LAWYEREX promo film (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2022, 00:36)
Commissioned by the European Lawyers Foundation and co-funded by the European Union, the LAWYEREX promo film was directed, designed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith.
Written, directed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith, Red Rover is a stop-motion sci-fi adventure about colonialism on Mars.
When a robotic rover starts drilling for signs of life on Mars, the race is on for one tiny rock-beast to save her native community from the invader from Earth.
Funded by BFI Network, Red Rover was completed in July 2020 and is currently competing at international film festivals. It premiered at Sitges Film Festival in October 2020, where it won Best Animated Short Film, and was subsequently longlisted for the Academy Award. It then played at London International Animation Festival, New York International Children’s Film Festival, Guanajuato Film Festival and London Short Film Festival among others. In August 2021 it was selected to screen in Trafalgar Square before Star Wars: A New Hope, as part of the London Mayor’s Back to the Big Screen season.
Quarantine (dir. Astrid Goldsmith, UK 2018, 12:56)
Quarantine is a stop-motion short film, written, directed and animated by Astrid Goldsmith. It was commissioned by the BFI and BBC4 as part of their prestigious Animation 2018 talent scheme, designed to find and support the UK’s most exciting emerging animators. UK viewers can watch it for free on BFI Player.
Quarantine is a post-Brexit pagan dance fantasy, about a troupe of Morris-dancing badgers on the south coast of England, who are trying to avoid the animal quarantine compound which has been built above their burrow. As they try to keep their old folk traditions alive, they ignore the plight of the caged quarantine inmates. But when tragedy strikes, a young badger goes rogue, risking exile from the troupe as he forges a new forbidden friendship on the other side of the bars.
Made in just 21 weeks, Quarantine is a 13-minute puppet stop-motion film, built and filmed at Mock Duck Studios in Folkestone. It premiered at BFI Southbank, and was broadcast on BBC4 on Sunday 2nd December. It is now available to watch free on BFI Player. In 2020 it was the third most watched film on the free BFI Player, and won Best Animated Film at London Short Film Festival.
Awards:
Best Animated Film – LSFF 2020
Audience Favourite – My Darling Quarantine SFF 2020
Official Selection:
Atlanta Film Festival, 2019
Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2019
Guanajuato International Film Festival, 2019
London Short Film Festival, 2020
New York International Children’s Film Festival, 2020
Stop-motion troll: character design, fabrication and animation by Astrid Goldsmith. For the June 2018 Nike ‘Never Ask’ campaign, social films directed by Riff Raff’s Finn Keenan.
Original clay sculpt of the troll, before clean-up and moulding
Original clay sculpt of the troll, before clean-up and moulding
Finished latex and foam puppet with plastazote keyboard
Five articulated Duracell Bunny puppets, for use on the Duracell Professional website. These 2-foot posable Bunnies were sculpted, moulded and then fabricated by Astrid from start to finish, including each Bunny’s bespoke costume and props.
A Bunny head with flight helmet, before decals were applied
In addition to the 2-foot Bunnies, Astrid was commissioned to make 10 static model Bunnies, used by Duracell for promotional purposes. The hand-painted resin casts were around 30cm tall:
Construction Bunny under construction
Bunny with tools after painting
Four of the finished Bunnies hanging out in the kitchen
Print Advert for Ford Fiesta, designed by illustrator Al Murphy (Blink).
Astrid translated Al’s 2D drawing of the Alaphant (a pink cyclops elephant) into a 3-dimensional creature, fabricating the 60cm model out of pink felt:
The Many Stories of Leeds Castle is a stop motion TV commercial for Leeds Castle, produced by A+C Studios in 2014.
Astrid was Head Model Maker on this advert, a role which included concept development for the book, pop-up mechanism design, paper engineering and fabrication.
A Life in Print is a stop motion TV commercial for local newspapers across the country, produced by A+C Studios in 2014.
Astrid was Head Model Maker for this commercial, a role which involved concept development; puppet creation, including hand-carving 45 puppet heads; making various props and set-building. Astrid was also running the Model Making Department, supervising and coordinating a team of 12 artists, painters and fabricators.
Inside Every Bottle is a stop motion animated film produced by A+C Studios in November 2013, for Chivas Brothers to send out to their staff and clients for Christmas.
Astrid was Head Model Maker for this film, a role which involved concept development; making hand-carved puppets and various pieces of whiskey-making machinery from wood; and running the Model Making department, supervising a team of 12 fabricators and painters.
Music video for PVT, directed by Alex Smith for Warp Records.
Astrid was the sole Model Maker/Puppet Maker for this video, a role which included designing and making four human puppets (bandage, fabric, vintage glass eyes and epoxy-coated polystyrene heads) and two giant shark puppets (aluminium wire, sellotape and broken glass). Astrid was also part of the puppeteering team for the pixilation process of the video, and got covered in a lot of fake blood.
