MD6001 Week 10 - Visit from James Merry (Squint/Opera) (Updated 19/2/16)

Squint/Opera's 2016 Showreel

On Monday 1st December 2014, James Merry from Squint/Opera, an animation company that has studios in London, Melbourne, Dubai and Sao Paolo, visited my university. He met Mark Collington at the Royal College of Art and also studied an MA in Animation there. Previously he studied at Farnham and his BA graduation film was about his difficulty with hearing conversations in a pub due to his auditory impairment. Speech from those he had trouble hearing was represented by the sound of a tape beng rewound to indicate that the speech was garbled.

Since working for squint/opera, James has worked on several projects such as Yakumkatchka, an animated short for Channel Four about a young girl's mission to return a polar bear from the zoo to its natural habitat and Okido, an educational animated television series for CBeebies (the teaser trailer above uses a combination of 2D digital, cut-out and 3D animation) based on the magazine of the same name. His main job is graphic design but he also uses Adobe After Effects and various animation techniques.

James gave some valuable information about Squint/Opera such as the company both looking for clients and having clients approach them; and the company using 30 full time staff plus about 50 freelancers. He also gave some advice on applying for schemes through IdeadTap for example.

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