Sherlock Gnomes

Sherlock Gnomes has been released this weekend in the USA. I was invited to join the production last year in order to create some short hand-drawn sequences that would illustrate the inner workings of Sherlock's brain.

Working alongside two encouraging producers, Carolyn Soper and Steve Hamilton Shaw, the fabulously supportive director, John Stevenson, and the amazing vocal talents of Johnny Depp,  I designed the sequences in a black and white, pen and ink style (a small nod to the original illustrator of the Sherlock stories, Sidney Paget) and then animated them with my frequent co-animator Aude Carpentier.

It was a tremendous fun to work on this project, and I am delighted that many film reviews have singled out our little moments for praise:

"'Sherlock Gnomes' even boast a few moments of genuine inspiration. Whenever Sherlock Gnomes enters his famous 'Mind Palace', in order to sort through every piece of information he has in his enormous brain, the animation shifts to dynamic 2D black-and-white, and the film takes on a playful, buoyant energy."  WorldProNews

"One very peasant surprise was the use of 'old-school' 2D drawn animation to show the inner workings inside Sherlock's head (the end credits call it his 'mind palace'). In one sequence his Baker Street digs become an M C Escher maze of curling staircases, all rendered in a 'pen and ink' style that recalls master animator Richard Williams."  WeAreMovieGeeks 

"Depp's voice performance as the quirky Sherlock Gnomes...takes off during fantasy sequences done in a lively black-and-white line drawing animation style that illustrate his peculiar brain and way of thinking."  LATimes

"...cartoon dream sequences illustrating Sherlock's leaps of deductive logic serve to shake up the movie every now and then."  Entertainment

"...it has occasional fun ideas, such as rendering the inner workings of Holmes's mind in hand drawn black-and-white."  NYTimes

"...clever 2D black-and-white sequences."  Hollywood

"...the whole film should have been done in this style."  Letterboxd 

I feel tremendously privileged to have worked on this film alongside such a talented, and happy, crew. And it's always lovely to see London on film, particularly from the viewpoint of 8 inches off the ground, which was the average gnome-sized viewpoint of this movie!


(For more information on my various projects, go to www.neilboyle.co.uk or CLICK HERE