Chantal Harvey

Tony Dyson, my personal memorial tribute.

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In memory of Anthony John Dyson (1947 – 2016)
Best known for being R2-D2s ‘Dad’.

BBC Archives (1984) showing THIS

His website is gone, but archived here.
His facebook page.

Tony was honoured at the BAFTA 2017 ceremony.  The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave credits to the man that created R2D2 for Star Wars, and one of my own photographs was used for this. (with permission, of course!). Aired on BBC television on February 12, 2017. He would have loved this!

In memory of Tony Dyson

tonydyson-©chantalharvey-adieu

Special Effects Designer
13 April 1947 to 3 March 2016

A British special effects designer and expert in robotics, Dyson’s first film job came designing the jetpacks for Moonraker (1979). He was best known for the R2-D2 robots for Star Wars (1977), which included remote control versions, stunt versions, and models that could seat performer Kenny Baker.

I worked with Tony since 2011, we met online in Second Life, and he agreed to be head of jury for the 48 Hour Film Project Machinima. We soon started creating machinima together, which he called ‘real time animation’. In 2013 we met in Malta, and I quit my day-job to work full-time on producing animated shorts and e-books with Tony. We met again in Finland for the Robotics conference, and later in Gozo, Xlendi, where we rented an office together.

Tony was more than a tutor, he was my inspiration and best friend. There are plenty of stories to tell about him, and our projects, but today I will share a personal memory.

Today, March 7th, 2016 – just 6 days before his 69th birthday – his ashes will be spread in Gozo.

To honor Tony, and the bond we had, I am sharing the only photograph that shows both of us together (I took hundreds of photo’s of Tony) and a poem he wrote for me, years ago.

ChantalHarvey-TonyDyson-GOZO-2014

 

Dawn has gone
Dusk is upon us once again
Swallows are resting
Bats are hunting
The Night Angels prepare our spirits for flight

Only our soul knows the true journey ahead
Only our soul knows our deepest desires
So listen to my voice and see my dreams unfold
For I will be heard above life’s din
I am mortal of flesh and bone and will have my time before I die
To see the colors of the rainbow up high

Touch me not with gold so bright,
Touch me not with ebony so dark
Touch me not with marble so cold
Touch me not with hands so eager
But touch my heart with love and truth and I will be yours for ever, Chantal.

AJD

Victoria-tonydyson-chantalharvey©

tonydyson-angrybird-chantalharvey-gozo-xlendi

tonydyson-©chantalharvey-adieu

tonydyson-chantalharvey-victoria

Do we need woman’s day? A wake-up call!

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And this is why we have woman’s day. Why do we accept the fact that women are paid less? And with WE, I mean men and women.
Surely a fair system would benefit all?

A lot of employers are just looking for a way to save on wages, it is as simple as that.

Trending in the news today: Male civil servants earn nearly £3,000 per year more on average than women.

INTERNATIONAL-WOMEN-DAY-THE-MINIMALISTA

Tony Dyson.

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Au revoir, Tony Dyson.
Tony passed away on March 2, 2016.

©ChantalHarveyIMG_7078

 

I am thankful for the years we worked together and everything that he taught me, and for the inspirational roller-coaster ride that started when we met in Second Life in 2011.

Tony became my friend, teacher and business partner and we started a film production company called Scissores, producing machinima or as Tony called it: Real Time Animation.

Tony became head of jury when I produced the 48 Hour Film Project Machinima.
After working together online for 2 years,  we met in Finland and later in Gozo (Malta) and started working on educational and promotional machinima shorts and a book ‘Clive & Sue and the Medieval Farm’.
We created The Bobbekins movie, an animated short film, which I will be submitting to festivals soon.
While carrying on with our machinima work, nobody will miss you as much as I do.
With a different view on the world since we met, I thank you for re-activating the artist in me.

Some of our films:
Their time will come
It’s great to be alive
Robotworld, Sam and Sam
Android Love
Artists in the desert

November brings new adventures.

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November 2015, and I find myself working on 2 projects, getting back into machinima – full speed ahead!
First one is an assignment by Empire.Kred – my cool cat will tell you all about this social media booster!

And;

Robi is entangled in a brand new adventure, this time in a famous location in Second Life, the Petrovsky Flux, created by the Spencer museum of Art in Kansas. Will she find a new head? 2 Still shots, taken from my editline ….

robi2.6-chantalharvey-machinima-2015

 

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Introducing Robi – new machinima series 2015

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Robi. Pronounce: Raaabi.
The meaning of the name is `Brilliant, Illuminated Fame, Bright Fame, Famously Famous, Bright Famous One, Shining with Fame”

robi-ChantalHarvey-2015machinima

I am not broken
I lost my head
I was left behind, forgotten
I alone am Robi

Robi is an optimistic little robot, left behind on a deserted planet. As a true heroine she  explores, happily, always finding new beauty – and hoping to find a new head.

The machinima will go public soon, on this website.
ART: Mistero Hifeng
MUSIC: Alexander Blu – ‘new day’
AVATAR: Web Gearbox
PRODUCTION: Chantal Harvey
SET: Cammino e Vivo Capovolto , Blossom Land
Filmed in Second Life, trademark of Linden Research, inc

robi 01.Still003

 

robi-chantalharvey-machinima

See yourself – in a Virtual World

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Virtual Tech Gadget To See Yourself in Real Life As If in A Virtual World

Fun and fabulous gadget for Oculus Rift users. Seeing yourself in third-person perspective (TPP) in the real world,  is a cool piece of virtual tech! It’s a virtual whirl. This home made Wall-E style add on for Rift looks like a lot of fun to build and could be a novel way to experience the world.… and you can make it out of bits and bolts lying around your home and in your computer.

 

 

THE EXPLODING WORLD OF KIDS TABLETS

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Panelists at CynKids tablet webinar shared some terrific insights on best practices to expand brands into the tablet realm.

 

bobbekins-chantal-harvey-tabletSome highlights:
–  Kids are finding their way to brand websites through tablet apps. As of March, PBS Kids is getting 13 million unique visitors a month, many directly from apps, said Abby Jenkins, director of content for PBS Kids Digital.

 

“We like to show variety in our apps, different characters, different aspects of the curriculum” to attract a variety of kids and parents, she said.

–  Discover-ability remains a challenge. “This is the biggest issue when developing apps for tablets,” said Caroline Fraser, VP, digital products and production, at Scholastic Media. Scholastic releases apps around big programming events and anniversaries, “so we have increased marketing muscle around them.”

–  When developing an app, don’t overlook the unique ergonomics of a 3-year old. “It’s very difficult for kids to move around with a heavy tablet,” said Mindy Brooks, Sesame Workshop director of research and education. “We don’t allow for tilting and moving the tablet within apps.” The other reason Sesame says no to tilting: “We don’t want the kids dropping and shattering mom’s iPad.” Fair enough.

–  Kids are interacting with content across multiple, emerging platforms. Keep up. “Technology is anything that was developed after you were born,” said Graham Farrar, president of Cupcake Digital’s iStoryTime. “You ignore a platform at your peril.”

Source: Cynopsis media.

 

Bobbekins are on the right track

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On January 24, an American survey of 1,500 parents of kids 2-10 by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, founded by Sesame Workshop, tells us that 57% of these parents believes their children learn significantly from educational media. The parents also state that learning from mobile devices falls short when compared to other platforms.

The study, Learning at Home: Families’ Educational Media Use in America, speaks of a drop in educational media use after the earliest years.

As screen media use goes up, the proportion devoted to educational content goes down, from 78% of all screen media among 2-4-year-olds to 39% among 5-7-year-olds to 27% among 8-10-year-olds.

Remember; at a young age the parents provide the choice of media, but as soon as the child gets to choose, things change dramatically. Key is creating and providing higher quality and more fun media, as it tells us that non educational content is more fun. I wonder why there has been so little improvement in for example e-books for children, there are of course exceptions, but mostly they still show pretty primitive animations. Kids will not settle for that, not anymore.

I agree with Dr. Michael H. Levine, the Center’s exec director. “As we work to raise education standards and improve students’ success, we must provide higher quality media options-especially on mobile-that will help engage and educate today’s older children.”

Bobbekins-Clive-reading-ebooks

 

Among other key findings:

–  2-4-year olds spend more time per day on educational media than any other age group – 1 hr, 16 mins compared with 50 minutes for 5-7-yr-olds and 42 minutes for 8-10-yr-olds.

–  Television continues to dominate, with children spending an average 42 minutes a day with educational TV compared to 5 minutes with educational content on mobile devices and computers and 3 minutes with educational video games.

–  39% of parents say their child has learned “a lot” about any subject from mobile compared to 52% for TV.

–  Children are reading an average 40 minutes per day, including 29 minutes with print, 8 minutes on computers, and 5 minutes using e-platforms.

–  There are significant differences among racial groups. Both African-American (60%) and Hispanic-Latino (52%) parents are more likely than White (37%) parents to consider interactive media a very or somewhat important source for the lessons their children most need to learn.