The Pen (Robert and Sheepy)

[size=100:2qq0l1fk]Sheepy and Robert in "
The Pen"
short film series, written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Guy Capper, and produced with support from the Screen Innovation Production Fund.

[size=100:ntz609p6]ThePenNZ (3 weeks ago)

Hey Robert and Sheepy Friends ! More Robert and Sheepy Episodes on the way !!!!!!
June 2010 !!!!!!!! Hope that makes you go all funny inside your Tummy !!!
Peace and Happy New Year 
Sheepy Sheep baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amily wrote:

[size=133:xfe86jpe]Creating screen action
Kineta Knight - The Press
Last updated 14:13 12/02/2010


Stop-motion: Animator Antony Elworthy with a
mouse from Coraline.

[size=100:xfe86jpe] When he's not working on major international films as a stop-motion animator, Antony Elworthy can be found working away in his Redcliffs home studio.

What started as a hobby when he was an illustration student in Wellington, now sees him working on the on-screen embodiments of Johnny Depp, Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher.

"
I was just making a little animated film, just for fun really, with some of the polytech's equipment, and somebody saw it and offered me a job on a film they were making. At that point I didn't even realise people did it for a living so I was quite surprised and thought it was Christmas to go away and play with plasticine and actually get paid for it,"
Elworthy says.

Stop-motion is an animation technique where inanimate objects appear to come alive through small movements of individually photographed frames. Clay, plasticine or puppets are used in this film style which is also known as stop-action or frame-by-frame.

Elworthy's film credits include Coraline and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. Being selected to work on such films often involves a complicated audition process. "
They had an audition for animators for Corpse Bride, so I went along for three days and they gave me a puppet and some lines of dialogue to see what I could do, and I passed that test and they gave me the job."


Corpse Bride, loosely based on a 19th-century Russian-Jewish folktale, was directed by Mike Johnson and Burton in 2005. Depp was the voice of Victor and Helena Bonham-Carter voiced Emily, the title character.

"
In that film's audition they gave me the puppet Victor, so they gave me a Johnny Depp lookie-likie puppet and put him on a set."


Elworthy says after working for a few years in this line of work, he now knows about 90 per cent of the animators around the world.

"
After I'd worked with Corpse Bride I'd met a lot of people that were then setting up for the production in the States for Coraline and they just rang me up asking if I was available."


The award-winning Coraline, released last year (now out on DVD) and nominated for an Oscar, is a story about an adventurous girl who, with her parents, moves into a huge old house and she discovers other people living in it too, behind a secret door.

But it hasn't always been big- budget movies and well-known film stars. Elworthy has certainly worked from the ground up. After his initial apprenticeship stint, he arrived in London with the notion, as many Kiwis do, that he could do anything, only to find himself door-knocking for a few months before he eventually found work. Through his persistence, he found himself working on commercials and children's television shows, where he worked on-and-off for four years.
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Animation work has also seen him living in Manchester, Cardiff, Madrid and Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, he worked on a straight-to- video production called Little People. "
It wasn't a very exciting project but it was a great place to live,"
he says. Elworthy's time in Madrid was spent working on commercials, commissioned by the European Union, when they were introducing the Euro currency. "
That was a bit of a junket. It was great living in Madrid. They had far too much money. Very inefficient but good fun."


The common theme with Elworthy is that he likes to have a good time while he's working, with good company. It becomes apparent when asked what his ultimate animation job would be.

"
It would be one that I could do in my own backyard, but that involves other people as well. Normally it's one thing or the other. I'm normally working overseas somewhere with a whole bunch of interesting people or I'm at home, where I'd like to be, working on my own.

"
So, it'd be nice to have a project that was my own creation and I could involve a lot of other people in and be based in Christchurch, which is where we want to be."


Through his work, he and his family (wife, Jane, and three boys - the youngest of whom was born on New Year's Eve) have had to live overseas for up to two years at a time with each major film.

"
Our kids are getting older and they'll be in school soon and it won't be quite so easy to skip off and do these sorts of things."


One project he has produced locally is about to be launched internationally. Animal Love, an entertaining mock dating-video for animals, is a stop-motion clip he made for the Save the Children fund's Christmas campaign, and it made such an impression with the team in Italy that they want an Italian version made especially for Valentines Day.

"
Animal Love was a good project for me, as it was such a contrast after Coraline where I was one of a team of 300 people [20 of whom were animators]. And in a job like that, my job is quite specialised. I just do the animation and that's it. But with something like Animal Love, it was my concept, I wrote the treatment and I wrote the script and did everything apart from the voicework. And you get more of control over the bigger picture."


It's a must-see video on YouTube, as is his latest project with Guy Capper and Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement, The Pen.

"
It's basically about two sheep in a bar at the end of a day's work, pontificating about various facets of life. They've got a few more episodes of that they need to try to get done in the next couple of months, and I think I'll help them out with that."


Between films and animation projects, Elworthy plans and creates his next ventures in the studio in his backyard. At the moment it's being used for the planning stages of some music videos and illustration work for educational children's books.

"
I count my lucky stars that I get to do this stuff for a living, but then there are obviously lean times quite often when the projects aren't on the horizon and you're just kind of hoping that another one will come up before not too long."


But he might not have to wait too much longer for his next pay cheque, as the team that made Coraline are crewing up for a new film in the United States, which starts in August, and Elworthy and his wife are considering whether they're going back to the US to work on that. This, of course, would mean another two years away from his backyard studio in the sunny climes of Redcliffs.

* On the net:

Animal Love -


The Pen -
[flash=350,287:xfe86jpe]https://www.youtube.com/v/GeJuUZGI3Zw&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:xfe86jpe]

[size=150:3k3et940]A Blast from Sheepy’s Past
2010 May, 8th
Sheepy Butler


[size=100:3k3et940]I never thought my friends Guy Capper and Jemaine Clement would ever release these videos online, but they did, a long time ago, without letting me know! So what should I do, sue them? Nah, I say, at least now I know I am famous.

You see, I kept my artistic career secret for a while, because I didn’t believe my “male impersonation” act was good enough. But watching these videos now made me change my mind: I was that good! Why, oh why did I stop performing? Look at me: the charisma, the talent, the perfect teeth… The critics celebrated my act, in superlative terms. They celebrated the movies (I dare say they didn’t like Robert that much, but who likes a black sheep?)… the witty conversation (I had a say in writing those texts…) and especially my impeccable acting…

Enjoy my acting, as much as I enjoyed watching it today, after all these years. Guy, Jemaine, I still got it in me, maybe we should get together and do some more… Sheepy ten years after… Oh, my dreams of fame could become true!

Sheepy note: Guy Capper is an award winning animator and comedian;
in 2001 he won the Nescafé short film competition, starring ‘Robert’ and ‘Sheepy’ in ‘The Pen’, with Jemaine Clement. Guy and Jemaine have been making Robert and Sheepy short films over the last 10 years.

Editor’s note: Sheepy writes satirical editorials. Everything PR has not power over the sheep, and can not edit, modify, delete or otherwise censor Sheepy materials. If you want to post a comment, do it at your own risk, and always remember that you will be, in fact, talking to a sheep.

Feature image Sheepy and Guy Capper, courtesy Adelaide Fringe

[size=100:nz7iyv8c]Robert and Sheepy are NZ sheep discussing there sheep scenarios and the philosophies They discover and how they make croissants using there hoofs!

[size=100:nz7iyv8c]Robert and Sheepy has been picked up to be in new TV3 show Radiradirah every friday 9:30 pm TV3!

Amily wrote:I wonder if this is what was meant in the [url=article][/url] Sarah posted the other day... ?

[size=100:9sc8loqq]Between the exposed-brick walls of production company Firehorse Films, where bro'Town came to life in 2003, the show's editor is cutting together animated segments as they are fed through by the designers - a duck, a piece of cheese and Da Vinci's Renaissance Man.

Tucked behind the black polyurethane curtains are the plasticine stars of the stop-motion sheep cartoon The Pen, created by Jemaine Clement and Guy Capper.

Clement is acting abroad, but Capper is meticulously honing the final product, which sees Sheepy and Robert roaming the Bay of Islands at sunset and talking about bleating.

A few seconds of footage equates to several days' work. Capper likens his patience to that of the Italians who think nothing about taking days to prepare a meal, because the finished product makes it all worth it.

His comment sums up the buzz at Firehorse last Friday when Mitchell and her team showed friends a rough cut of Radiradirah's first episode which goes to air tomorrow night: 39 comedy sketches, 22 minutes of air-time.

[size=150:svazq1y5]Radiradirah: A pack of jokers
By Jacqueline Smith
4:00 AM Thursday May 20, 2010

[size=100:svazq1y5]New show Radiradirah has assembled a comedy dream team in a cast where Boy goes bro'Town and it's Fred Dagg v Flight of the Conchords. But is putting them all in a sketch show a good idea?


_{The creators of Radiradirah have assembled a comedy dream team for their new sketch show. Photo / Supplied}

Rewind to this time last week. Producer Elizabeth Mitchell pores over notes and images for Radiradirah and casually lets slip that her workday is 10am until 4am. Coffee helps, but it's mostly passion that keeps her charging.

Between the exposed-brick walls of production company Firehorse Films, where bro'Town came to life in 2003, the show's editor is cutting together animated segments as they are fed through by the designers - a duck, a piece of cheese and Da Vinci's Renaissance Man.

Tucked behind the black polyurethane curtains are the plasticine stars of the stop-motion sheep cartoon The Pen, created by Jemaine Clement and Guy Capper.

Clement is acting abroad, but Capper is meticulously honing the final product, which sees Sheepy and Robert roaming the Bay of Islands at sunset and talking about bleating.

A few seconds of footage equates to several days' work. Capper likens his patience to that of the Italians who think nothing about taking days to prepare a meal, because the finished product makes it all worth it.

His comment sums up the buzz at Firehorse last Friday when Mitchell and her team showed friends a rough cut of Radiradirah's first episode which goes to air tomorrow night: 39 comedy sketches, 22 minutes of air-time.

Twelve months in the making.

This time last year Mitchell and bro'Town co-creator Oscar Kightley bid the kids of Morningside "
laterz"
, wiped their brows, and asked each other, "
what next?"


Kightley was keen to get his sketch comedy group the Naked Samoans back on television. Mitchell was a bit hesitant. Sketch is just one of those genres that screams "
risky"
.

"
I was like 'hmm ... sketch show'. I don't know, there was something about the phrase, and we kept trying to think of a new word for sketch but couldn't really find one. But then you look at things like Little Britain and Monty Python and you don't really think of them as sketch shows,"
she says.

One meeting with TV3 later she was convinced to go ahead with the format, which quickly evolved from being a solely Naked Samoans show into a collage of what she calls sub-shows.

It was named Radiradirah because bro'Town's Mack (the gay character) was particularly fond of the phrase and, as Mitchell says, it's kind of silly and open to anything.

She and Kightley began writing, commissioning (and sometimes shelving) concepts for serials, and managed to get some of the biggest names in local comedy involved - Rhys Darby, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi and - the godfather of them all - John Clarke.

"
It was one hell of a wish-list - we were lucky that they were available,"
Kightley says.

But for Waititi it was more a case of being willing to juggle than having a free schedule. He flew from Wellington to Auckland in the morning to film Radiradirah, and returned to Wellington at night to edit the soundtrack to Boy, every day for five days. He stole sleep on the plane and in the makeup chair.

Waititi plays Captain Hemi T. Cook in the segment Space Waltz, a serial that will run across the eight episodes.

It's set in the year 3010 and Captain Cook and his team are searching for a new galaxy to house the 10 million New Zealanders who have been evacuated to the South Island as the country sinks into the Pacific Ocean. The sketch also stars Darby who is in love with Teuila Blakely's character, and John Clarke (his bits were filmed in Melbourne, where he now lives) who plays the Prime Minister, Hone.

"
I like doing that sort of thing, it's having fun with a bunch of guys you like,"
Waititi says from New York while on a break from filming in New Orleans.

He met Kightley 15 years ago when he was working on Skitz and Telly Laughs, and the pair have bounced about ideas for films, sketches and shows ever since.

Kightley thought it was about time Waititi brought back the alien character that was part of his stand-up routines six years ago. The bushy-browed creature with an under-bite now acts as the putty between segments on Radiradirah.

"
He's an immature alien. It's like, what if the earth was being taken over by aliens but the aliens were just teenagers just doing it for fun,"
Waititi explains.

"
He does some weird commentaries. I'm surprised it's even been allowed to come back, he's so weird."


The alien is odd, yes, but not the most offbeat aspect of the show.

This week's episode sees male-love among the roadworkers in the Naked Samoans' Roadeez, a centaur-gone-wrong on Gavin Hoode (a sketch about New Zealand's first gang of merry men, starring Darby), and a round of Brie cheese in bed with a wedge of blue cheese in Cheese in the City, which is an animation about four cheese pals living in New York featuring the voice of Madeleine Sami.

Radiradirah, according to Kightley, is a cobbling together of some talented people just doing their own thing.

It may also serve as a platform for animations like Darby's FOT (Funny Orange Thing) and Australian creation Beached Whale (better known as Beached Az, a sketch mocking Kiwi accents that went viral in 2008) to reach a wider prime-time audience - much like the Tracey Ullman show was to The Simpsons when it was introduced in segments in the late 1980s.

For Kightley, Radiradirah presented the challenge of getting back in shape - he's not only back in front of the camera but he's in stubbie shorts and singlets.

"
We had to, for the first time, care about how fat we were, or what we looked like, because when you turn up to the studio to do your voice it doesn't matter what you wear or what you look like. It meant losing weight, exercising,"
he says.

In Radiradirah the Roadeez are joined by up-and-coming performers including 23-year-old Jordaan Tuitama, who caught Kightley's eye during the comedy festival three years ago.

Tuitama and his mates have a sketch comedy group called the ElectroKokoZoids, and it's pretty much modelled on the Naked Samoans. Tuitama has idolised Kightley and the boys since he was a kid growing up in Tuakau - he would tape episodes from the TV and watch them every day until he could recite the lines.

When Kightley approached him and handed over his business card, Tuitama told everyone he knew. They didn't believe him. And they really didn't believe him when he was asked to join the Naked Samoans for Radiradirah. Tuitama also performs alongside Darby and Waititi in Space Waltz and Gavin Hoode.

So Firehorse are, once again, widening the scope of comedy, giving new talent a chance to shine, anchoring well-known faces to episodes and packaging it all in format that, judge it as you will, has been successful in the past.

"
People are quick to diss [New Zealand's] past comedy as saying it didn't work, but at the time it did and people liked it. I think we very easily believe that we are not funny and that our comedy is stink but actually if you look back at the last 20 years and all the stuff that people have enjoyed, I think we need to ease off on that a little,"
Kightley says, referencing the Gibson Group's sketch shows of the 1990s.

He puts the arrival of Radiradirah down to serendipity.

Mitchell? She describes it as a happy mistake.

LOWDOWN

What: Radiradirah
Starring: Taika Waititi, Rhys Darby, John Clarke and the Naked Samoans star in a sketch show by bro'Town creators Elizabeth Mitchell and Oscar Kightley
When and where: Friday, 9.30pm on TV3

[size=100:o8tw6yl9]Jemaine Clement of Conchords fame lends one of the funnier sketches with his plasticine sheep and their daily schedule discussion (eating grass, bleating etc). Dry, but good.

emira wrote:[align=center:okhm6j1g][flash=350,287:okhm6j1g]https://www.youtube.com/v/GCd6n-78pL4&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:okhm6j1g]

[/align:okhm6j1g]

emira wrote:[align=center:eauuzg9l][flash=350,287:eauuzg9l]https://www.youtube.com/v/GCd6n-78pL4&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:eauuzg9l]

[/align:eauuzg9l]

[size=100:4ax0b1qn]Robert and Sheepy in the Radiradirah show tonight 9:30pm !! TV3

Fluffy weird little fury freaks of nature !