day I'll be a techno geek.......with a bit of luck you'll find underneath this text an actual movieclip!!!!!!!!! Can you tell which film I ripped the movement of? :)



To see all the idents we did, click here.

Acuvue Sponsor Idents

A bit too late to say Happy new Year isn't it?

2009 started with a truly fun job...I designed and directed little sponsor idents for Grey's Anatomy on Living.
We had to achieve 8 10 seconders in two weeks....which meant no complicated characters or precious clean up... just some fun simple bouncy character animation, straight in flash...I loved it!
Many thanks to Helene and Pete for their wonderful work and for retaining a particular good mood, even when faced working the first few week-ends of 2009 AND on the 1 of january!!!!!! Honestly, I''m such a slave driver :)
Click here to see one of my own animations.

Things I find on my old pc

Let's have a dip in the archive. Here are a few stills from a pop-up animation for Marvel's website I did a while ago (I was still in my twenties, wheiiiiiiiiii) I have to admit, the Thing doesn't look the best in individual stills (awkward angle when fist comes to the front, etc). Because of the required low filesize for web stuff, I couldn't draw every frame, but had to re-use as many assets as possible. Hence only one design for a foot, leg, knee, arm, ... and just flipping them over to construct the whole body. It's a piece of cut-out animation really.

In the end, the animation wasn't used because the Thing in my design looked different from the Thing of the recent movies (he never wears a blue top). But sorry, if there's something I refuse to do, it's drawing muscly men with their tops off! (erm, you better ignore previous post then :)

V&A saturday

I've been treating my poor little blog poorly lately. And to say it recently celebrated its 2nd birthday......shame on you, Jeroen!
As usual my main excuse is that I've been extremely busy lately (on a job I will only be able to show early next year). But also, everything I draw I don't particularly feel like sharing, because there is always room for improvement.
But hey, after saying this for the past two years, lets just show the blogging community what they've been missing out on :)
Last week-end, we had one of our little 'lets get out in London and do some drawing' saturdays. The V&A was a perfect place for me, so many sculptures...... models that stands still, hurray!

Payback Olympia

As Belgium never performs that well in the Olympic Games (if you see me as an average Belgian, then you know why :), I switched my alliances to Germany this year.
So here is my latest Payback instalment, sponsoring the Olympic Games in China.
Talented as our little doggy is (still no name) he displays a few Olympic sports like shotput, table tennis and that most notorious one of all,........ erm, sitting on a swing.
Thanks to Ben, Ginny, Matt, Rich, John and Mike for their Gold medal effort without the need for a performance enhancing drug.

Cannes Lions 2008, advertising festival

Working hard...

Betfair idents

Croeso! Just came back from a relaxing break in Wales. Done it all: the beaches, castles, mountains,..... and Doctor Who exhibition! Jeroen is officially a relaxed and happy boy (man).
Here are some stills of the Betfair idents I finished before I left.
These stories are set in the wildest reaches of Betfair world, where hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs literally experience 'survival of the fittest'. It was a good exercise in character animation, to give those simple shapes recognisable animalistic behaviour, and the right balance between agression and humour.

Betfair commercials

I myself am constantly missing them, but I hope the sport fanatics (and clandestine gamblers?) amongst you will have seen these babies on telly. Based on Nick losse's designs, I created 3 new ten second commercials, promoting the online betting company Betfair. They were fun to do, because of the graphic simplicity of the characters and the surreal animation. I learned a lot from this project, mainly the offside rule, and an insight in the behaviour of football fans: apparently there is much more to it than kicking a ball around :)
By the way, can you spot Wally in the crowd?

My first grown up post

First of all.... Happy birthday to me! I tried to conceal the big 3 - 0, but my blogger profile refused to keep up the lie :(
It's time I showed some pencil drawings. I'm doing life drawing, so one day I'll have the confidence to share that here. But in the meantime, these designs from a recent pitch will have to do. Can you guess which job they were for? I'll give a clue.... they're greaaaaaat!!!!! (not my drawings, the cereal :)

Payback Plus

Late January, I finished another part of the Payback saga.
To my delight, the script went back to basics, with the concept of a rich futuristic city. And hoorah, after being snubbed for the leading role in the previous ad, the little dog was back on form, baffling critics with his portayal of a cheeky, fun loving, daring, yet loyal canine. Of course he got some damn good support from his lady boss (in gold this time) and a mysterious 'plus' credit card, who, although relatively new in the world of Payback commercials, carried one particular scene all by itself. Keep your eyes open for this new talent!
It was one of those projects where everything just seemed to work out; great team at Tandem, great agency and great clients. So, no hiccups or unfortunate changes hours before delivery.
I'm becoming a bit bit of a Payback veteran, maybe no one dares to question my knowledge about German shops (and how to visualise them) any more :)

Calpol Night

Click here to see the ad.

After a year of only directing foreign jobs, I can finish 2007 with a commercial for Bristish TV, the latest 'Calpol Night' ad.

It was inspiring to create an old fashioned animation, referencing a hand rendered pastel look, with the emphasis on slow, subtle acting. Thanks to traditional talent and the new digital connaisseurs at Tandem, we pulled that off in a fairly short time.

Payback Pinball

Perfect time to show some stills from that good old shopping planet, Payback (where women definitely don't wear sizes 36).
I directed the latest commercial, this time the little doggy being upstaged by a little blue ball, hitting one shop after the other in a pinball machine.
And for once I don't have to utter the words 'it was a nightmare schedule'. Nice to be able to take your time to create a proper animatic before production starts.
The style hasn't changed much: flash animation in a 3D background. Thanks to Mike, Gillian, Felipe, Simona, Chris and Sam for all their help, without starting to feel insecure about our blue haired goddess' waistline.

Paddington fancies a change

Tandem's commercial for marmite, starring Paddington bear is now on air, re-creating the incredible charming style of the 70's TV series.
I didn't do much on this job, except for a few days design and animation work. (see stills below). So really, this item shouldn't be on my blog. You either love me or hate me (see what I've done there), but as self appointed set photographer, I feel like I should share some production pictures with you.

It's back

Another German commercial, another thin woman in a red dress......
This is a still from a job I did last year (or was the year before that?), together with Oblong.
I'm currently directing a new one, so can't tell much about it yet. Stills will be up soon.
In the meantime, click here and here for the links to the ones I've done so far.

Big Screen Patissiolle

One for the parents to brag with: Patissiolle showing on big screens in the streets of Tokyo.
click here to see!
Good for the ego, allthough, the people in the street don't look that impressed :)

Patissiolle

I directed a commercial for Patissiolle, a iced coffee drink in Japan.
It was great to work on, as it combined lots of different techniques: 2D animation, CG camera moves, live action and a photosonics product shoot. All in 15 seconds.
If you want to see it, click here

back to lightbox

I'm back at my little lightbox working on a Tandem shortfilm.
It's a relief to get a scene, which someone else has planned out for you, and you know those 150 frames on a dope sheet are your only worry in the world. That doesn't make it a relaxing experience however; 2D is so rare now, that every new job feels like a mini hurdle, where you're not sure yet if you still can animate the old school way, because your mind has been conditioned to think in flash terms. But beside a slight cramp in my right hand (haven't flipped paper for quite a while) those handy LAS tricks are all coming back to me.
The picture has got nothing to do with this post, by the way. He's the character I animated on Dan Greaves' previous shortfilm 'Little Things'

Coco Pops

The new Coco Pops stop frame commercial is finally on TV, so time to post some stills from the 'blink and you'll miss it' scene, I animated.

Back to Genk

Jeroen the travel agent

I've been in Belgium for a blitz week-end, invited by my old Animation College (Media & Design Academy, Genk) to give a talk about my work and the animation industry in London.
I had 4 hrs to fill. Quite a bit, but then, I occasionally hear I tend to talk a bit too much, so what's 4 hrs. really? I used the time to show my work chronologically, from graduation films and LAS reel, to first animation jobs, inevitable flash jobs, and recent directing work. I actually enjoyed putting a reel together for this, something I haven't done in ages. It's good to see, where you come from and how crap things tend to look (even if you were proud of them at the moment) with the hindsight of a few years.
The school hadn't changed a bit: Same teachers, same nice cafeteria ladies (I got a free apple pie and an egg-mayonnaise sandwich, even if they didn't recognize me any more, unforgiveable, but then, I used to sport a hideous long pony tail), same smell in the corridors, and drawing exercises on the walls. The only difference was the obvious invasion of computers (Macs!!!!), edit suites etc..., and the feeling the teaching staff were working close together in friendly way.
I sounded a bit like Steve Roberts from LAS I guess, promoting life drawing, rough animation tests instead of wasting your learning time with clean-up, a short showreel is better than a long epic no-one wants to sit through, and the necessity of respecting deadlines. I did promote the LAS course a fair bit actually, so I'm waiting for my comission from Steve now :)
I finished of the day with a good old Gueuze in my old student pub (had to go there, its the only one in Genk, haha)
This is something I definitely would love to do again, so animation schools out there, my presentation reel is ready, I'm just waiting for the invitation, if you can afford an apple pie and an egg-mayonnaise sandwich of course :)

Jeroen the Hobbit

Kinder Bueno: commercial + making of

To see the Kinder Bueno commercial I directed, click here.
The image might appear a bit stretched, though.

Or if you'd rather see me in action in this German TV 'making of', click here.
Just to avoid confusion, I am NOT the pretty brunette with the smurf hat.
Instead, I'm the pretty brunette with the hooded top, haha.

Kinder Bueno Finished!!!!!!!!

Let the social life commence again! I finally finished the Kinder Bueno commercial.
It's been quite a tough job, but really enjoyable as well, as I had a great team to work with (who remained surprisingly upbeat after the endless requests to work late nights and week-ends)
I'm very pleased with the result. And I'm the first to say that I definitely couldn't have done that without the great designs, animation and comping help. And what a relief that the live action head on top of an animated body doesn't look like a hideous freak accident after all.
Sadly, this job is only for German television. But maybe I get of my lazy ass soon, and try to do that youtube thing. Alternatively I could just pass on the Tandem link when it's on their website. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the picture stills.
Drinks, anyone?

S&M duck

Another relic of a long forgotten pitch.

Just to keep Mark happy

Naughty Jeroen, seriously ignoring his blogging duties. I don't want to lose the two and a half people strong fanbase I build up over the last months, but 2007 just doesnt seem to have enough hours in the day. (sorry Chris for slightly nicking your catch phsase here)
In the meantime, here are some characters I designed and animated for National Bingo last year. And no, I haven't been lazy, the brief DID require ball shaped characters.

Santa's Elves

Here are some cheeky elves, just to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Christmas Fairy

Mmmmm, December is getting on.... time to get into the festive spirit. What better way than releasing my sugarly sweet christmassy Fairy job (or some stills at least) onto the blogging community.

Forget Me Not

Yesterday Channel 4 aired a shortfilm, I animated on. Kim Noce's 'Forget Me Not' is a film inspired by stories from her great aunt. It was funded by the AIR scheme, and produced by Sherbet.
I animated the pieces of string in the girls hand which connect to her invisible dog, cat and bird. It was quite a fiddly job, because I had to work on top of existing animation which had all ready camera moves built in. But I can't complain, I feel sorry for the woman who had to (frame by frame) trace off my drawings, doing REAL EMBROIDERY!
Well done Kim! looking forward to see your next project.

to dee to dee doooooooo

Here are some designs I did a while ago for TalkinToons, when Brad first started to gather ideas for the 'Institute of Physics'.
(For more info about that, read my previous post: What happens to your brain when you're scared)

No inhibitions

This is a little design I did when I first started to experiment with my wacom tablet in Flash. Originally the guy was supposed to walk his dog, but I probably got bored before that. Now it looks like he is cheekily unraffling the girl's dress (she pretends not to notice, but she does), which I think is a fine alternative.

Weightwatchers designs

Tandem is about to produce an animation dance fest for Weightwatchers. These are the designs I did a while ago when we pitched for the job.

Secret Policeman Ball on Channel 4

For all tbose who won't be trick-or-treating, The SECRET POLICEMAN'S BALL is on Channel 4, tonight at 10!
Now, I have to admit that it is going to be a shortened version of the actual event, so I'm not sure if our 'Monkeys' shortfilm has survived the chop. If that's the case, (and it shouldn't be, because nobody is waiting for 10 minutes of Russel Brand...no, I'm not bitter, no) here are a few stills to enjoy.
At least I know my 'Mr Beaky' animations will appear. He'll be promoting Amnesty International's phone and text number during the commercial breaks.

Jeroen ? 3D ??????

excerpts from 'The Usual Suspect'. To see the film, click here.

This one is for my friends and family back in Belgium, who haven't seen my little 3D computer film yet. Oh yes, I briefly turned to the dark side!
During a quiet period at Tandem, I got offered the chance to not only learn Maya , but also create a shortfilm with it, decent enough for the Tandem showreel. I quickly learned that the 10 week schedule was very scary for a 2D animator, but thanks to Mike Cook's (very patient!!) guidance, I pulled through, and created 'The Usual Suspect'.
The film is only 23 seconds long, so it basicly tells a little joke. For me it was more important to create a distinctive look, different from so many plastic like 3D animation you see on TV. Therefore I worked with painted textures, and crayon like outlines on the characters, buildings etc. Funny that the final look feels 2D again. You can take me out of the charity shop, but you can't take the charity shop out of me :)
Of course, it isn't Pixar stuff. But knowing where I came from, I'm very pleased with the result.

What happens to your brain when you're scared?

Animation for the 'Institute of Physics' website. To see the full set of animations, click here (once on the site, click on MRI SCAN)

This website was deviced by TalkinToons guru, Bradley Carroll. It's purpose is to show children that science can be fun. I created 5 animations that explain in a funny way what happens to your brain when you kiss, smell, feel joy etc.
My Tandem colleague Mike Bonnington did a great job designing the whole site. Have a look at it, and let me know how deep you managed to enter the ass (once on the site, click on COLONOSCOPY). Very educational that one, haha.

The 'Vine Line'

This week I've been animating a 'vine line' for a Radox commercial at Tandem.
It's starting to feel like second nature. to be honest. Since I directed a series of stings for 'BBC Summer' a few years ago (see picture), 'growing vine' jobs land quite easily in my inbox.
And to say that as a teenager, I hated painting still lives with flowers, at art school.

CBBC 'The Slammer'

I pitched on the opening titles of CBBC's new entertainment program 'The Slammer'. The idea was to animate a stage musical in which (with the aid of set & costume changes, light effects and camp dance routines) we tell the story of a clumsy juggler who ends up in prison.
I really wanted to get this job. Since I've animated a French Can Can (or should I say French Cow Cow) years ago, I've been wanting to do an amusing dance routine again.
Sadly enough I didn't win the pitch. The producer opted for a live action version instead.
To see the full moodboard, storyboard and key visual, click here.

Persil Radiant

Here's an animation job I did in august. It's a concept ad agency JWT wanted to try out to promote Persil Radiant.
We got a very tight deadline, so there wasn't much time to spend on designs and storyboards, leave alone an animatic! To save time, we decided to draw directly into flash. Funnily enough, those restrictions made the concept stronger: the animation doesn't look too planned, keeping in touch with the childlike feel.
To see more stills, click here

Teddy's sculptures

Hey, why not involve Teddy's work in my blog!
The poor guy is not that computer orientated (even less than me, now THAT's scary) so there's no chance he'll start his own.
Teddy is not only a brilliant animator, but also a fantastic sculptor.
He's done jobs for Who framed Roger Rabbit, Bjork's 'Army Of Me', Spitting Image, etc.
His latest work is a maquette for Benny and Boil; a TV series concept from Tandem Films, following two trolls in their eternal quest for food.
Keep up the good work Ted! (even if you're sometimes TOO irritatingly talented)
To see more of his work, click here.