A short Live-action/Stop motion hybrid VR 360 narrative film commissioned by Cymru Unleashed, a grassroots initiative built to celebrate Wales’ historic participation in UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 and to encourage the next generation of young girls, especially from underrepresented communities, to take up sport.
The production was split into 2 teams; with KLAT Media responsible for shooting the live action portions of the film, my team working on the stop motion puppet that was composited onto the footage, with me as lead animation director.
The film tells the story of a young girl, experiencing the joy of seeing the Wales Women’s team enter the 2025 EUROs, playing football with her friends, facing the social barriers that come with participating in male-dominated sports, and finding the courage and pride to overcome those barriers. She is accompanied by her older sister (animated with stop motion), and by the testimonials of other young women in Wales, which are heard throughout the film, motivating her on her own journey.
This was by far the biggest project I have had the privilege to co-ordinate in the director’s seat, with a team of very talented creatives supporting me. This was my 2nd project working with animator and graphic artist Jay Adlam, who previously designed the logo for Light On The Water Productions. Jay was responsible for the entire creation of the puppet; from the initial concept designs, to crafting the felt puppet and the variations of facial expressions. Llwyd James, a recent graduate of Cardiff Met, built the football used by the puppet in the film, and made variations of the ball in different stages of the squash and stretch motion. He also assisted in the stop motion animation.
All the animation was shot in front of a green screen and a lot of work went into positioning the camera and lighting to match that of the live action footage that it would later be composited on to. I would later oversee the edit of the film and integrate the puppet onto the footage, which took many hours of masking to remove rigs, once the green screen was keyed out. The final stage was warping the puppet to convincingly exist within the 3D space of the 360 video. I then passed the project on to Sam Wiltshire for the sound design work and Séan Spiteri who composed the music for the film.
Crew:
Principle photography, sound and live action filming: Klat Mag
Concept art and Puppet design: Jay Adlam
Prop design and assistant animation: Llwyd James
Sound design: Sam Wiltshire
Music Composer: Sean Spiteri