Post production on Grandpa in my Pocket is now complete and we've just delivered the last episode to the editing team in London. Our final shot count was 1051 shots, a 25% increase on last year and most of that was down to the scripts that integrated Grandpa more with the action. There's far more activity and running around in this series and there are plenty of times where Grandpa is on his own trying to solve a problem without being seen. It's been a tough schedule but, since this is the second series, we were able to jump straight back into the workflow without the stress of trying to figure things out as we were going along. Here's hoping for a series three! Grandpa has been nominated for a Bafta so I don't think this will be the last we've heard of Grandpa and his cap. Showreel and full writeup will be posted as soon as the series has been aired next February/March.

I've also now finished production on Reign of Death and the trailer has been posted on Youtube (see below). It's been great to work on this from beginning to end and it's really inspired me to return to filmmaking again, now that I'm leaving Dinamo to work on personal projects. I'll certainly be making another short film again next year, hopefully a script that Barney and I wrote a few years ago but had to shelve when our careers took over. It's been a great pleasure to work on this production and was a really good editing and compositing experience. I think this film is going to go far and people who see it are really passionate about pushing it further and really making use of the great crew that came together to make it. A big thanks to both Matt and Linus for all their hard work and inspiration!

I've added loads of new articles to my work section, filling out the titles with making-of information and showreels. I just need to write the Grandpa Series 1 piece and then I'll be up to date.

Lastly, I visited the Birmingham Comic Convention last month and got loads of new banners for the Comics section. There are about eighteen new sketches, plus a couple of extra ones drawn at the recent MCM show in London that I sadly couldn't visit but had a friend take along my sketchbook instead. The convention was good, but oddly empty and I'm not sure whether it will go well next year. The Bristol one is more fun and energetic so I'll certainly be going to that in May. I'd also like to go to the next MCM show that's also in May but I'll see what my finances are like first! The highlight of Birmingham, however, was seeing Star Trek on the Imax - definitely an experience I had to do twice! What a great film.

On the film front, District 9 was superb, Up was okay but rather simplistic (I wonder whether Pixar's canonical group-writing process actually removes all individuality from the story and simplifies things too much), The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was a fun mess that I really enjoyed, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was good fun and didn't hurt my eyes, and Fantastic Mr. Fox was okay even though they all looked a little like animated roadkill. Looking forward to Avatar and 2012 - I'm a sucker for VFX overdoses.

The summer has rushed by and I don't think I've seen daylight! Grandpa in my Pocket has now finished filming and we're about a month away from completing the visual effects post production. Reign of Death has also finished post production and the only remaining task is to do the sound dub and present it to the world. It's been a really tough two months doing days on Grandpa and nights on Reign but the results have been worth it. The resulting short film looks great, especially the CG work done by Linus Hofmann and the CG animation students at Swansea Metropolitan, and it seems strange to think it was a half finished, colour and sun-lit edit not a month and a half ago. I'll post more about the film when it's done in a special making-of article.

I've now made a big change of direction in my career by resigning from my post at Dinamo Productions and going back to being a freelance VFX artist. I'll also be setting up my own company to handle some (hopefully) larger jobs, but for now it'll just be myself doing some general VFX work. It's been a long time coming and I decided that now was the time to move on and put my knowledge to use in ways that would benefit me more directly. I've learned a lot in the past five years and I'm keen to take advantage of the opportunities developing currently in Cardiff. I finish at the end of November and I plan to take most of December off! It'll be my first proper holiday in three years!

Due to my ridiculous work schedules, I've barely been to the cinema recently. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was fun and looked great in 3D (something I couldn't say about Coraline). We've been watching True Blood at home and it certainly lives up to the pedigree of other HBO drama series. Very bloody, very sexy, very funny and completely engrossing. Have also seen Generation Kill (also HBO), which was good but meandering, and Star Trek twice on Imax, which completely blew me away. I've now seen Star Trek four times at the cinema and it still holds up - it has the most incredible energy and enthusiasm to it that means it just keeps getting better on each viewing.

Last weekend I was at the Birmingham International Comic Convention so I got a large number of new sketches from artists of every genre. I'll be scanning and posting them over the weekend. It was a good convention, although I think its venue and limitations to the comics industry means that it's going to struggle to grow. They need to find a city-centre location that can grab passing trade and appeal to a wider audience. The number of artists were noticeably fewer on the ground this time and most of the vendors didn't do as well as they expected. In its current state, I can't see it surviving. The next convention will be the Bristol one in May.

Grandpa in my Pocket is now in its second week of filming and we’ve spent two days on the greenscreen. It’s been great to have working edits to show on the greenscreen this year and it certainly makes the process a lot smoother. However, the shot count is higher and it makes for some very demanding sessions. James Bolam, as usual, has been a complete trouper and it’s a pleasure to watch him act to just a monitor for reference.

It’s been interesting to compare the Reign of Death and Grandpa shoots, especially their speed and camera use. On Reign, we were working with a RED camera and managed about thirty-five setups over the course of eleven hours. On Grandpa, we’re shooting a 120-setup episode a day, sometimes more, with usually two studios running at once.  Although it would be nice, the budget wouldn’t allow for RED cameras to be used on Grandpa even though the RED is clearly cheaper than the Sony HD cameras we use on set. The 35mm sensor would actually work against us and make it more challenging to keep focus on the actors while they’re moving around. As much as I’d love to see the show with a more filmic look, it would more than likely slow us down. American shows can use 35mm because they have the budget and workforce to let it happen. Friends, for instance, spent four days in rehearsals before shooting for four hours on 35mm, and that’s just one episode. Grandpa has to shoot 26 episodes in almost as many days.

I’m currently watching Generation Kill, the HBO series about the most recent Iraq War. It’s shorter than their normal drama series at seven episodes, but it’s already living up to their remarkably high standards. Can they do no wrong? (That’s rhetorical.)

A few months ago I entered an online competition to win a limited edition of The Arabian Nights. Not sure why - it seemed like a good idea at the time. In typical fashion, I managed to completely mess it up by submitting a hundred-word story. The eventual winner of the thousand-word story competition was far better than my meagre effort. Nevertheless, I rather enjoyed the experience and I reproduce the text here for your derision:

Lying, with the warm sand like a blanket, she stared at the night sky and the landscape of stars beneath her. Brief, fiery comets rushed past and she could feel their heat upon her face. Her eyes darted from cluster to cluster, points of light like grains on the dark sides of the tents. Calls echoed in the darkness but grew faint as the eons passed. Memory lost out to new wonders. Endless change and movement took her on a dance that showed her colours and patterns beyond perception, beyond life. Her hands gripped the sand and she held a universe.