TIM RUFFLE - ANIMATION CREATIVE

I art directed on the preschool series Maddie + Triggs, airing on RTEjr and Cbeebies.  The show follows a young girl, Maddie and her dog, Triggs on musical adventures. The shows concept, created by Turnip & Duck, is if a sighted and visually impaired child sat down to watch the show, neither of them would have a lesser experience. The show is audio led and features bold graphic animation.  The designs are constructed from simple shapes and considered colours that helps to make them stand out.

  Watch it on BBC iPlayer here

Produced at : Sun and Moon Studios
Created by: Turnip and Duck
Airing on RTEjr and Cbeebies NOW!

This is a short film aimed at kids to teach them about restorative conversations. "You for I" suggests when you disagree with a situation, that you talk about how you feel rather than throwing blame at someone. The film was commissioned by Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner.

Produced at Aardman Animations Ltd
Direction & Design: Tim Ruffle
Narration: Patricia Allison
Script: Sam Morrison
Animation: Henrique Baron

These are proof of concept animations for Mandai X.  Mandai wanted to see if we could make engaging stories for kids based on the animaals in their zoo in Singapore with the idea that we could develop this further into a series.  The idea for this is that the Ranger Buddies were a bit like scouts that helped out at the zoo.  These two shorts feature Al and Min with the idea that there would be a group of Ranger Buddies.

Produced at : Aardman Animations Ltd
Direction: Tim Ruffle
Created by: Mandai X

These were some designs I did for a treatment. I didn't win this unfortunatly, but i was happy with how this turned out.  Graham Carter painted the lovely backgrounds based off my rough designs which work nicely with the characters.

In 2015 Google ATAP approached Aardman to create a 360° film for their Google Spotlight Stories project. Google has invented this amazing software allows filmmakers to create 360° films that will play on a mobile phones and Youtube. I’m unsure if VR will take off but this seemed like the best way of creating content for devices that a lot of people own already.

Peter Lord had this idea of a pink panther-style cat-and-mouse chase set within an apartment block. Peter very kindly entrusted me to help write and direct this short for Google. This is one of the biggest projects I've ever taken on but it was really fun and I learnt so much and got to work with some amazingly talented people.

The show is set on the night before Christmas. The story starts with a janitor who is alerted to an intruder on the roof of the apartment block he maintains. The audience is invited to follow the action as a cat-and-mouse chase ensues between the Janitor and the intruder (Santa).

We wanted the show to feel like a classic cartoon. I like the idea of being immersed in this wonky cartoon world. This style also worked well with the technology, as there are limits to the amount of information a phone can render.

Writing the show was more like choreographing a play on an elaborate set than creating a film. It was impossible to write anything without drawing it or thinking about the space in which the film plays out. Our storyboarder Andy Janes roughly storyboarded small slapstick scenarios on Post-it notes. We began to then stitched together each of the scenarios as we worked out the courtyard set where the action takes place. Andy created an amazing low-fi set made out of cardboard so we could lens-up the show with a phone camera. This meant we could see early on how it would work without having to get too involved with the technology.

Nigel Davis designed us some lovely cartoon style characters. We approached the animation in a traditional way by working everything out on paper first. Aurelien Predal then coloured up the characters to sit in the 360°  environment he designed.

This is one of several animated commercials I've made for Clipper Teas over the years. I really like the distinctive style of the packaging which I built on to create these commercials.

Produced at: Aardman Animations
Client: Clipper
Agency: WARL

Produced at Aardman Animations Ltd
Direction & Design: Tim Ruffle
Script: Sam Morrison

A short film to explain what big data is.

I chose patterns and textures to represent the data in its different forms throughout history. The idea being that each of the zeros and ones is a visual representation of data, each holding a different pattern or texture. It's really pleasing how the textures pop against the black & white motiongraphics.

Produced at: Aardman Animations Ltd
Design & Directetion: Tim Ruffle
Client: BlackRock
Voiceover: Elizabeth Guterbock
Voiceover Record: Soho Voices
Sound Design & Mix: Matt Loveridge

This is a collection of chapter illustrations did to mark each month of Dr Lucy Maddox's book “A Year to Change your mind.