The Final Push

6 Dec

With a locked edit, we had just 2 weeks to finish compositing around 130 shots! Many were prepped, but still, this was a challenge for any studio and we had a team of 4 working remotely, including me, and I was working full-time hours storyboarding on a TV series! But what a team! Chloe Wait, our Lead Harmony Compositor, Kat Owens my assistant animator (both recent graduates from University Arts Bournemouth) and Alexia Vargas Arevalo, our After Effects artist fresh out of University of the Arts, London.

Chloe Waite, composting final shots in ToonBoom Harmony.

Alexia prepped James’s hand painted watercolour backgrounds and character poses in PhotoShop. Kat handled final animation clean-up, tones and digital ink and paint. Chloe brought all of these elements together into the final shots, and I checked shots in the evenings. Chloe had thankfully already experienced the pressures of working in a fast-paced composting team at Brown Bag Films and was managed to keep all those pates spinning!

Still, by the last Friday, we had about 50 shots outstanding, that needed to be in the edit in 4 days. Chloe and I spent a long last weekend. I composited some of the simpler shots directly in Storyboard Pro while kat handled the complex shots in Harmony. And Kat finally got to animate a shot by herself - Want and Ignorance!

Here’s what Chloe has to say about her experience.

I was responsible for putting together the art and animation into final shots, and adding lighting and effects, such as the flickering shadows in Scrooge’s house to the snow falling on the Cratchit’s house. Working on this project has been an absolutely amazing experience, especially when I’ve been working alongside such incredible artists! My favourite scene from the project is the last shot that overlooks the whole of Huddersfield, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it in the finished film!

ABOVE: Chloe’s favourite shot, an epic multiplane shot over overlooking Huddersfield. This progression shows the art and skill of composting - assembling different layers of art and adding tonal adjustments and other effects to create a satisfying single image.

David Bunting

I’ve been making animations since I was nine years old, filming on a Super 8 camera! Since then, I’ve worked across television, film and independent projects, collaborating with studios and broadcasters including Disney, BBC, Channel 4 and Netflix.

I studied Animation at Senior College Ballyfermot in Dublin before training in Visual Effects at Walt Disney Feature Animation in France. That led to work as a classical drawn effects animator on films including Disney’s The Tigger Movie and the title sequence for Thunderbirds.

A love of storytelling drew me into storyboarding and filmmaking. After training at Aardman Animations, I worked with studios including Aardman and Blink Industries on series such as Shaun the Sheep, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed and Alley Cats, collaborating with talented teams across the UK animation industry.

Alongside commercial television work, I develop and direct independent films - most recently the award-winning animated documentary No One is an Island(2024) - that allow me to push my artistry and tell more personal stories. Through comedy, drama, or quieter moments of reflection, I’m fascinated by animation’s ability to bring people of all ages together — communicating stories through character, rhythm and visual language.

At heart, I’m still driven by the same thing that started it all: the simple magic of drawings coming to life.

https://www.buntinganimation.com/

The Final Push

Creating the Book in After Effects - Alexia Vargas Arevalo

The Editors Job - A fresh set of Eyes