Toronto’s Head Gear Animation has completed a new series of interstitials for Astral Media’s TMN-The Movie Network and Moviepix, and has several other new projects on the go that are keeping the shop among the busiest in town.

According to Head Gear partners/directors Julian Grey and Steve Angel, the new Astral spots – 10 in total – were fun to create. The split between the channels is even, with Head Gear delivering five interstitials, each about 20 seconds in length, to Moviepix and five pieces, clocking in at about 15 seconds per, for TMN.

The concept behind all the spots is a tutorial on moviemaking. Each one briefly profiles a key player or element of filmmaking the casual moviegoer may not be familiar with.

For the Moviepix interstitials, Grey and Angel profile the on-set purposes of the lighting crew, foley artist, craft services, production assistant and producer in a very humorous way.

‘The Moviepix ones were more of a lighthearted comedy thing based around the sensibility of an airline manual gone awry,’ says Angel. ‘It’s simple cel animation based on photographic-style illustrations [and gives] an explanation of things that are associated with film production.’

The audio that accompanies the tags, written by Angel, is reminiscent of narration on films circulating in most public school systems. For example, as the voice-over on the craft services interstitial speaks about the benefits of a well-fed crew, the animated visuals depict a crew member stuffing his pockets with goodies and a director mowing on a sandwich while shooting.

‘The Moviepix stuff is very much like an airline safety manual, so it is flat graphic color, with thick black lines around everything,’ says Grey. ‘Simply, what we did was shoot ourselves in various positions that were required. If there was a shot of someone holding a clapper, we literally took a shot of someone holding a clapper. Then we’d redraw and rotoscope it, and mechanically animate whatever move motion was necessary. All the motion is very mechanical, so in that way it’s a little bit cheesy and funny to look at. It’s a pretty funny-looking style.’

The TMN interstitials, created with the help of designer/animator Margaret Lee, are not humorous and clearly are not intended to be. Instead, they are more design-driven than the Moviepix pieces, but still borrow from the same ‘film school’ concept.

‘Again, they demonstrate different cinematic and film-associated things like cinematography, lighting and editing, done in an instructional style, but one that is much more designy and beautiful to look at,’ says Grey. ‘It’s more about the objects and association with what certain terms actually mean.’

There are no voice-overs or dialogue of any kind in the TMN interstitials, leaving Head Gear to communicate its concepts through visuals alone.

‘The challenge with those was how do you talk about something very complex like editing or cinematography in a few seconds,’ says Grey. ‘We did it by complementing images together and working with simple things like silhouettes in very graphic forms.’

All the TMN and Moviepix work was overseen by Astral creative director Heather Senst. Head Gear will also be taking the design reins on Astral’s new specialty channel, M-Fest, for which Angel and Grey will design the logo, right on up.

In addition to Head Gear’s work for Astral, Grey and Angel recently worked with Isaac King on the opening of the new Comedy Network show Gutterball Alley. They are also very excited about contributing content to a certain long-running kids show.

‘We are doing a bunch of stuff for Sesame Street, which we are pretty psyched about,’ says Angel. ‘We are going to be doing five minutes of programming for it, which for us is a gigantic job because we usually work in 15- to 30-second increments. Five minutes is kind of epic for us.’

The content for Sesame Street, says Angel, will focus on children’s issues like self-esteem and diversity. Grey admits he is excited about the opportunities stemming from the work and the opportunity to do the work itself.

‘They sent us a tape of their last 15 years worth of stuff, and you realize it is all the stuff you grew up with or your sister’s kids grew up with or are growing up with,’ he says. ‘It’s nice to be adding to that library of work. It’s totally fun and it is something that has longevity, too. They run these things forever, so it is good company to be in.’ *