Page 25 - Fujifilm Exposure_32 Aardman Studios_ok

commercial break
CBeebies’
Gordon The Garden Gnome
IN THE TRAILER FOR A NEW BRITISH ANIMATION SERIES GORDON THE GARDEN GNOME, DP RICHARD MOTT, CHARGED WITH
INTRODUCING THE CHARACTER TO A PRE-SCHOOL AUDIENCE, TOLD ANWAR BRETT HE USED 35MM FUJI SUPER F-125 TUNGSTEN TO CONNECT A SEEMINGLY NORMAL GARDEN WITH THE COLOURFUL WORLD OF GORDON AND HIS FRIENDS.
So there were technical issues, but there wasn’t a matching issue with the animation series. We faced the same technical issues you would face for anything you were putting animation on. You would always shoot back- ground plates as reference points, and put tracking marks if you were moving the camera - little white crosses around the set that can be seen throughout the shot.
The narrative of the commer- cial takes places over several days, and in it a little girl keeps peering over a fence, giving advice to a guy who is
sweating and toiling and making a mess of his garden. He’s obviously getting quite annoyed as she keeps
“saying things like ‘Gordon says you need more water’.
The guy ends up saying, ‘Who does Gordon think he is, Alan bloom- ing Titchmarsh?’ Then at the end of the piece she walks into her garden, which is this very picture postcard, heavenly thing with a little pond and
a wooden bridge. And we cut to a close up of a gnome who, as we pull out to reveal her whole garden, becomes animated. And in the series, he is actually voiced by Alan Titchmarsh.
We filmed it in these ornamental gardens north of London, and because of where we could lay the dolly we had to overhang the water with a Fisher 23 Jib Arm and a remote head. As we pulled out, we saw the girl get down from the fence and go and stand in the middle of the bridge. That was the big, glossy reveal. For this sequence I push-processed the stock about two thirds of a stop, just to enhance the colour a bit because I wanted the colour here to be slightly richer than in the rest of the piece.
When the little girl was at the fence, I back lit her and made it
all seem very idyllic. And when we swapped around to see the guy,
I made him look very hot, with a frontal key light so that he looked like he was wincing into the sun when he was looking at her.
I thought the Super F-125 stock had a nice balance, it’s got very rich colour and the grain structure is great. I just really like the way it looks. Fujifilm would also have been my choice naturally for the colours in the garden, to bring the greens out and the colours of the flowers, and,
of course, the gnome. I shot on
Primo lenses, which I think
were a great combination with
the stock. ■
Gordon The Garden Gnome
trailer was originated on 35mm Super F-125 8532 motion picture negative
Client: CBeebies Marketing
Agency: BBC Broadcast
Production Company: BBC Broadcast Director: Patcam
Producer: Janine Kelly
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 23
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