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Love & Dust: The Rock Collector

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Project

Short film

Role

Writer
3D Animator

Client

Personal project
Personal project

Agency

A short film and personal project, and playground for experimentation in Blender environments and character rigging. Fair warning: includes swears.

Banner image

I taught myself Blender 3D over the first lockdown of 2020, and since then have been learning and experimenting with different techniques. This project started as a way to challenge myself to build on previous ideas, create a short animation, and understand simple character rigging. I've since extended it out and added a voice-over and soundtrack, and continue to use it as a place to experiment with new animation, 3D modelling techniques, particle effects and ideas. Most recently, I've extended out the landscape for the wider shots, and added mist, among a few other updates.

Everything in here I designed and created, including the music, except for the plants and butterfly rig, which were pre-existing assets. And if you're interested/also a nerd: it was rendered in Cycles; sample rate has been kept low purely for the sake of keeping render times as short as possible, but you'll get the idea.

Love & Dust explores the meaning, purpose, and value of existence from the perspective of a lonely rock-collecting robot.

But if that makes it sound even remotely high-brow, it's not (you'll need to watch it all the way through for the humour to land). Creativity and ideas should be an enjoyable process – if it's not enjoyable, you're over-thinking it. This one's just for fun.

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They say…

Always hard working and with extremely high standards. He’s also a top bloke to have around and made a big contribution to our award-winning culture at the agency.
– Jon Lonsdale, CEO at Octopus Group (Publicis Groupe UK)
Regardless of the scope or scale of each brief, Dave’s ambition to produce exceptional creative always reigned supreme. Dave was also good fun to be around, bringing lots of humour to work which often brightened busy days.
– Katie Pospischil, Head of Client Services at Octopus Group (Publicis Groupe UK)
Working with Dave is fun, productive and a genuine inspiration – he manages to grasp both the creative requirements for a project, and the technical detail with which to deliver it. It’s quite something to behold. I really enjoyed working with Dave, both for his professional excellence and his brilliant sense of humour, wit and work ethic. I can’t recommend him highly enough.
– Tom Dennis, Head of Content Marketing at English Heritage
Dave has added a huge amount. You can’t be a great marketing agency without a really strong creative department and Dave has delivered that. He leads from the front, with a natural passion for design which means you know he’ll always give 100% to anything he works on. Dave commits! Culturally, Dave is very easy to work with and great to have around. He always speaks his mind as a senior team member, but always in a very balanced and consultative way. He’s also good fun and people enjoy being around him, which is crucial for a management team member.
– Pete Hendrick, MD at Octopus Group (Publicis Groupe UK)