Toast Slice One: Episode 1 - 'Over The Moon'

An example here of the finished frame and comparable shot from a flashback sequence involving 1969 Pinewood Studios, Steven Toast, astronauts, Stanley Kubrick and a certain tricky occupant of the White House.
Staunch work by director Michael Cumming, and technical crew, plus Series Designer Rosy Thomas and her clever gang - creating atmosphere on the moon!
As with anything here - do click on the images to get the full-detail benefit.

Toast Slice Zero: Title Sequence

During the broadcast of award-winning Channel Four/Objective Productions show 'Toast of London' I shall add posts giving brief insights into my experiences last summer working as a storyboard artist and concept designer.

This run sports a stylish and effective new title sequence.
Quite late into my involvement I was asked by Matt Berry and series director Michael Cumming to sketch a shot composition for how they saw it in their heads.
With a tip of the hat to the televisual race memory of our childhoods - see titles for the legendary ITC action series 'The Champions' below - Toast himself retains a dominance in the frame while the regular cast of Ed Howzer-Black (Robert Bathhurst), Jane Plough (Doon Mackichan) and Ray 'Bloody' Purchase (Harry Peacock) walk in to join him, before leaving as enigmatically as they came.

We discussed this during a brief break in the studio filming of another episode, and the sketch here was completed while I sat in the darkened set of the Colonial Club.
Job done.

PopCult (TV): Pop will eat itself?

Ushering in upcoming posts revisiting the strand of my career involving storyboarding for television, it was enjoyable to note a closing circle of reality and fiction this week.
Comedian and writer Matt Berry, on the morning of the day his 3rd series of award-winning Channel Four comedy 'Toast of London' began broadcasting, guested across channels with the doyen of ITV daytime telly, Lorraine Kelly.

Looking through the opposite end of the telescope that evening, the first episode itself opened with MB as Steven Toast, again chatting with Kelly in exactly the same set.

A pleasurable metafictional shudder ran down the mind to view it all.

More slices of Toast - and my doings inside the creative toaster - shortly.

An Ensixteen Rarity for you. . .

Here is a chance to download a 4-page 2011 graphic sequence - unpublished physically elsewhere but part of the official 'canon' of the 'bio auto graphic' series.
It's titled 'Time & Relative Dimensions in Storytelling' and I created it as a response to my participation in a fascinating 2010 conference at Manchester Metropolitan University: 'The Story of Things - Reading Narrative in the Visual'.
It is part of the archive of the Image [&] Narrative e-journal.

The theme of the event chimed closely with strands of what inspires me; random associations, happenstance and chance affinities in our shared daily experiences.
In taking place in my native North West it also allowed me to retrospectively visit the strong cultural flavours of my youth, including the creative powerhouse that was Granada television and the fraught cobbles of Coronation Street, Weatherfield.
The salt and vinegar of Northern comedy also runs through it as it does my veins.

Download, enjoy and keep, should you wish.

Small Publishers Fair 2015 - THIS WEEKEND!

Check this out here or click on the image to get the detail.
Lots of good stuff and interesting people - listed here.
A rare exhibition by our dear chum Nancy Campbell included.

Mette and I'd love to see you there?

Letter Man

The Question or The Answer?
All may await in my latest 'bio auto graphic' - the 27th.
Available at the end of next week at a certain event that Mette and I have enjoyed lo these many years. See above. . .

Mister Penlington, I presume?

A charming fellow called Nathan Penlington has been kind enough to post several reviews of my editions on the international site Syndicated Zine Reviews. Here is a link to the posts so far.
Mister P, who is himself a writer, performer, magician, obsessive – and many more things besides – really seems to 'get' what Ensixteen Editions – and 'bio auto graphic' – are about.

His fascinating 'The Boy In The Book' – which I'm reading currently – touches and amuses in turn.

Image courtesy of NP.