Empire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary Part 6 - Viva Las Vegas
Posted on Thursday March 15, 2012, 15:20 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Ahoy swabs and lubbers! This blog comes to you live and direct from Las Vegas (cue trashy theme music). I make no apologies for being here. Heaven knows, I spent long enough in the Aztec West Business Park, north of Bristol. Now that I’ve actually finished the Pirates movie, I’ve got a couple of chances to experience the outside world and by Neptune I’m going to seize them.
I’m in Vegas to meet with members of the World’s Press (which now I come to think about it must be a club with about a hundred thousand members). There were about fifty here this weekend from all over – Japan, Italy, Russia, Chile, you know the sort of thing. I’m not going to list the countries of the World: just “all over”. I’m here to meet them because publicity is important. Nobody’s going to go and see the movie if they haven’t heard of it, so right now my job – and my obsession – is to try to get the message out to as ... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary Part 5 - Now With Banners!
Posted on Friday March 2, 2012, 15:36 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Ahoy Scurvy Swabs,
Well mateys, the voyage is just about over. Weigh anchor, clap on all sail, put the helm over and set a course for the Movie Theatre! Don’t worry, I wont carry on with that stuff, it’s too tiring for all of us. But the fact is, we’ve finished the movie.
We shot the last shot (and then, to be honest, we sneaked back into the studio and shot a few more, just because we could). We all rushed to the pub and drank prodigious amounts of GROG in celebration. Then after a few weeks we had the Wrap Party, where we all dressed up as Pirates, wolfed HAM and swilled MORE GROG. Then we all hugged and kissed each other (well some of us) and with many, many tears the crew broke up and went back to the Real World.
It’s a weird thing about film-making. There’s always this one great goal ahead – to finish the film (because frankly, that’s the only reason we’re there). So you do finish, you achieve your goal - - - and then you&... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary Part 4 - Now With World Exclusive Video!
Posted on Friday February 24, 2012, 11:48 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Fanfare please!
AFTER TWENTY MONTHS OF CONTINUOUS HARD WORK AND INTENSE, FOCUSED ACTIVITY. AFTER MORE THAN 500 DAYS OF CREATIVE EFFORT, AFTER COUNTLESS HOURS OF ANIMATING, ORGANISING, LIFTING, SWEATING, PERFORMING, FRETTING, CAJOLING, RIGGING, LIGHTING, BUILDING, PAINTING, PROGRAMMING AND PERFECTIONISM - - - - - - TODAY IS THE LAST DAY.
Which means that at the end of today we’ll have finished the stop-motion shoot. The beautiful sets will have done their work. The lights are switched off and returned to store, the props are filed away (for the sequel of course!) the puppets are bathed, tucked up in their beds and kissed goodnight. Our amazing, amazing animation studio briefly returns to its former incarnation as a warehouse.
Already the studio is being cleared at astonishing speed. Walls come tumbling down and bits of tavern, ship, castle, cabin and kitchen are spirited away into storage. Meanwhile, the crew all stand around shocked and excited - they look ... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopEmpire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary Part 3
Posted on Wednesday November 23, 2011, 12:00 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Ahoy swabs,
Captain's blog: They tell me we’re approaching the end of the shoot. To be exact, they tell me, we have just three more weeks of shooting on the studio floor. Astounding. I find this rather hard to believe. Where has the last five years gone?
Of course, it doesn’t mean the film will be finished at the end of three weeks. Oh no, not by many a mile - because when the studio shoot does finish, there’s still a mountain of VFX work to complete, and then there’s the little matter of editing, sound and music. So there’s no danger of me dossing about or taking it easy until sometime in late
February next year.
But still, the scary fact remains: only three more weeks on the studio floor. I feel very ambiguous about this statistic. I mean, there’s really not much point in making a film unless you:
a) Finish it.
b) Have a huge Premiere and a wild party and everyone tells each other
how much they love them and
c) Get ... Continue reading... Comment Now (1 comment)
Back To TopEmpire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary Part 2
Posted on Friday October 21, 2011, 15:54 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Greetings swabs!
There’s only nine weeks shooting left on the Pirates! movie, so they tell me.
In some worlds nine weeks is a long time. In our world of animation, it seems like nothing, the blink of an eye. The end of the shoot is alarmingly close.
It’s not terribly easy to explain what ‘shooting’ means in the world of stop-motion – not without pictures at any rate – but I’ll give it a try.
You know that the Pirates! is stop-motion, right? Some call it model animation, some call it puppet animation (I still call it 3D animation – because it is!). Anyway, the characters are all armatured puppets with sophisticated metal skeletons inside them. The animators place the puppet in a pose, then record an image, a single ‘frame’. That frame will be onscreen for one twenty-fourth of a second. The animator moves the puppet slightly into its next position and takes another frame. That’s another twenty-fourth of... Continue reading... Comment Now (1 comment)
Back To TopEmpire States: Guest Blog: Peter Lord's Pirates! Diary
Posted on Friday July 22, 2011, 09:41 by Peter Lord in Empire States
 Okay. This blog comes to you from - well I don’t know where I am, actually - I’m up in the sky, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. There’s clouds outside, that’s all I can tell you.
I’m flying to Mexico, and then later to LA. It’s all part of the mysterious and difficult business of promoting a film.
Which presupposes a film; and that’s what I’m here to blog about. I’m directing Aardman’s latest stop-motion film. Obviously at this exact moment I’m not physically directing it, being on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic, but for the last half decade it’s been my project, my obsession, my albatross and my darling.
So, first things first. The film is called “The PIRATES!” – that much is certain. In the UK it has the subtitle “…In An Adventure With Scientists” while in America and much of the rest of the world it’s subtitled “Band Of Misfits”. Two t... Continue reading... Comment Now (2 comments)
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