Matchbox Mountain

03/02/2024

Was delighted to have Eimhin invited on The Bancroft Brothers live podcast yesterday with Tom Bancroft & Tony Bancroft!

They also had Paul O'Flanagan of Boulder Media and Claire Finn of Lighthouse Studios sharing their own journey in animation.

Special thanks to Cole Delaney for organising it and the sponsors Animation Ireland & Cultural & Creative Industries Skillnet Animation Skillnet

📸 Kirsten Shiel

01/02/2024

Our very own Eimhin will be a guest at tomorrow night's live podcast session in Smithfield.
Tickets are sold out but hopefully we'll see some of you there!

24/12/2023

The last of our Christmas Idents for RTE - the Sea Swim!

A trio of villagers trying their best to brave the elements and take a dip in the sea! There also looks to be a familiar swimmer that needs some thawing out after his swim.

Thanks to John Kilkenny & Darragh Treacy for giving us the opportunity and to Laurence O'Byrne for thinking of us!

Directed by Eimhin McNamara with Pádraig Fagan, we kicked off the project with location designs by Eachen Chen and character concepts by Lily Bernard

Eimhin took these concepts and adapted them into 3D, getting the info needed for our set builders, headed up by Paul McDonnell with Ger Clancy Ciaran Bonner Hannah Murray & Aidan Fox

While our modelmakers were flying away with the sets, Eimhin sculpted and 3D printed our characters and props. We had a crew of great artists getting all the elements camera ready including:
Jessie Flynn Hollie Leddy Flood Aoife Balfe Aidan O'Sullivan Angel Lynch Silvio Severino & Rob O'Sullivan

While all this activity was going on with sandpaper and paint slinging around the sound wizard David Kamp was working his magic developing the audio for the project, perfectly complimenting the little mechanical world we created.

Once our shoot was complete we got to handover to Andrew Francis GABHA STUDIOS for the grade, shepherded in by Dafydd Upsdell!

A special shout out to Frank & Sara at Space Forms for providing us with a home for our shoot!

We'll be sharing some behind the scenes clips as we tip through the Holiday break!

24/12/2023

Second in our RTÉ Christmas Idents is Santa's Grotto.

A familiar looking Santa seems to be struggling to make it through the day, but he has help from his Little Helper and some locals!

Thanks to John Kilkenny & Darragh Treacy for giving us the opportunity and to Laurence O'Byrne for thinking of us!

Directed by Eimhin McNamara with Pádraig Fagan, we kicked off the project with location designs by Eachen Chen and character concepts by Lily Bernard

Eimhin took these concepts and adapted them into 3D, getting the info needed for our set builders, headed up by Paul McDonnell with Ger Clancy Ciaran Bonner Hannah Murray & Aidan Fox

While our modelmakers were flying away with the sets, Eimhin sculpted and 3D printed our characters and props. We had a crew of great artists getting all the elements camera ready including:
Jessie Flynn Hollie Leddy Flood Aoife Balfe Aidan O'Sullivan Angel Lynch Silvio Severino & Rob O'Sullivan

While all this activity was going on with sandpaper and paint slinging around the sound wizard David Kamp was working his magic developing the audio for the project, perfectly complimenting the little mechanical world we created.

Once our shoot was complete we got to handover to Andrew Francis GABHA STUDIOS for the grade, shepherded in by Dafydd Upsdell!

A special shout out to Frank & Sara at Space Forms for providing us with a home for our shoot!

We'll be sharing some behind the scenes clips as we tip through the Holiday break!

24/12/2023

Just about time for us to share up our RTE Christmas idents!

First in our scenes we have a Tree Lighting Ceremony in our little town square, where we see our Mayor trying to keep the show going despite some resistance from a local resident.

Thanks to John Kilkenny & Darragh Treacy for giving us the opportunity and to Laurence O'Byrne for thinking of us!

Directed by Eimhin McNamara with Pádraig Fagan, we kicked off the project with location designs by Eachen Chen and character concepts by Lily Bernard

Eimhin took these concepts and adapted them into 3D, getting the info needed for our set builders, headed up by Paul McDonnell with Ger Clancy Ciaran Bonner Hannah Murray & Aidan Fox

While our modelmakers were flying away with the sets, Eimhin sculpted and 3D printed our characters and props. We had a crew of great artists getting all the elements camera ready including:
Jessie Flynn Hollie Leddy Flood Aoife Balfe Aidan O'Sullivan Angel Lynch Silvio Severino & Rob O'Sullivan

While all this activity was going on with sandpaper and paint slinging around the sound wizard David Kamp was working his magic developing the audio for the project, perfectly complimenting the little mechanical world we created.

Once our shoot was complete we got to handover to Andrew Francis GABHA STUDIOS for the grade, shepherded in by Dafydd Upsdell!

A special shout out to Frank & Sara at Space Forms for providing us with a home for our shoot!

We'll be sharing some behind the scenes clips as we tip through the Holiday break!

25/11/2023

Thanks for tuning in last night!
Hope you got to catch the three spots - if not they will be broadcast as part of RTEOne Christmas programming for the next two years!

24/11/2023

Keep your eyes peeled on RTÉOne for a little stopmotion project of ours airing tonight!

🎄 More info to come 🎄

26/01/2023

Happy New Year from all of us here at Matchbox Mountain!

28/10/2022

Our very own Eimhin is part of this panel discussing multiplane animation technique alongside the legendary Caroline Leaf.
Check out Manchester Animation Festival’s full programme and pick up yer tickets here: manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk/events/art-of-…

01/06/2022

We're excited to be able to share this stop motion piece we animated featuring the work of Irish womenswear designer Róisín Pierce.
https://vimeo.com/709291789

Stop motion animation featuring the work of Irish based womanswear designer Róisín Pierce. See more of her work here: https://www.roisinpierce.com/

01/11/2021

Ag teacht go luath...

31/08/2021

Jamie Kezlarian Bolio was a great friend of ours and a great friend to the Irish animation community. We will miss her dearly. https://www.animationmagazine.net/people/passings/animation-veteran-jamie-kezlarian-bolio-passes-away/?fbclid=IwAR0ncA2KjMFumrO7u1jLecx3_qPXeB0xwORd-sW4LnelTdx1jNapdeBz0lQ

We are sad to report the recent passing of animation veteran Jamie Kezlarian Bolio. She died on Sunday after a brief illness. Her brother posted the news on Facebook yesterday. Jamie was the founder of 64 George Street, which specialized in the global representation and promotion of the independent....

05/07/2021

Congratulations to director's Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart, as well as our Eimhin & the rest of the Wolfwalkers crew for their Best Picture win at last night's Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) festivities!

07/05/2021

We've been facilitating online animation workshops for schools in Youghal and East Cork this week for our friends at the First Cut Youth Film Festival Catch the tail end of the festival online today and tomorrow. They have some interesting events including a Wolfwalkers screening and Q and A: https://firstcutfilmfestival.com/

First Cut! Youth Film Festival | 17th April – 9th May 2021 - Youghal, Co.Cork

26/04/2021

Commiserations to Tomm & Ross and Cartoon Saloon for the Oscar's over the weekend!
No stopping the word spreading about their very special film though, and our Eimhin is delighted to have had a small part in creating Wolfwalkers.

Eimhin's Wolfvision team on gets a mention in this feature on the Oscar contenders cinematography by Zack Sharf of
IndieWire
https://indiewire.com/gallery/oscar-nominees-best-shots-2021/wolfvision/

19/04/2021

Though Eimhin's nomination in the FX for Feature category didn't yield a prize, Wolfwalkers won 5 Annie Awards over the weekend!
Congratulations to Tomm & Ross and the rest of the crew for all their great work!

Eimhin talks about his work on Wolfwalkers in this week's Variety print edition, which features a lovely cover by Tomm & Ross, hope ye can pick up a copy!

Here is the online version to read: https://variety.com/2021/film/awards/wolfwalkers-cartoon-saloon-1234951902/

16/04/2021

Our Eimhin was recently interviewed by Variety's Jazz Tangcay about his work on Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers. Check out the piece here: https://variety.com/2021/film/awards/wolfwalkers-cartoon-saloon-1234951902/

The “wolfvision” sequence in Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar-nominated animated feature “Wolfwalkers” is perhaps one of the most striking animated moments this year. Set in 1650 Ireland, the film follows Ro…

16/04/2021

Tonight the ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards is recognising Eimhin's Wolfvision team alongside Cartoon Saloon's FX Animation department for their work on Wolfwalkers!

You can tune in live to the ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards tonight here: https://annieawards.org/watch-it-live

Here are the full list of credits for the Wolfvision Team:

3D Build & Camera previs
Eimhin McNamara (Blender & AE)
Daniel Pinheiro Lima (Blender)
David McDermott (Blender)
Fergal Brennan (AE)
Mark Mullery (AE)

Wolfvision Graphite Render:
Eimhin McNamara (Graphite on paper, TV Paint)
Jean Baptiste Vendamme (Graphite on paper)
Gráinne Rose Fordham (Graphite on paper)
Marie Chevillard (Graphite on paper, TV Paint)
Javi Gaudioso (Graphite on paper, TV Paint)
Nicolás Petelsky (Graphite on paper, TV Paint)
David Wegmann-serin (Graphite on paper, TV Paint)
Keelan MacLeod, Intern assist (Graphite on paper)

Non Graphite Render:
Maria Pareja (TV Paint)
Ciarán Duffy (Watercolour Painting)

Single Level 2D technique:
Emmanuel Asquier-Brassart

Wolfvision Character Cleanup & Render Supervision:
Tatiana Mazzei
John R. Walsh

Production Co-ordinators & Assistants:
Anna Fitzsimmons
Nicole Storck
Steven McClurg
Charley Martensson
Christian Keogh
Leena Lecklin

We are nominated alongside the stellar work created by the FX department, who were supervised by Andreu Campos & Narissa Schander!

Fingers crossed for tonight!

14/04/2021

Matchbox Mountain's Eimhin was tasked with developing and supervising Wolfvision on Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart's Wolfwalkers!

Recently Eimhin was interviewed by Chris Snyder of Movie Insider to talk about the computer to paper pipeline he developed for the project. Watch the video interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOU4K4cV-Dk

We hope you all have been able to check out Eimhin & his team's work, along with the rest of the crew's contribution to Cartoon Saloon's new feature!

Wolfwalkers is available on AppleTV+ which currently has a 7-day free trial available.

Animated films can be 2D or 3D, but oftentimes they're actually a bit of both. Animators use "2.5D" animation techniques to make flat images appear 3D and ev...

24/03/2021

Super Sentai Rick!
A Kaiju and Tokusatsu battle of mutually assured destruction!

Filmed on location with a live studio audience, this is our second Rick & Morty ident created for Adult Swim, co-produced with Will Feng at Titmouse, Inc

22/03/2021

We have a few posts coming up this week highlighting our projects, so stay tuned!
http://matchboxmountain.ie

19/03/2021

The process behind one of our Rick & Morty idents for Adult Swim

Behind the scenes music: sawsquarenoise - Stage 1

Ident Credits:
Director: Pádraig Fagan
Animation: Jason Watts
Compositing: Ciara Nolan
Model- making: Ciara Nolan and Aoife Balfe
Sound: Chris Mcloughlin
Producer: Rachel Feury
Producer for Titmouse: Will Feng

19/03/2021

We recently directed two promos for Adult Swim as part of the season launch of Rick & Morty. First up is
Pádraig's Ineffective Interstellar Invader, which was made using cut-out and other occult sciences!
Co-produced by Will Feng at Titmouse, Inc

17/03/2021

We’re happy to announce the formation of Matchbox Mountain, where we hope to reach a new peak of animation excellence.
You can look forward to an avalanche of new work from us!
http://matchboxmountain.ie