The Fantastical Factory of Curious Craft

The Fantastical Factory of Curious Craft debuted on UK screens in May 2020 as Channel 4‘s answer to the British Bakeoff!

Amateur crafters use their artistic talent to make spectacular creations! They must impress `factory boss’ Keith Lemon before he chooses the very best for a celebrity client, who in turn crowns a winner (and takes the chosen craft home)!

Such a show deserved an utterly creative title sequence to reveal the vibrant & colourful factory of creations. Director Matthew Cooper & Jelly London realized a Willy Wonka style title sequence that combined a mix of live action & stop motion animation. The originally intended titles were cut down as the presentation of the show developed, but here is the full length director’s cut…!

& a huge thank you to director Matthew Cooper & model maker Miles Ascough for all the fantastic photos & videos featured here!

 

Director Matthew Cooper had a 20 second time slot to squeeze in as many examples of vibrant factory of crafts as possible. He’d immaculately timed out every detail of each shot which gave me clear & precise timings to work to for my animation.

Director Matthew kicks off the shoot with a few takes on the lever pull!

Matthew controls the pressure gauge via a simple string pulley

Sliding fabric through the rollers in a straight line proved trickier than expected!

Model Maker Miles Ascough devised a little rack and pinion mechanism to aid the stop frame animation of the conveyor belt. The mechanism allowed the both belts and 16 wheels to move in unison so the I could focus on the timing of the animation. The shot has a very specific number of frames to fit into the short title sequence. To reveal each of the 3 statues at the exact right moment, I had to time out all the movement & measure precisely how much to move every object to get it in to the right place on the exact frame it needed to be there!

Originally a shot that sadly was cut from the sequence, the Factory pipes were made from drainpipes covered with star stickers before being sprayed in different colours. The star stickers masked the pipe from the spray & it was fiddly & painstaking to peel them all off without damaging the paint! Once ready, I animated the ‘self painting’ pipes by painting over the patterns in grey, frame by frame and playing it back in reverse!

Matthew had prepared all the pom poms to run in a colour coded order of which the first few would need to loop, leaving screen on the right & re-entering screen on the left. I marked which direction each cog was turning as it was very easy to forget on every frame which was going clockwise or counter clockwise!

Shot from overhead, Matthew & I plan out the animation timing

Model Maker Miles Ascough did an amazing job creating each of the wacky contraptions in a very short time frame. One of which was this brilliantly simple pulley mechanism for the pressure gauge in one of the live action shots!

That's a lot cogs to animate & also to remember which way each one turns on every frame!

www.milesascough.com

Instagram: @milesascough_maker

LinkedIn: @milesascough

Who knew how long a few paper chains and fans would take to make! Seems straightforward but each row was carefully colour matched to the designers vision and aesthetic of the show… Yes that is a document with coordinates for each row! Big shout out & thanks to Molly Watkins for all her help in putting them together 🙂

Matthew designed the titles sign & Miles crafted pink flocked letters, a welded steel frame and wire neon lights !

3D printing became an invaluable tool for Miles. He 3D printed each cog & even the red light casings were painstaking developed & redeveloped by testing different 3D print prototypes

All this amazing work for a 20 second sequence!

Client: Studio Ramsay

Title sequence directed by Matthew Cooper:
Matthew’s webpage at Jelly London
Twitter: @MatthewCoooper
Instagram: @MatthewCoooper
Vimeo: @MatthewCooper

Title sequence produced by Jelly London:
FFoCC on Jelly’s Website
Facebook: @JellyLondon
Twitter: @JellyLondon
Instagram: @JellyLondon

Model Maker Miles Ascough
www.MilesAscough.com/
Facebook: @MilesAscough.Propmaker
Instagram.com: @MilesAscough_Maker
YouTube: @Miles Ascough

DOP: Matt Day

Shot at Clapham Road Studios
Facebook: @Clapham-Road-Studios
Twitter: @ClaphamRdStudio
Instagram: @ClaphamRdStudio

Photo & video credits with thanks to Matthew Cooper & Miles Ascough