January 2025 | James Durose-Rayner's website

January 2025

The A's

ALL IMAGES OPEN IN TECHNICOLOUR

1 February 2025

I was up at 3:00 am.

A drive down the M1 to Luton Airport beckons as we are outbound on the 10:55 am flight to Larnaca.

As I am writing this, I'm backing up all my work onto a external hub so I can take it over to Cyprus and transfer it on to my laptop.

Just this week I've created 42GB of image (jpg, png) and video files (mp4), which is staggering.

I'm assuming the traffic won't be that bad being that it's Saturday - not that the cameras ever due you any favours, as half the length of the motorway from the end of the M18 to Luton has a 50 mph limit.

It's 8:55 am and we are now in the priority lounge at the airport. Not because we pay, as no lounge I have ever been in is worth it. It's due to Julie having an American Express Platinum Card (AMEX) - and with it comes a Priority Pass.

As a rule we never use credit cards. She got the AMEX solely due to the great travel insurance that came with it. Recently, however - they have stopped it, and all we are left with for the extortionate annual fee, is the card for the lounge.

Julie's advice - never get one.

As a rule, we never have breakfast, but here you have to make it crack, therefore I've just had two sausage and egg rolls and a latte macchiato. If it was nearer midday, I'd be banging the Peroni's (or similar) - that's for sure.

My worst UK airport lounge? Leeds Bradford.

A few months ago, I put the Anita and Jenny characters behind the windscreen of a car. It was shit imagery which I did to just make a photo for the website.

Yesterday, I wasted half an hour trying to make the fucking thing move, and I had to admit, it did have me shaking my head.

In Series 2 of the story, Anita drives an array of vehicles - which is possibly due to the job she has, but her main one on a weekend is an Italian sports car. I'm not sure what sort as it's never been mentioned in the story, but it will certainly not be that one.

In 3D, everything is what they term as rigged - therefore, you can open the doors and place your assets inside - which are known as poses. As it is rigged, the wheels rotate etc. In 2D, it is a totally different ball game. You just get them behind the windscreen and hope for the best.

I'll reset the image this week and try and make a professional job of it. Not because I want it, as I don't. I just need to understand the problems so I can overcome them. Basically, it's no different to anything in life.

My advice - try your best and never let anything beat you.

I also had another look at the Gaynor animation at the graveside.

One of Julie's best friend's is a lovely lady by the name of Margaret Godley, who resides in Tickhill near Doncaster, and manages the manned offices at the nearby Airport.

I've had offices there for 14 years - however I've never been there for ...er, 14 years.

Margaret saw the animation - and firstly mentioned the clothes. And if this takes off the way I hope - everyone will mention the clothes. They will blow everyone away!

She also mentioned the Church scene in Co. Galway, where Gaynor, dressed in a white mini-dress, goes to lay some flowers at the grave of her great granny, amidst a storm brewing over the Atlantic.

"You'd have thought he'd have put her a coat on," Margaret said - and by he, she meant me.

That made me smile.

I have to do a character based on her.

One of the things about Margaret aside of her worldliness and clipboard efficiency, is that she'd pass for being much, much younger than she actually is. Even now, she's a bit of a babe.

Back to the graveside scene, I needed Gaynor to crush the grass as she knelt down.

As I keep on saying, this is just the pre-construction phase, where I learn to understand the assets, the animation, the filmography and indeed the huge amount of software.

The February blog will have it's own page from tomorrow.

31 January 2025

I was up at 6:20 am and out through the woods with the dog. And it had rained through the night. Again!

I got back in, just in time to hear Radio Caroline playing the last end of a song by the Spiders called What's Your Game (Miss Insane). I've not heard that one before. I'll download that and have another listen.

Yesterday, I cut the three clips that you see on the website and started creating wardrobes of clothes for some other characters, and indexing them properly.

Indexing is a ball ache, but something that you need to do. Thinking about it - I still need to download a shit load of 3D assets that I bought all of which need indexing.

As 3D, the clothes - just like the characters, are assets, which you can dress them in - the same applies for hairstyles and make-up etc.

I have to admit - that sounded very fucking gay!

In 2D, it's much easier, quicker - and certainly cheaper. And the clothes are better.

The secret? I'm not telling you.

I've had conversations with Julie (the wife) about the Jenny character, and in particular, her hair, in that "A little girl wouldn't have hair like that".

In 3D, it's style is called Bobbity. In 2D it's just what she came with.

Personally, I can't see anything wrong with it. She's tomboyish. In the story, and outside of school she wears sneakers, pumps and those clumpy boots - the latter of which you'll often see Anita (and Pammy Antrobus) wearing when she's at work.

In the story you'll often see her comparing Gaynor and Anita by some of the things she says.

It is here where you have to be careful.

Females make the greatest characters, of that there is no doubt. And children can too. The idea, however - is not to over-cook a good idea.

I watched a sitcom on DVD a few years ago called Catastrophe, which was written and played by Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan - the latter of who is Irish.

It was enjoyable, but the woman (Sharon) tried to make herself too funny and became just fucking annoying, to the point where I ended up switching it off.

When Gavin and Stacey first aired, I thought yeah it's enjoyable until... James Corden is just someone who everyone hates, so he's never going to win any friends, ever. Even in Series 1 of Teachers he was the fat kid in school that you just hate.

In Gavin and Stacey, the Nessa character - who was played by co-writer Ruth Jones, (I think) was written to be some funny and deadpan overweight bird. That never happened. She just ended up being some dirty, annoying fat old skank.

And Fleabag, for all its plaudits, was immensely annoying.

The same applies to kids in TV series.

A few years ago, my son bought me Outnumbered starring Hugh Dennis - whose family incidentally live in Chiswick (I never knew that until now). I started watching it with a view to doing in the whole series - however, the kids were annoying as hell - especially BBC's token ugly one with the stupid hair.

I only ended up watching a couple of episodes.

In The A's, there is funny and there is serious.

Gaynor, for all her beauty is a tragic figure. The girl who had everything and threw it away. She's also funny, but never to the point where she's annoying. The same goes for her mum, Maureen. Jenny is the same.

Last night was a case of using stuff from the freezer and emptying the fridge for dinner as we are in Cyprus tomorrow.

I made Chili-con-Carne using roast peppers, and instead of Mascarpone cheese, I used a packet of (Le) Roulé, which is that round wheel of soft white French cheese, which you buy in to use with crackers at Christmas and which nobody eats. And don't get me started with the so-called moist, soft, creamy, surface-ripened cow's milk cheese - Camembert.

I've stuck my head in a lot of fucking horrible places, but leave a wedge of that stuff open in the fridge for a week whilst you're away, and it takes some beating.

As for music, my son, Jamie bought me an album maybe a year or so ago by the Smashing Pumpkins titled Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

I wouldn't say that it's an album that you can pull a song off for a TV series. Maybe the title track, which is an instrumental, could be used, but the album is one that you listen to as opposed to just wanting to look for a track to depict a scene or scenes.

If you want to put it into a category, maybe The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Pink Floyd's The Wall are of a similar construction. Nevertheless, it's a nice album and one that you can easily listen to.

I'm currently in the study and Radio Caroline is playing Both Sides Now being sung by Joni Mitchell. Personally, I think she's killing what is a brilliant song.

Judy Collins singing it, is awesome. I thought about the song for a sad part in The A's - maybe towards the end of Series 1. I'm not sure yet.

Anyway, I'll write off for today and chuck a clip or clips up later.

A 57-second clip of Mason Green practising his Lao Boxing in the mirror ...with a bit of company.

Mason Green has an I.Q that is off the scale in so much that it is immeasurable. That gift comes with problems.

In fact, you want to see him in a bar fight.

His love for Gaynor, however - offsets some of these, hence why Mason's family and friends refer to her as "Our Beautiful Distraction".

But could she keep all this up?

I'm nowhere near happy about the resolution when I get the editing software to zoom into it.

The problem?

The 5MB files (maximum) on the pro-software are garbage.

(Above) A 19-second animation of Anita Pallenburg and Jenny Mellor in a car showroom.

I just wanted to see them interact in a different environment.

This took me around 20 minutes to create and render with very little thought outside of me using high resolution images of Anita and Jenny.

Anita - Mason's wife, is extremely pretty, and he and Gaynor's daughter ever so cute.

In the story, Gaynor and Jenny refer to Anita as Nita.

This has to be another yardstick of quality as the reproduction is crystal clear.

30 January 2025

I was up at 5:10 am, which is strange as I didn't hit the sack until midnight as I was busy creating a wardrobe full of clothes for the Anita Pallenburg asset along with a school uniform for Jenny Mellor.

This is all in 2D. The idea is, when the production starts, that I can move between the 2D and 3D. There is also 4D, but I'll not blag my head with that just yet.

I rendered a 33 second clip of Anita and Jenny and put it up on here. That clip took less than an hour to create from nothing, and if I'm being honest with myself, both assets don't look bad and interact with each other quite nicely.

I also used camera angles to mix it up and not make it look as flat. There's a lot to learn!

I'm fast approaching Day 50.

That will be the day I am hoping everything will change.

The videos will be more thought out and, although I will still be rendering in 2D - I will use camera angles in every shot and will become more au fait with the main editing software.

Today, I made contact with the company behind one of the pieces of software that I'm using.

I'm a staff member journalist and full member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain with over 300 magazines and seven books to my name, so I'm hoping to be taken seriously.

There are current restrictions on the software - the size of files it will handle for one.

The reason the eyes can't be controlled at distance and the legs and arms can't function at speed, I am assuming, is purely down to the pixels, as a 5MB file is fucking pants.

It needs to handle up to 100MB.

I can overcome half of that with 3D animation through IRAY, Unity or Blender - however, going down that route is highly time consuming and would be painfully slow. It would also take the reality away from the animation.

Last night whilst making dinner, I half-played a few albums. The first was No Need To Argue by the Limerick-based band, The Cranberries who are fronted by Dolores O'Riordan.

If I'm being honest, there was absolutely nothing worth listening to.

When I first started writing the screenplay for The Project, I had songs in my head to set the scenes. It is something that I always do. That word: Inspiration.

I had three going at the same time. These were Linger by The Cranberries, Fireflies by Owl City, and Archie Will You Marry Me by the Canadian Indie band Alvvays.

The first two I had in my head for when Mason and Gaynor are studying at the flat in the early days of their relationship; and the latter, which I will use as the opening of Episode 2: Sixth Sense, as that is the episode where Angie Mellor marries Pat Marshall.

All three songs are good - but from what I've heard so far, The Cranberries as a band are a bit fucking whiny. I will, however, persevere as I have around half a dozen of their albums on the B2.

After the Cranberries album finished the B2 jumped on to Dummy by the Bristol band Portishead, and that's when I thought Fuck this. I wanted music for inspiration - not to slash my wrists to, and for some strange reason I stuck some Ska on. The original stuff - not the rehashed garbage that was around in the late-seventies that sort of paraded as Ska.

54-46 Was My Number by Toots & The Maytals and You Can Get It If You Really Want It by Desmond Dekker and The Aces stick out as good Ska songs.

In the story there are two fictitious bars in the Hammersmith area that are both labelled The Jungle.

One is the Club Tropicana where the students go; the other is the more menacing, and that is The Mombassa Arms. This is a rather discriminative place that is frequented by mainly blacks - however, they do have an awesome jukebox, which is full of Reggae and Ska.

Did Mason and Gaynor go? I can't recall writing it in the story, but who knows.

In Series 2, Marvin Marshall (Pat and Angie's nephew), Matthew Paignton, and Jack Harrington (the younger brother of Josh) call into the place, in a scene which I could describe as interesting.

Anyway, it is coming up to 6:30 am, and the dog will want walking.

It is still dark out, but at least it's not raining.

(Above) A 30 second clip of a 16-year old Gaynor Mellor.

The girl you see now is totally different to the girl back then.

The braces, glasses ...

Believe it or not, it is the same Genesis 8 and 8.1 character asset.

Without giving too much away, part of the reasoning was that she had been extremely poorly when she was a child.

And there is a story regarding Granny Maureen - not Great Granny Maureen who is buried in Co. Galway, but her daughter (Maureen Butler nee O'Hara - the 18-year old who got engaged in 1958), who in Series 1 is in a care home with Alzheimer's.

A concerned Jacob Gotleib once called in at the home to see Gaynor one Monday night in late-September 2023, and asked: "How's your granny?"

"A lot more sociable than when she could talk," Gaynor replied.

Maybe that tells you something?

29 January 2025

I was up at 7:00 am and through the woods with the dog, and just got back in time to see the dustbin men fully empty our green bin.

We did The Red Lion last night and copped a takeaway from The Tandoori on the High Street, which according to Julie was a mistake, as her Chicken Balti Madras, looked like it had come from Foghorn Leghorn. That's the mouthy rooster on Warner Bros' Merrie Melodies.

Today is Day 34.

Animating in 2D has its limitations as the angles are of course flat and very much in-your-face. With 3D you can get behind, under and over the asset, which gives you a 1000 times more scope. I do, however, have to walk before I can run, and I always gave myself 50 days to try and master the basics.

I'm still nowhere near doing that as I've only just got the assets to walk (head-to-toe) and even then I was cheating.

I had the Gaynor asset wearing sunglasses, as I know - not that I did it, that her eyes wouldn't animate properly at distance - therefore you have to cut a fresh clip, rather than getting the software to zoom in as you tend to lose resolution. I'm sure that wouldn't happen with (up to) 100MB files at 300dpi.

Not to worry - technology is banging at the moment and I'm sure by the time we go to production, things will be much better.

Yesterday was another wasted day as I spent three hours out of my life going to the accountants, which is just off London Road in Sheffield city centre. It was pissing it down all afternoon and the M18 - with its two lanes and lorries overtaking each other at 56 mph, made very frustrating driving.

Then when I got there, the main man - Azmullar, had nipped over to the mosque to get some prayers in. I didn't recognise him as he'd had his hair shaved. It is supposedly part of the Muslim thing when you go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that's where he'd been. I never knew that!

It's 8:25 am and I'm drinking coffee in the kitchen with Radio Caroline on and which is currently playing Cat Stevens' Father and Son. Great track - not that I'll use it, however.

Anyway, I'll see what today brings.

28 January 2025

I got up at 5:00 am.

It has rained all through the night. I'm looking through the window of my study and, again - all I see is the dark.

The flagstones outside the house are filthy and need jet washing; and all three cars need cleaning. I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Scott Allen (Big Scott) said to me the other day whilst in The Curry Leaf: "I'm surprised you don't sell up and move out to Cyprus permanent - I fucking would. This weather gets me down."

When we were younger, that was a thought which we were contemplating - however, now - there's too much going on in our lives, and Julie would never want to leave Jamie and Lianne.

"Mam, it's only four hours away," our Jamie told her. "Just do it the other way around - and come back to the UK once a month."

Last night was a nothing night - in that I made dinner, whilst listening to a playlist on the B2 that I made a while ago, and which I keep on adding to and removing - and which I've labelled The A's. And the two chickens we got from Tesco the other day found their way into the oven and got roasted, which pleased the dog immensely as she gets everything apart from the four chicken breasts.

Yesterday I rendered twenty clips.

As I said, there are a lot of steps to animating something that I would proudly put my name to.

The first is the reality. I always said that reality is the first hurdle, and bar the other night when I binned a load of clips, I am consistently achieving that.

What went wrong?

I'm not sure as I used two lots of software - one of which was the high-end professional one.

The clips: Being that she is absolutely useless in the kitchen, the Gaynor asset was made to stumble, and drop a tray of eggs; and then talk to herself about having another job to do in cleaning up the mess.

That doesn't happen in the story - I was just trying to animate different scenarios in a bid for perfection.

In this instance, the animation looked like what it was - animation, in that the asset's face changed And from looking 99.9% real, it looked very cartoonish.

Everything I did yesterday, I was sort of pleased with.

It is a continuation of the weekend away on the west coast of Ireland.

I have clips of the Gaynor asset in the hotel room, not doing anything in particular, just looking good and drinking wine; and the Mason and Gaynor assets out and about doing a bit of sightseeing.

It was in the latter, I added Gaynor's mini.

I gotta admit - that didn't do as it was told!

I had Gaynor stood looking very good in all black and wearing sunglasses, and then her car decided to roll forward with no fucker in it.

I said to myself: "How the hell did that happen?"

If I'd wanted that to happen it wouldn't. Well, I guarantee you now, that if it had, the wheels wouldn't have turned.

The private number plate is annoying too - as if you get the asset to stand in front of it and then move away, the odd letter changes. In this instance - the G44 NOR changed to F44 NOR.

It's not a problem as I can blow into the shot and lose it, but that doesn't solve the problem.

Anyway, I'm moaning and I shouldn't.

The next step to strive for is continuity and to perfect this is extremely time consuming - even for me.

So, now, I'm going to try to overcome this hurdle.

Wish me luck.

As I said the other day, there's a bit of a Gaynor and Angie Mellor fan club growing on YouTube - therefore, tomorrow, I'll try and appease them and chuck up the Hotel Room clips.

27 January 2025

I got up at 7:00 and went out with the dog

It had hammered it down with rain all night and was very slippery underfoot - especially though the woods

Yesterday was a learning curve of contrasts and colours.

I've put five clips up on here.

I was going to do it yesterday - however, I ran out of time.

I was pissing around with Gaynor in red - the contrast of colours on that one is out of this world, and I bit off more than I could chew.

I ran with three lots of software - two of which are supposedly high-end and ultra professional, and I kept failing.

Some background to the story.

Gaynor met Mason in the Upper Sixth Form of the 40 Martyrs college. He was an underaged student who came to complete his A Levels, as he missed a few months of college as he'd been in a coma following a car crash in which his parents died. No-one knew this bar one teacher - who had encouraged him to have a fresh start at a different college.

Gaynor saw him and wanted him - however, the Gaynor you see in the animated clips, isn't the Gaynor who first introduced herself to him.

That Gaynor was an awkward looking girl with spindly legs who was fresh from having her braces out, who wore glasses and never went out.

A month or so later, she became a completely different person. She became very intense with her studying and worked like a dog to impress her new boyfriend and on a weekend they absolutely caned it.

Both kids loved music - and Gaynor - she loved dancing - and by Christmas 2022, she and her entourage of friends were seen most Friday or Saturday nights in The Metropolitan (The Met) in Hammersmith, which had a dancefloor.

So, dancing and socialisng was her thing - and it was no different on the west coast of Ireland - however ...and this is a big however - Irish dancing is very different.

I tried for a good hour to get the girl in red to do the River Dance, and I have to admit, I failed miserably.

You have to separate the legs from the body. And I didn't want to do that. I am sure you can understand why.

The Lady in Red. (Click on the image to open in colour)

Anyway, yesterday evening, we went to The Curry Leaf.

I had King Prawn Puree and a Chicken Pasanda made into a Vindaloo and around six or seven pints of Cobra lager.

I had half an hour speaking with the owner, and one of my best friends - Omar Farooque.

Another of my best friends came in whilst I was there - Scott Allen and his girlfriend Edyta.

Scott's a great lad who I've known for over 20 years. I used him as a main character in S5 Uncovered.

I haven't seen them both since they came round for a meal at ours just before Christmas, although we do keep in touch by phone or WhatsApp.

He described the Gaynor character as a Tasty Bird, which was more or less how Johnny Welsh had described her and their Angie when he phoned on Saturday.

Wait until the world sees them!

You can count your real friends on one hand..

Anyway, £131 later, I braved the elements and walked the dog around the churchyard.

Tomorrow, I will put up some clips of the rest of the trip to Ireland - along with a serious effort of animation in Mason and Gaynor's hotel room.

It is here that I will do a full-blown animation where I separate the shots.

I am hoping this will be as near as perfection as I have done as the Gaynor character asset has animated brilliantly and being described as a Tasty Bird doesn't even scratch the surface.

The reality is mind blowing.

Now, work beckons.

26 January 2025

I got up at 8:00 am.

The reason being - I didn't get to bed until 2:30 am.

I'd been listening to that song by the Leeds-Punk band - The Mekons, whilst both walking the dog, and whilst doing dinner, and it gave me an idea, and one which kept me up late.

The idea being the Mason and Gaynor characters going to Galway in Ireland.

In the screenplay it is only touched on, which after some thought, shouldn't be the case as Ireland is a big part of the story - that being Maureen's family are from there.

Both girls (Gaynor and Angie) had a Catholic upbringing, with Maureen often having the priest round at the house, and both she and John having an involvement at the local Catholic Club.

The priest is Father Frank Maloney, who is happy that Angie is with Pat, as Pat is also from a good Irish family - The Marshall's.

Mason, however is not.

"You want to get yourself a nice Catholic lad," the priest told Gaynor.

"No, I don't," she snapped.

Christmas Eve 2022, was when some truths about the priest came out - mainly, him wanting both girls in what Gaynor calls - The Dreaded Confessional.

Gaynor possesses a deadpan humour and at times she just says it. And by Christ, does she.

The upshot is that Maureen thinks that she and her girls have done something really wrong and it needs addressing by going to Church late Christmas Eve.

"Ah Maureen, I see you've brought der girls," says the priest in his strong Irish accent. "You're a bit early for Mass though."

Afterwards, her mum, Maureen tells Gaynor: "I can't believe you said that ...Oh God!"

"That's it mam, you keep on praying," Gaynor quips.

Afterwards, Father Maloney is on the warpath, and makes Mason is No.1 priority, as he believes it is he who is leading her astray.

Gaynor's dad, John can't wait.

"Leave him to the lad," he tells Maureen

For weeks after, Mason is being stalked by the priest, who finally catches him at the house, with John (Dad), having a front row seat.

That aside, as Gaynor's relationship with Mason picks up momentum and is in short - 1,000 miles an hour, with Mason being under surveillance from both Special Branch and the Metropolitan Police's Human Trafficking Division.

"I fancy going somewhere where we can put our feet in the sea," he says.

"What - Clacton," Gaynor replied.

(There is some history regarding Clacton - funny too)

"No, I was thinking about Ireland - you know, your granny."

So.

Last night, I cut and rendered Christ knows how many clips of them both in Ireland - not that these will be part of the series - it is just me trying to aim for near perfection.

And guess what?

I must have binned around a dozen fucking clips.

I used the system I've been using, only to find that the system only works to perfection when you have the right contrast of light and colours ...and if you don't tax it too much. And I taxed it too much.

The problem?

As always - Shooting from a distance and not having total control of the eyes, and, in the Gaynor character asset's case - the mouth, as she is always fucking talking.

It's 9:50 am and whilst writing this up and listening to Radio Caroline - The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset has just come on.

If you want a song that is the essence of the real 1960s London, bedsit land et al - well, that is the song.

The Beach Boys Good Vibrations The Beatles' Penny Lane has just followed it.

A cracking station for music, which brings me to another idea that I had - that being Capital City Radio.

The idea isn't a new one, as Peter Kay has used it in both the brilliant and groundbreaking Phoenix Night's and Car Share sit com's.

This station, however, is a serious station which relays proper news and also plays good music; and which often plays in the background.

I needed this to relay the problems the city is facing at the time and how dangerous a place London can be. And to set it against, what at times is a black comedy, it brings out some reality.

Anyway, we are out at The Curry Leaf this evening.

I'll put some animation on here later.

25 January 2025

I got up at 7:00 am and went out with the dog.

Once through the wooded area, the dog and I were greeted with the sight of two deer - a mother and its doe. We startled them and on seeing us they ran over towards a coppice on the far side of the field. I tried to take a photo from my phone, but once I'd got shut of the gloves; took my wanky phone lock off - which has been on since I had to reset it when thing went haywire in Bahrain; dropped down my music player; and found the camera icon; they were mere specks in the distance.

I'd be shit at going undercover.

It's 9:30 am and I've just got off the phone with John Welsh a.k.a Honest John.

Johnny is one hell of a character and one that I used in the novel S5 Uncovered. I didn't have to really elaborate - as Honest John is exactly what it says on the tin (from the old Ronseal advert). I've also used him as a character in The A's.

His character? John Welsh.

In reality he is a massive music buff who is Rod Stewart & The Faces, fucking mad - and just like the Mason character - is one hell of a gambler.

In The Project he owns The 101 Club on Archway in north London, but could lose everything as he is up on a manslaughter charge for running over some failed car jacker in a scene that we never see.

A bit of history: 101 Archway is the site of Rod Stewart's home when he was growing up!

Yesterday, I tried out some other high-end software and cut a couple of clips. I can't just settle on what I think is good - I have to keep striving for perfection.

I've put up a short clip of the Gaynor asset - although, it has been rendered as a standard clip - which has pissed me off a bit. However, it still looks good.

Ever heard of Bryan Cranston?

For those who haven't, he was the rather tragic Walter Whyte character in the Breaking Bad series.

He went public the other year slighting this new animation saying that it was bad for the film industry.

Ask yourself why.

Today, I'm going to chuck some more animation on here, that is near-on perfect.

Last night I listened to Blur's Greatest Hits album on the B2 along with Holes in the Wall, which is an album by the Brighton-band Electric Soft Parade - the latter of which is a very good album.

There was also a decent song on Radio Caroline that sort jumped out at me: Mudcrawlers by the long-running Leeds band, The Mekons. I might enquire about using this in The A's. Very psychedelic-cum-Irish.

I've just checked out some of their CD's on eBay - £30 for a pre-owned Heaven and Hell: The Very Best of The Mekons!

Anyway - some more animation coming up today.

(Above) Yesterday I made a bit of history.

29 days in and I made the Gaynor character speak.

It was the first time that I have ever done this.

It's only a pre-generated American voice, but you can see, how the asset responds. It will be absolutely fantastic with a west London accent.

As I've said already, my original idea was to use the facial recognition/ MOCAP (Motion Capture) software using the voices of real people.

This is still in the early days, and with tech coming on in leaps and bounds - this may change.

24 January 2025

I got up at 6:00 am. The weather is bad.

It has hammered it down with rain all night, so I'm not particularly relishing taking the hound out.

Yesterday was weird.

I cut another 60 or so clips of animation - however, it all seemed to be the Gaynor character. For some reason the Genesis 8 and 8.1 asset animates brilliantly.

I only binned a couple of 5 second clips.

At times, I tend to think that the hardware I am using works as fast as I do, and in reality, that is not the case. I still feel that the software should hold and generate 100MB files.

As I said, I'll throw some other characters up on here today.

Leoni Middleton is a nice character and a Genesis 8 asset that looks younger than she actually is.

I had a similar problem with the original asset that I was going to use for Gaynor. It looked too young. That was a major problem as there are some adult scenes with Gaynor, and I have to be seen to be responsible.

Leoni is a family friend of Mason - and has known him since birth. She is a year or so older than Gaynor, meaning that she is at university in Series 1.

She is one of the girls on scooters who earn pin money on the spread betting for Mason, as well as running and laying off bets for the two Cyril's. It is quite a dangerous job as they carry a lot of money.

Cyril Pope and Cyril (Cess) Essen are bookmakers who own a string of shops, with the former also having a 12% share in The Hammersmith Vaults.

Again, these are fantastic characters and are both Genesis 8 and 8.1 assets.

An interesting thing is Leoni's strange friendship with Gaynor as she drives her to the point of insanity. This she does mainly by being openly horrible with her, and often making out that there is more to her relationship with Mason than there really is.

"Where's the wench?" Leoni nonchalantly enquired, when she called at the flat early one Saturday morning, whilst at the same time noticing the sink full of pots and half Gaynor's wardrobe all over the floor of the lounge.

"I'm here," Gaynor replied, as she ambled down the stairs and into the lounge. "And pack it in being mean.".

"You wanna dump her and get yourself a call girl," Leoni told Mason. "She wouldn't cost you as much and she'd probably do the pots on the way out."

On the music front, Radio Caroline played some decent stuff up to 6:00 pm again, so I kept it on, with Mountain's Nantucket Sleighride being a song that I'd not heard before, but which I recognised. The closing section of it was used as the theme to the long-running British political television show Weekend World , which was presented by Brian Walden on Sunday's.

Radio Caroline also played that track by The Wombats again. Good song.

I played a compilation on the B2 by a band called Gyasi (pronounced D'yer see).

To look at them you think - what the fuck ?

They are a glam rock band who are rather strangely from the home of country music - that being Nashville.

It's a bit like Motown signing The Clash or Cliff Richard doing a cover of the Sex Pistols' Friggin' in the Rigging.

Weird.

Gyasi are a cross between T-Rex, Mott The Hoople, Bowie and Sweet, with the lead singer looking like he could be some teacher from Hackney who follows Libs of Tik Tok.

Very weird.

Baby Blue and All Messed Up are fucking awesome tracks, which goes to show that talent is what it's all about, and it is that which you should be judged by, and not all the other shit.

I did in Swim by Feeder and Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Greatest Hits.

Anyway. Enough of that. The first coffee of the day has been sunk, so it's a trawl through the sludge.

Roll on 1 February and Cyprus.

(Above) This is a 43 second animation of the Angie Mellor character just looking good and talking to the camera.

Check her out against her granny - Maureen O'Hara in 1958. They are so pretty - and the reality of the characters are absolutely brilliant.

This is the yardstick that I need to use when I go into production towards the end of the year.

It will be strange hearing her talk as she will have what should be a west London accent.

Angie is a Genesis 8 and 8.1 asset and, like her sister, animates brilliantly. My only concern is that her appearance changes on her having different hair. It is something that I need to focus on throughout both series.

23 January 2025

I got up at 5:30 am.

I'd been tossing and turning for an hour or so before that - in-part due to an over-active mind.

I'll write this up and then brave the elements and take the Alsatian out for her morning walk. Yesterday it started raining as soon as I put my coat on. I'm looking outside through the window of my study now, and all I can see is the dark.

Yesterday was quite an eventful day for The Project as I rendered around 100 clips, with only a handful that I ended up binning. That is good considering it was the other way around when I first kicked off doing this.

I focused on the two sisters as they are the protagonists within the story and I have to admit, both assets animate absolutely brilliant. I just wish the regeneration software would take bigger files as I'm limited to up to 20MB per file, which is shite. It really needs to handle 100MB, so as to keep the resolution of the assets intact.

I'm finding that once the asset goes back what looks like five or six feet in distance, I lose control of its eyes and its fingers, which is the main problem I get with the Jenny Mellor character as she is so small. Therefore, I need to mix up the shots rather than just zoom into them at distance and blow them up - as they deteriorate. That means that I have to recreate a close-up from scratch to break up the scene - as I have done in the Gaynor Mellor on the Marina clip. It's not perfect, but then again it only took me a few minutes to do.

I did some animation for the Episode Indexing - Episode 7 - Hey, God Damn, Wow, I'm So in Love.

I had an idea and needed to try it. It is a clip when both Mason and Gaynor go over to Ireland, and I needed to see how the colours contrasted.

The reality is, that I will have to go over to Co. Donegal or Galway in Ireland for the weekend, and take some high resolution shots with the Canon EOS, because what I generated on file is pants. Nevertheless, the Gaynor asset looks good against the sea.

I listened to both the 1987 Ecstasy and 1991 Loveless albums by the Irish-English alternative rock band, My Bloody Valentine on the B2 last night. This was after dinner, rather than before it, as I had Radio Caroline on and it was knocking out some decent tracks so I let it play. One of the tracks was I Can't Say No by The Wombats.

Ecstasy and Loveless are both tidy albums if you like Psychedelic rock, and being that The A's has a 1960s influence about it, I will - if it is of course, cost efficient, use a couple of their tracks, although I'm not sure which ones just yet.

I also listened to the self-titled album by Elastica - the band who were led by the ultimate It Girl - and ex-member of Suede, Justine Frischmann.

I used the Elastica song Stutter for the first music promo I did. In reality, they were just a one album band.

Right. The coat, the torch and the dog ...and a walk through the woods.

I'm slowly starting to fill the Episode Index pages so there'll be a bit of animation going on there shortly; and due to the fact I'm getting a bit better with the animation I'll try and pan them out from 5 seconds to 20.

I have to admit - the assets are starting to look awesome. Give me another 50 days and they will be ten times better.

Anyway - time for work.

22 January 2025

I was up at 5:00 am and pulled both the brown and purple bins out. It's dark and miserable outside.

We did The Red Lion last night and had our curry. I'd have taken a photo of the meal, but after a few pints, the table has the tendency to look like it has been hit with an Exocet, therefore, I didn't.

Julie cleaned the table and stuck the plates in the dishwasher and I gave the dog her 1.3 mile walk through the woods, and when I got back in I watched a bit of the 1963 Hitchcock film, The Birds.

You really need to watch Sienna Miller in the 2012 film, The Girl, to really appreciate it. It really was the golden era of cinema.

The actress Tippi Hedren, whose name I have used as a minor character in The A's, oozed class and style - from her blonde hair and timeless attire, through to how she both presented herself and delivered her lines. There are a few similarities with January Jones' Betty Draper character in the TV series Mad Men, and hopefully, if I shoot it right, the Angie Mellor character in The A's.

I created over thirty animated clips yesterday, using the same system (sequence) I have been using. These were all of the Gaynor character against different 2D backdrops which are meant to be Mason's flat - and to make the the animation a bit more complex, in one instance I had her climbing on to a Vespa whilst wearing a dress.

This was to see if it reacted differently. It did.

A bit of a shitter, that!

It is still morning and I have animated some close up shots of the Gaynor character. Just check the high-res photograph to your right. The animation blows it away.

I've also done the same with the Angie character - but the interesting other thing is, is that I have animated them both together.

It is truly fantastic and I'm only 27 days in.

I'll chuck that up on here tomorrow.

Hey! Also, what I didn't know until yesterday, was that both the Angie and Gaynor characters are getting a bit of a fan club on YouTube - and that's only after a couple of weeks.

The Gaynor in the bath montage is fairly popular.

Just wait until the end of the year!

21 January 2025

Julie's phone went at 6:20 am.

Her mum had had a fall in the care home.

Alzheimer's. A lousy unforgiving disease.

When she was staying with us we treat her with kid gloves, then one Sunday afternoon, I heard Julie shouting me through the front room window. Her mum had fallen on the front drive and split open her head.

The inability to walk properly is part of the disease and as professional dementia nurses will tell you - they tend to shuffle.

The head wound looked bad due to the amount of blood, but in reality it was only superficial. The med's the doctor had her on didn't help - as some of them were blood thinners (rat poison), plus the fact she kept on touching it when asked not to. I think that was the straw the broke the camel's back, and hence, why a care home was the only valid option.

So, £100 later my wife got her phone back. It needed a new screen. Christ knows how many of those we've been through.

I rendered quite a lot of animation yesterday, some of which was of the Angie Mellor character.

Angie is a Genesis 8 and 8.1 asset and is one of those that looks very different once you change her hair.

Like most women, it suits her best when it's up, but it alters the appearance of her face, which had me scratching my head a bit.

As the story takes place over eight years, two series and 24 episodes, it's a great problem to have as I don't need to use the aging software - however, the downside is, that at times she can look older when she is supposed to be younger. If you get that! It is a problem, that I'll overcome.

The animation includes her husband - Pat Marshall, who in the story, and like Angie, is an absolutely lovely character.

Anyway, after a bit of editing, I'm chucking a 25 second segment up on here.

The Anita Pallenburg character is also an interesting one.

As I've already said, Anita is a top-end Genesis 3 asset which I'll convert through 8 and into 9.

I've always been into music history, but when I was in the last year of school I was fascinated by The Rolling Stones and in particularly, their highly-talented albeit highly-flawed rhythm guitarist Brian Jones.

His girlfriend in the mid-1960s was Swedish model Anita Pallenburg, who when they were all in Morocco in 1967, dumped him and chucked her lot in with the band's lead guitarist and Jagger's songwriting partner - Keith Richards.

The Anita character in The A's has many similarities, but as with most characters in The Project - their personalities in the main, are the complete opposite of their real life contemporaries.

Anita is an amazing character. She is extremely slim and pretty and was there the very first day Gaynor met Mason. She was on the periphery of what was an intense relationship for its duration; and near its end had become close - through not just Mason and Gaynor, but by her close friendship with Angie Mellor along with several of the girls (on scooters) who worked the football betting syndicate.

The upshot is, even though she often got frustrated, is that she bided her time.

I listened to a bit of Roxy Music last night whilst the dinner was being prepared. If you want great tracks, More Than This, Over You and Avalon are exactly that. I think they may be a bit too expensive to be included in The A's, but I'll find out.

Dinner came courtesy of the stuff that got bunged in the freezer over Christmas. Tesco's finest Salmon en croute along with some egg mayo and a cheese and carrot salad.

A bit heavy if I'm being honest.

We are in The Red Lion tonight.

I totally need a Chicken Saag Vindaloo to offset all this rich food.

Anyway - have a good day.

(Above) The girl with the cats eyes.

The Gaynor character modelling at Christmas.

Using the same system (sequence) I did a 30 second clip of an asset from head to toe. It is the first time I have ever done it and it has worked well.

I now have a method of continuity - however, I haven't used it as yet.

I also have a much better clip with the asset wearing a 1960s swing dress. I may use that as part of a second music promo. Not sure yet.

In Series 1, there is a character by the name of Astrid Karcherr.

She is a year or so older than Gaynor, and is at university studying photography and art, and hangs out with their politically astute crowd in The Hammersmith Vaults and The Knights Templar in Notting Hill.

I sort of misnamed her after The Beatles photographer and the yellow vacuum cleaner I use for hoovering out my car.

As I said - inspiration comes in many forms.

In the series, Astrid sometimes uses Gaynor as a model, although there are absolutely no intense scenes, just camera flashing and stills when they are out on a night.

At the moment, however - that is just an idea that needs working on, and as such - may change.

20 January 2025

The trouble and strife has had her right arm cut off. Her mobile phone is broke. Like most people, almost all of her life is in her phone. It is without doubt the main topic of conversation and she's telling me that she is pig sick as she has a thousand and one jobs to do and it means her running into Doncaster city centre to get it repaired. She's also told me that if it had been mine that had been broke it'd still be her taking it into Doncaster. She's on my phone now trying to find out if today is the day for the appointment for her nails done.

Yesterday, the kids came over for Sunday dinner, so I prepared that during the afternoon and let various indie albums play on the B2. Again, nothing jumped out at me, although there were some decent tracks that I can't say I've heard before such as Slowly, Slowly by Magnapop and Saturn 5 by the Inspiral Carpets, which has a bit of plagiarism in it as the woo-we-woo harmony is a blatant rip off of The Beatles song - Back in the U.S.S.R.

I've chucked up a new animation of Angie and Gaynor's gran in 1958 straight after she had been proposed to.

I was going to lay it on a 1950s background, but the asset looks quite good against a dreary wall.

I used the same system of animation as I did when I rendered The Blums and the earlier Gaynor animation and it looks very realistic, so I'm quite content that this is the way to go.

I gotta admit, I'm looking forward to hearing the assets speak, especially the Maureen O'Hara character, as she will have a really strong Irish accent.

That aside, she really resembles the Angie character in looks and has the gesticulatory expressions of Gaynor.

Anyway - today is definitely a work day.

19 January 2025

Whilst walking the dog I noticed the first snowdrops of the year making their presence known through the undergrowth alongside of the path that leads from the Market Place up to St Andrews Church.

It was a late start this morning as Julie had been up all night, with a that stomach flu I'd been saddled with earlier on in the week. I have to admit - there's no worse feeling than having your head in the toilet half the night.

Yesterday was a breakthrough day as I created the yardstick from which to gauge the animation. My aim was always, that it has to look realistic.

Whilst doing the dinner, I finally listened to the two remaining Sleeper album's The It Girl and Smart, but nothing jumped out at me. I also trawled through a playlist that I'd created from DeeJay 95, which is a Cypriot radio station that ten years ago was pretty damn good. Nowadays - however, it's nothing short of shite.

There were some songs by the Greek female singer Σtella (Stella Chronopoulou) such as Come Collect and The Map, which are quite nice, but they are hardly It Girl material and therefore certainly not for The A's.

Mark Ronson's Bang, Bang, Bang came on, and that's when Julie mentioned the nineteen-year-old wearing the black leather mini skirt with the tied-up blonde hair and the cat-eyes - that being the Gaynor character. And with a rather caustic reference to both the character asset and indeed the song, asked if me I had thought about the latter for The Project.

Personally, I don't think that Bang, Bang, Bang would be a song that cool kids would ever listen to. And Gaynor and Mason's crowd, either up in The Knights Templar in Notting Hill or down in The Metropolitan (The Met) or The Vaults in Hammersmith, are the epitome of cool.

I'll have a think about that one.

I watched Michael Caine in Harry Brown last night. I've been watching a few of his films recently, including the original 1969 The Italian Job.

The actor is unique in his delivery and my idea was to make the Jacob Gotleib character have certain similarities.

Jacob is a presence through both Series 1 and 2 and, although he is mentioned, doesn't come into play until a scene where he is in Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital - not as a patient, but as a sort of Devil in a Dark Blue Suit that strikes fear into anyone that crosses him.

He's an absolutely awesome character.

I watched the 1969 version of The Italian Job, not that it's a great film, as it isn't, but for the style, the contrast of the colours and of course - the Mini Coopers.

In The A's, although the Gaynor character does get a Mini Cooper, it is the scooters that are prevalent. And it's not from a Mod-angle as in Quadrophenia, but from one of elegance and style.

I saw a photo of the Romanian model and actress Mădălina Diana Ghenea (and Sophia Loren lookalike) sat on a 1960s Vespa and I thought - wow.

In The A's, around half-a-dozen of Gaynor's crowd earn pin money spread betting for Mason, and with London Choco-o-block with traffic and ULEZ cameras everywhere, the scooters give them speedy access in and around the city. The point being that it is therefore, the females that you see on them and not the males.

It is all about elegance and style.

I have at least thirty Vespa's, Lambretta's, Piaggio's in various different colours - including the good old Union Jack, which I bought as 3D assets.

I have an animation of Gaynor riding a scooter, but it's shit. I'll try and work to rectify that through the week and do a better job and throw it up on here.

Anyway, I have to get back to my day job.

18 January 2025

I was awake at daft o'clock, but outstayed the wife in bed and she ended up taking the hound out for the first of her three walks.

We did The Red Lion last night, but failed to dine and I ended up phoning in a takeaway from the Tandoori on High Street.

The reason?

We were about to order when I had some guy come up behind me and cover my eyes.

"Guess who this is?" he said.

"Smitty," I replied.

I'd not seen him in well over 18 months.

"I've been back since September, and I've been calling in (The Lion) to try and catch you."

Smitty's real name is Ian Schmidt. A character if ever there was one. His life is an absolute train wreck. His downfall? Women. He's garbage with them, and last night he had a different one in tow. Fuck knows where he digs them up.

She was well impressed (sic) when I told her that his great grandfather was the Butcher of Belsen and ended up being hanged in Nuremburg.

"Don't believe him," Julie told her.

His father or grandfather is/was called Adolf, however.

I first met him around 20 years ago, and I was having the same conversation back then as we were last night. The irony about it all, is that wife - Emma, a professional chiropodist, is lovely.

He's also like a frigging magpie. He works as a contractor on the railways and weighs in more steel than Rainham.

I once asked him: "Does your neighbour actually know what you're up to, bearing in mind all the scrap in your garden?"

"He knows a bit," he told me.

His neighbour - Mark Grannon, is a special constable, which in layman's terms means he's an unpaid grass. If you want a few adjectives in there, big, fat and ignorant are a few worthy descriptions. He must be the only person that could ever get a mail order bride and come back from Thailand with someone more fucking minging than him.

I can't understand why I have never used either of them as characters.

As they left, Luke Platts and his girlfriend, Charlotte came in. Luke was in school with our Jamie (my son) and he and and his girlfriend are two of the nicest people you could ever meet.

I've used Luke as a character in The A's, and just like Luke himself - the character is a lovely lad.

The Luke character is ten years old and an ex-school friend of the Jenny Mellor character in series 2.

This is a really nice story. Very emotional. I just hope that I can pull it off on screen.

Regarding music, I only got to play one of my new Sleeper CD's the other day. That was - Pleased to Meet You, as the B2 decided to jump artists and played Pod by the Breeders - who were an American alternative rock band fronted by the highly-talented female, Kim Deal, followed by Feeder's Polythene.

These are both very good albums therefore, I let them play.

The stand-out track off Pod, is the rather short Fortunately Gone, which due to its immaculate rawness - could be incorporated into The A's with the actual band rigged as street musician(s) playing it.

I'll have to have a think about that. Nevertheless, it is quite a catchy song.

Anyway, Julie has just come back in from doing a veg-run at the Co-op as Jamie and Lianne are coming for [Sunday] dinner tomorrow.

Right - my day job beckons.

I reckon that I've cracked it.

At 2:50 pm on Saturday 18 January, 2025, I made the cleanest animation [using two assets] yet. And I am only 22 days in.

There is a system for doing it.

(Above) Maurice Blum 26, and his elder brother, Francis (Frankie) Blum, 31. Maurice Blum was a businessman who owned several bookmakers shops as well as The 214 casino in Crystal Palace. His brother worked as his enforcer-stroke-debt collector.

Mason Green had a system to "beat the book" and, with no-one really knowing, ended up taking the Blum's for £440,000.

The Blum's found out who was behind these young girls on scooters, who had been putting these huge bets on, and planned to hurt him.

They went for both his Achilles heels, that being Gaynor and his gran - Ana Reung.

(Above) I wasn't going to put this clip on - however, it is a very good animation.

The main reason is that it gives away the part of the story.

The A's covers 11 months in 2022/3 in Series 1 and five months some seven years later. This scene is somewhere in between - a flashback, where Jenny Mellor is just 10 months old.

Gaynor was socially cut off by most of her friends and Josh Harrington was there.

In this clip, Gaynor - against the wishes of her parents, goes up north to visit him and his family. At this point, they are just friends and nothing more.

17 January 2025

Another late start this morning. I woke up at 3:40 am and with my mind buzzing as it does, I couldn't get back off to sleep. And when I finally did - I didn't want to get up.

Yesterday I put together a fairly long video clip of the Mason character sparring in front of the mirror; with the Gaynor character, basically trying to jockey for position.

Although it was quite humorous, I wasn't happy with neither the proportions and resolution of the characters, nor the fact that I had to fill it with other inferior clips.

In my humble opinion, if something wants doing - it wants doing right, therefore it was binned.

We are due out to The Red Lion tonight.

I texted the head barman - Alex - or Ted as I call him (after Ted Danson on the old 1980s sitcom, Cheers), and told him we'll be dining, and with it being a Friday - it means fish and chips, which if I am being honest, are quite awesome.

I have an Alex as a minor character in The A's.

He stars as the head barman at the Chiswick Green Sailing Club and Marina, which is a fictitious place on the River Thames, and a place where Gaynor and Angie's parents often go.

I have no idea as yet exactly how many of these minor characters there are, but in Series 1, I reckon there could be around 100.

For the voices of the characters, my original idea was to advertise The A's in drama classes in local colleges and maybe amateur dramatic clubs. It's another one of the thousand things I need to think of.

AI is do-able, but I think I'd lose the reality.

As I've already said, by the time I get to that juncture, and from a technical angle, things will change.

Anyway, my day job beckons. Onwards and upwards.

16 January 2025

A late start this morning. I didn't leave the house until 7:20 am, which might have something to do with me not getting to bed until just before midnight. I watched the remake of The Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg.

I've cut a few video clips over the last couple of days. At the moment I'm working with 2D images as backgrounds, therefore, the starting point of the animation dictates how the clip turns out. It is no way near perfect, but I need to understand how it all works including the problems that I encounter, so I can overcome them - one of which is proportional sizing.

In the story I have Mason standing at 6'0 feet tall, and both the Gaynor and Angie characters at 5'5".

As I'm not yet animating in 3D, the sizing and proportions can be problematic - especially when the background characters move towards the camera where there is a character (asset) already in place.

I experienced this on creating the clips for both Episode's 5 and 7, whereby I had the Gaynor character come from the background and into the foreground and suddenly she became 6'0.

That cannot happen - ever.

As I said - I like women to look like women and men likewise, therefore, I can't have any gigantic females roaming around set. Creating in 3D will help me nullify that problem as when an asset is moved around, everything will be in proportion.

I created around 30 clips of the Mason and Gaynor characters in front of a mirror in Mason's flat.

The idea was from a song that I intend using within the series - The Girl In The Mirror by Louise Distras - however, none of these clips will ever be used. It is just practice.

Mason is using the mirror to shadow box - Gaynor, just to purposely annoy him. Again, sizing here becomes a problem, but I suppose it could be that Gaynor is wearing 4" heels - which she often does.

Regardless, some of these clips are quite funny.

What should be noted is that the properties (houses, flats, bars etc.) that you see in the clips on the website, won't be used in the TV series. The reasoning being, that these have already been purchased as 3D assets, meaning that I can create scenes from any angle with everything in proportion.

I listened to three albums by Echobelly last night, whilst preparing dinner, which was helped by knocking back four Peroni's.

These are a 1990s Indie band fronted by Sonya Madan, the thinking being, that I might get some killer track that I've overlooked.

Outside of their singles, the only one that stood out was Iris Art from their Lustra album.

Another girl-fronted band?

The story revolves around two so-called It Girls, so to me it makes absolute sense.

Speaking of It Girl's - three CDs have just been delivered by Tony the postman - all by Sleeper. Pleased To Meet You, Smart and The It Girl.

I'll give theme a whirl tonight.

Liver, sausage and onions in red wine gravy, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and green beans tonight knocked down with a few 330ml bottles of Asahi beer.

15 January 2025

I was up at 6:00 am and out with the dog. It's still miserable out, made worse with the thaw. All the cars are filthy, which, again, is made ten times worse by the fact they are white.

We had our evening at The Red Lion.

I decided to leave the dog at home as I'd given her, her 1.3 mile trawl through the sludge minutes earlier.

I did in five or six Beavertown Neck Oil's and Julie copped a bottle of dry white wine. This was followed by a cheap curry from the takeaway on High Street.

I took the dog out for her third walk around nine-bells - just around the church and graveyard, and I had Wow come up on my headphones.

There's a story here. Wow is a song by Tess Parks.

My wife, Julie, fucking hates both her and the song, so it must be good!

Just look at Episode 7 of the first series and the title. Hey, God Damn, Wow, I'm So in Love. That's one of the greatest one-liners ever. That's a line out of the song.

I've chucked a 5 second clip of Galway up. It's not the greatest animation, but - hey, it's still early days.

Mason and Gaynor were having some shite at home so they drive off for the weekend and go to Galway in Ireland to drop off some flowers on her great great grandparents grave. That was inspired by Wow.

Hey, babe I know; You've been working hard; Let's take a holiday - Just you and me...

Gaynor and Angie's granny, and their mum's mam was Maureen O' Hara. She came over from Galway to London's East End as a kid.

I named her after one of my favourite actress who was the lead lady in films such as How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Quiet Man (1952), and Only the Lonely (1991), amongst others.

In The A's she is at the end of her life and resides in a care home as she has Alzheimer's.

I wrote this up prior to the experience of my mother-in-law having it and living with us for a few months, after Julie's dad died in June. It's a shit fucking disease that, in my humble opinion, is as bad, if not worse than cancer.

The Gaynor character visits her each Monday, and whilst there she does her college work and reads Russian literature to her. This is strange as her gran was horrid with her, when she was a child.

The reasoning?

I'll let that come out on screen. As I will, Mason being introduced to her - as he ends up scaring everyone shitless as it turns out that he can actually talk to her. Episode 2 - Sixth Sense.

There is a flashback in The A's where Maureen O'Hara gets proposed to by both girl's granddad, Stan Butler in 1958, which ties in with something Gaynor is doing at the time.

Again, I was going to mix / blend character assets, but I found a Genesis 8 / 8.1 asset that looked similar to the Angie Mellor character, so I went with that. I gotta admit - I am happy with the decision.

Anyway. My day job beckons along with some international banking.

14 January 2025

I was up at 6:00 am and out with the dog. The frost as gone and has been replaced with sludge. This is how a new year starts for most people who actually go out to work. A hard uphill slog through the mire with the only thing to look forward to, being a holiday at mid-point to break the monotony.

I made 51 (fifty-one) 5-6 second videos for the website while I was having a couple of Peroni's at the breakfast bar yesterday evening. I reckon that I have well over a couple of hundred now. I am getting quite happy with how the Jenny character is responding to being animated. This one - I have to admit, is complex. Complex, in that I have to keep on making her look like a near-on-seven-year-old girl. In life you have to keep banging away and continually fine tuning. Perfection is very rarely achieved, but you have to keep trying.

I'm hoping to complete the website today. Once that is out of the way, I can get back to The Project - the completion of the screenplay and getting more acquainted with all the complex software.

Last night, and under duress, I did us a bacon Tagliatelle. I say duress, as pasta agrees with neither of us.

It is, however - the easiest meal ever. Two cans of tomatoes, four of five cloves of garlic, a pack of fresh basil, some chives and crushed black pepper chucked in a blender. Fry a red onion and chuck in the sauce. Add a tub of soft mascarpone cheese, and then chuck in the lean strips of bacon and roast peppers, and boil up some pasta. A great meal for indigestion.

Tonight, or this evening rather, we are on about going out for a few beers in The Red Lion - a hotel which is situated in the town's marketplace. We take the dog, who generally has chicken or fish goujons, and we pick up a curry on the way back home.

Anyway, back to my day job and let's see what tonight brings.

13 January 2025

The dog barking, woke me up at 3:15 am. The golden rule is to never ignore it, as it could be anything or anybody. Fortunately, and as is generally the case, it was just one of the near-neighbours cats prowling around the house.

Yesterday, I did nothing on the screenplay, just set up the short videos on the website. There is still a lot of work to do - however, it is a very time-consuming job, as the software conversions often don't work as fast as, and how you always want them to.

The other year when The Project was in its infancy I looked at an animation of a girl dancing on YouTube that was done by some random guy. I think it was a Genesis 8 asset that had been animated with the Blender 3D software.

I thought it looked really good - however, time moves on, and looking back at it, it wasn't. The guy who did the two minute animation said that it took his PC 32 hours to render the animation. That is quite staggering.

I run with powerful tech, but once I go into production I will be using hardware with ten times the capability of the ones I use now as the graphics have to be spot on. I'm assuming it may be a £10,000 - £20,000 investment per unit.

I was up at 7:00 am and out with the dog.

As with last night, and with the temperature not in the minus, I dispensed with the woollen hat and was back to having the headphones on. Listening to music is where a lot of the inspiration and ideas come from. I mentioned the song by Sleeper the other day. That's the London-based indie band that were fronted by Louise Wener. The song: Rollercoaster.

Look out for the character Mr Morgan in the back end of Series 2, because inspiration works just like that.

I'm currently on with my day job and have a haircut planned, although I will do some work on The Project after 6:00 pm.

No idea about dinner.

12 January 2025

I had a late start this morning and was out with the dog just before 8:00 am. The frost is still thick out - with the temperature around -2°. I look around and take in the countryside and I feel fortunate to live where we do.

I start back work tomorrow. My day job.

I own the UK's Leading Specialist Civil Engineering and what is the UK & Europe's Leading Mining and Piling Journal.

I am on a tight schedule as we are booked on a flight out to Cyprus on 1 February, so it's going to be a busy month. 18 days to write up an 86 page magazine from scratch. Nothing like a bit of pressure!

I started replacing the photographs on the website with animated clips. It isn't perfect, but that perfection will come, of that I am sure. 16 days in and I already have a process in my mind for the production of The A's.

24, 60 minute episodes over two series. That is one hell of a task.

We had chicken and mushroom with salad in wraps last night, which I managed to keep down - thank God, along with four Peroni's; and whilst listening to the B2 I picked up another decent song: Rollercoaster by Sleeper.

When I mentioned the busker the other day, one of the songs I had in my head was Sleeper's When Will You Smile.

My idea was to use not more than two songs by the same artist.

This morning I prepared a beef joint basted in mustard, with roast potatoes, purple and green broccoli, kale and roasted carrots in marmalade.

We always eat after 6:30 pm.

I'll continue replacing the photograph's whilst multi-tasking on the screenplay today.

11 January 2025

Yesterday, I was badly.

I thought it was the antibiotics, but I don't think so. Some kind of wanky stomach flu.

It was -5° this morning when I went out with the dog. I generally walk with the headphones on, but since I've got back - that hasn't been the case.

Last year I bought three 15TB external hard drives to hold all the 3D assets. I have still not downloaded them all as yet. That is something I really have to do.

I have over 3,000 character assets - people.

The Gaynor and Angie characters are what they term as Genesis 8 and 8.1 assets. The Mason character is a Genesis 3.

These can be converted through software into the new Genesis 9 - which is basically, and from a reality stance - out of this world.

The Mason character at times looks a bit plastic in the promo - however, once I convert him, his complexion will become more prominent and eyes more realistic.

In Series 1 and 2 the Mason character looks different - however, it is the same character.

Change the hair, put on different good quality clothes and you'll be staggeringly surprised at how a person's looks can change.

You stick dark hair on the Gaynor character and she looks drab and dire. And Mason looks completely different.

As Series 1 and 2 are seven years apart, I aged the Gaynor character by letting her put on weight, dressing her dowdy and giving her a middle-aged bob-cut.

The difference is remarkable.

I have character-mixing and aging software, which I was going to use to create Gaynor and Angie's mum - Maureen, but I found an asset within the Genesis 8 and 8.1 portfolio that I liked and stuck with it.

I didn't base the parents on anyone in particular - just the names. I wanted a perfect mum and dad, and I reckon that I have achieved that in The A's.

There is a story within the series that I'll not divulge, but the Maureen character, really holds the family together. She is not only pretty, but sexually inquisitive, dead nosey, very affectionate, and has a heart of gold. As for the dad character - well, he completely changes - but that is part of the story. In Series 1 he tends to refer to Mason as "lad". By Series 2, he is "son".

Some of the story can be heart breaking, I just need to put that over on screen.

10 January 2025

I woke up at 6:15 am - however, that was with my head in the toilet.

I've not been sick in 16 years but today I was. I've had a gluey kind of cough since before Christmas so in my wisdom, I decided to nuke it with a course of antibiotics I got over the counter in Cyprus. They obviously reacted to the tandoori king prawns, eight Cobra's and two brandy's.

And £115 later ...

I've not felt this bad in fucking years. I still walked the dog, however.

I've been trying out new AI software all day and some of it is shit hot. And by shit hot, I mean shit hot. There is still a lot to learn, but I now know that I can go down a completely different route and half the production time.

We have fish planned for tonight, and I have to admit - it's not something I'm looking forward to..

It's 6:30 pm and I've had two 330ml Beavertown Neck Oil's and a few of Brewdog's Elvis Juice.

9 January 2025

Christmas and the New Year finished today.

We generally do the Christmas trees 12 days before and after the 25th, but as we've been away it was a kind of this-Morning-task.

I got up at 6:30 am and walked the Alsatian. The first of three walks a day. The weather? -5°. We then took down the Christmas trees. Got it done for 10:30 am.

I'm deleting the photograph albums from the website today. These will be replaced with 5-10 second video clips. I feel it makes sense, especially as I'm supposedly putting together a TV series .

Music is an interesting topic and I'm always after hearing new and different sounds. I'm a bit of a collectormaniac whether it be CDs or DVDs. I upload every CD I have onto a digital music library that I have in the kitchen. It is a Brennan B2 coupled to some Wharfedale speakers. I think I have close to 1,000 albums and nearly 15,000 songs. The B3 is out now, but apart from a quicker CD ripping and it looking a bit wider and sexier, it's pointless throwing £700 at something I don't really need.

Anyway, it was playing last night, and Two of a Kind by Cast came on and I thought - Shit, I forgot about this. It's not too dissimilar to Lovebirds by Dodgy - in that the chorus and it's build up is great.

Obviously within the series there will be music, but here comes the interesting bit. It is as expensive as hell.

Throughout both series, I fancied using a real musician placed in a fictitious place in Hammersmith city centre called Buskers Corner. The idea was to create him or her from a photo and rig them for animation, which is indeed do-able. To be honest, the reality is scary. And then I enquired on cost. It costs between £20,000 and $40,000 per song.

That's nothing. The producers of the Wolf Of Wall Street paid £3 million to use Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones.

David Chase and the producers of The Soprano's were going to use a different intro in each episode. The cost outweighed the benefit and they ended up using Woke Up This Morning by a rather unknown band called Alabama 3.

Whereas the Gaynor and Angie characters were inspired by two girls from school, with the former telling me: "I loved Who I was"; the Mason Green character was inspired by the Pink Floyd song - Comfortably Numb. I've no idea how much that would cost, but I reckon we'd be close to seven figures.

As it stands, I want Western Playland by The Holy Wave to open the series, being that west London is where it's set. I have an idea of what I want, but I'm not ready for trying anything just yet - although I do know that I'll be removing the eight-bars of nothing from the middle of the song.

Anyway, we are out tonight - dining in the Curry Leaf with Cuban Pete and Broken Arm Sue.

We have names for everyone, although Pete and Sue haven't been used as characters. Omar Farooque is the owner of the Curry Leaf. I was not only the Best Man at his wedding over in Chittagong in Bangladesh, but I used his character as an Asian Doctor in a gangster book I wrote titled S5 Uncovered. That started off as a script but Sky Atlantic said that they didn't take scripts directly, but if I got a production company interested, they'd certainly set up a meet.

My life was a million miles an hour at that time so nothing happened.

I was going to use If Love is the Drug Then I Want to O.D by San Francisco band The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Terence Winter used a Jonestown song for Boardwalk Empire - Straight Up and Down.

Mine, I feel was the much better song.

8 January 2025

The taxi picked us up at 1:00 am and we flew out of Larnaca on the early morning flight and got in the house 12 hours later.

I wrote some scenes in the lounge of the airport and had to thaw the car out at Luton as it was -1°.

We did a shop up at the Co-op and got some fresh veg and salad.

I managed to create a few video shorts, but nothing to speak of.

I have two roast chickens in the oven. We are having those with broccoli, cauli, sprouts and new potatoes. I'm drinking a can of Beavertown Neck Oil whilst I do some editing.

A bit of a nothing day, really - however, they always are when you're travelling.

7 January 2025

Got up at 6:00 am and bagged up the rubbish to find the cat at the door. He has a GPS tracker on his collar, so God knows what his owners think he's doing? I couldn't find the cat meat so I opened him a can of Tuna. He quite likes that. And Parma Ham, Serrano, Mortadella and any other cold meats we happen to have in the fridge. He's on the sofa now, having a kip.

First up, I had a coffee and I resized the animation for the music promo on the Home Page of the website. As I said, this is a whole new learning curve. I'm hoping by the time we go into production that I'll not only know the software inside out but can dispense with YouTube as the resolution when it gets embedded into the website is nothing short of shit.

I'm doing some writing today as I have neglected that side of things for the past week trying to learn the video software. I managed a few scenes.

I knocked off around 4:00 pm and we went to Fosis for a couple before calling into this traditional restaurant just off the Paralimni - Dherynia roundabout. No idea what they call it, but we name it the Silly Man Bar. The guy who owns it is a total fucking halfwit, but his food is awesome when he has what you want.

I fancied Liver, egg and chips. Hardly traditional, but Cypriot food is as bland as a day out in Cleethorpes and his liver is very good.

"I got no liver," he said

"What have you got, then?" I asked.

"Look at the menu," he said.

"I have and I wanted liver," I told him.

I ended up ordering four lamb chops, egg and chips and a separate plate of fresh Kalamari rings. Surf and turf-ish.

"I put you some liver on as well," he said.

"I thought you said you'd got none."

"I have two pieces," he said.

Twit!

Julie had Sheftalias and one lamb chop - plus she had a dry white wine and I had a Keo. €50.

We called at the Lionheart on our way home and did in four or five and Julie fell asleep with T.C. and chucked him out at midnight.

6 January 2025

It is Epiphany today. It's a big deal over here. Got up at 4:00 am.

Last night it was arranged that we would drive into Nicosia and use up some of the full tank of petrol on the hire car. This is totally my fault. I thought we'd be a few days to get the FTO back - especially with it being the holidays. It never happened as T.C called in, had his breakfast then had a kip on the sofa into the afternoon.

I did some close up animation yesterday that is the cleanest that I have ever seen. And that is just nine days working with it.

I also cut some other clips which suit the Music Promo much better, so I've installed those. I would have done it already, but I keep moving shit around and the software I am using decided to test me, so it was a start from scratch job.

I've put the Gaynor animation on. As I said, the resolution and animation is the best I've seen.

Julie ended up tempting the cat outside with some food around 2:30 pm and we went out for a drive. We got as far as Nick's in Protaras, which is some warehouse that flogs booze and cigarettes. I got three cases of 330ml Estrella (72 bottles) on some mega deal for €20. Buy three cases get one free. Julie got a bottle of Cockburns No. 1 Special Reserve Port for €12.50. I gotta admit, going there out of season, you get some top deals. He also does the best currency exchange in Cyprus.

We had a walk around Ayia Napa harbour, which was packed as the President of Cyprus was there. Not that we met him.

Julie shook hands with Lech Kaczyński whilst in a restaurant on the Green Line in Nicosia around 15 years ago and made Cypriot TV. For those who don't know, he was the fourth President of Poland. I say was, as he died in a plane crash a few weeks later.

Trivialities aside, we called in at the Red Ruby - the Asian restaurant and went for Japanese - a 24 sushi-sashimi platter of prawns, octopus, salmon, eel and other fish along with a plate of garlic prawns, whilst Julie had a curry. The place does Indian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese and even as its own Sushi chef. An awesome place, but like I've said on TripAdvisor, never expect the curries to be like in Sheffield or Bradford, because they are not. The chefs are from south east Asia ....Vietnam.

Got home via four beers in the Lionheart bar and finished watching the Yellowstone series with the cat, who we had to throw out at midnight.

5 January 2025

Had a lie in this morning and got up at 7:30 am.

Yesterday, I was working on the second series - Episode 15. Not its animation but the script.

The little girl - the Jenny Mellor character, is prominent all the way through Series 2 - her sole aim in life at this juncture, being to get her parents back together and own a mobile phone.

This is an interesting character as although she is not yet seven-years-old, she has the same gift as a father - that being the possession of an inordinate I.Q.

One of my best friend's daughter's was a student at Pauline Quirke's Drama Studios in Doncaster and I sounded her out about the part.

"Wouldn't I be too old?" she asked me.

"No, I don't think so," I replied.

The good thing about animation is that the appearance of the actor doesn't really come into question ...well to a point, anyway.

Getting the characters speaking is at this moment in time an interesting obstacle. I have the MOCAP (Motion Capture) and facial recognition software which transfers mouth actions and movements from the actor to the asset (character), which by the time I get to production, I am sure will be 100 times better. Therefore, I'm not overly worried at present.

That aside, I did the most clear animation that I have ever seen this morning - and it is the Gaynor character dialoguing. To be honest it blew me away.

I'll upload that on here tomorrow.

We went up to Fosis around 4:30 pm had a couple of beers then went down into Kapparis and had a meal at the Zeyn Lebanese Restaurant on Kennedy Avenue.

The first time we we went it was were Tapas-like and nothing short of brilliant - the time after, was last summer and they'd altered the menu solely to rip off the tourists. This happens everywhere in Cyprus. Last night it was back to how it was.

Four starters (Chicken Liver, Salmon, Beef, Squid), two side dishes (Spicy Potatoes), one main (Four Mince Kebabs), two dry white wines and two Lebanese beers - €110.

4 January 2025

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and would have been my mum and stepdad's 56th anniversary.

I got up at 5:30 am to work on The Project - basically smoothing out the screenplay and to try and fine tune the Music Promo as I am still not happy about it.

One of the many questions I get is about the characters.

Most of the time I base them on real people - in The A's it is no different. The two main characters are based on two pretty girls that I went to school with but who are not so much the alter ego's of the people that they really are, but opposites placed in a completely different environment - that being an upper middle class family in the fictitious leafy village of Chiswick Green. Maybe it is a tale of what could have been? I don't know.

Another question I get is the appearance of the characters and the clothes they wear.

I like smart appearance where women dress as women and men likewise.

A few years ago I watched the TV Series Mad Men (As a box-set, not on TV). The appearance of January Jones (Betty) and Christina Hendricks (Joan) was nothing short of Wow. John Hamm - the series protagonist - Don Draper, must have been the luckiest man alive. Not because of him being married to Betty, but because he is the most wooden actor ever. I have to admit - I would never have cast him.

Just goes to show what I know, eh?

I knocked off at 4:00 pm and we went up to Fosis and had dinner at Yiannis - mine was a fillet steak with garlic prawns.

The owner of Yiannis was another character that I have used in the past - however, his is a rather sad story. Interesting but sad.

Watched another few episodes of Yellowstone.

3 January 2025

I got up just after 6:00 am and got stuck into The Project only to be sidetracked by our adopted cat of three years who we named T.C (Top Cat). He's like some people I know and is a total user. He comes to us to get fed and have a kip.

Another sidetrack was a visit to Lidl to stock up. We rarely use it in the UK but over here in Cyprus its a bit different. I still can't get my head around the fact that there are things like engine oil and clothes in between the fresh fish and meat counters. Weird!

The good thing about Cyprus is that when you insure your car, they pick it up when it doesn't start. I called into the Auto Electrician on April Avenue in Paralimni to tell them to expect it coming in and by 4:30 pm, and after parting with €150 I got it back.

We then went to Fosis Coffee Shop - which is in reality an unlicensed gambling den, and got a haircut and shave from Tony - who is the barber next door - both of whom I used as characters in the I Am Sam trilogy. We then called in at the Lionheart bar in Paralimni to see some friends and where I met some guy, by the name of Steve who has a second hand shop - D&D, and who does the markets. A real life Del Boy.

Trivialities aside.

Regarding The Project, I need to keep plugging away with the software as there is an awful lot to learn - especially as it is continually being updated. It is not just one piece of software - it's lots of different ones.

The one thing I do know now is which software not to use.

As the story takes place in West London, I'll need a day down there with the Canon EOS / and a 3D cam to take some high resolution backdrops.

2 January 2025

I got up at daft o'clock to work on The Project.

My wife, Julie, phoned to arrange car hire from Chris at Empire Taxi and Rentals and he dropped us a car off so that we weren't grounded.

I managed to do some of the cleanest animation that I have no only done, but quite frankly that I ever seen. Even though I say it myself - the reality is quite amazing.

Check out the video on the right.

After 10 hours in front of the computer I knocked off and we nipped up to Fosis Coffee Bar in Vrysoulles for a few beers and topped off the evening with a curry at the Red Ruby in Ayia Napa.

Got in and watched an episode of the Yellowstone box-set and tried out some ideas.

1 January 2025

Flew out to Cyprus from Luton Airport.

We have a second home in Levanda Hills, Agia Triada.

Got to the house to find that the starter-motor on the car was bollocksed and we were therefore grounded as everywhere is shut down with it being the holidays.

Starter motor?

It's a 30 year old Mitsubishi FTO that we had imported from Japan. Cool car in its day!

Did no work as such, just watched a few episodes of the Yellowstone box-set that my son and his wife bought me for Christmas.

I did, however, have time to get to know the software that I will be using to create The A's (The Project) and fine tune the music promo.

What should be noted is that, although I have purchased around £400,000 of 3D assets, I have never tried to animate anything until 27 December 2024. Therefore this is not only a huge investment, but a massive learning curve.

My advice. Always believe in yourself.

NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE REPRODUCED OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS.

© JAMES DUROSE-RAYNER 2025