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KATY DAVIS

Mega-budget pop promos are becoming a thing of the past, and bands are looking for personal and unique styles to complement their music. That spells great opportunities for this talented 24-year-old.

Breaking onto the animation scene is no mean feat. It takes plenty of talent, but the other requirement is a great attitude and a willingness to work on self-initiated projects or collabs, for little or no cash. That's exactly how 4Talent Award-winner Katy Davis has been making a name for herself.

Katy's got a mixed-media, hand-made style that's attracting lots of eyeballs at the moment. Her latest work is a music video for the song Gone Fishing by Second Person. The cute little main character in the narrative is called Jules. She was cell animated, but the video also brings in elements of photography, and an enchanting stop-motion technique was used for the seawater.

"I used a wooden frame with layers of glass in it and supported a camera above it," Katy explains. "On the bottom layer of glass I placed a sheet of oily cellophane, some silver balls – that you put on cakes – for bubbles in the middle layer, and a thick coat of glycerine on the top layer. I then spent a good few hours filming it in stop-motion, squidging around the glycerine with my fingers and moving the silver balls and cellophane."

Cell animation and the hands-on creative approach give the outcome a charm and emotion which live action or rendered effects can't always achieve. It's time-consuming, but for Katy the hard work is worth it: "Cell animation is an extremely slow process, but I do it because I like the way it looks. I'm not so keen on the CG, block-colour or unnatural movements that a lot of creative programs produce. I like the old school."

While most young artists love to take inspiration from the work of others, while Katy was studying at Norwich School of Art & Design she says she never took out a single book. She wanted to develop her own style first, afraid she might subconsciously copy another artist. These days, however, she does allow herself to look around. Artist Dave McKean and Israeli animator Jonathan Vardi are two of her favourites. She also loves the movies Amelie, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, Pan's Labyrinth, The BFG and The Goonies.

Gone Fishing is the second video that Katy's produced under the studio name Gobblynne Animation. It came about when she responded to the band's call for a filmmaker on MySpace. Because Second Person are unsigned no fee was paid, but through the collaboration Katy has been gaining recognition: Cobra Beer has used the video as part of their sponsorship of ITV movies, MTV has used it to promote their Flux channel and the animation has featured on the music section of Google. Katy was a featured director on YouTube and profiled on MySpace. She has 12,000 friends there, so clearly her style has a following.

Her third production will be a new video for her brother's band, Bim, while she continues to seek out work in the industry at large.

CONTACTS

www.gobblynne.com

katy@gobblynne.com

Judge: Rachel Roberts, Lupus Films.
Words: Garrick Webster, editor Computer Arts.
Photography: Neil Parker

Katy was one of 20 4Talent Award winners in 2007, our hotly tipped young creatives to watch, to hire and to collaborate with. To meet the other 19 click here