Amazing Spectacles Director Martyn Pick Helps bring Ultramarines To Life

Martyn Pick, director at independently-run animation studio, Amazing Spectacles, has directed his first feature-length film, Ultramarines, for UK independent producer, Codex Pictures.
The film, based on Games Workshop's iconic science-fantasy table-top war strategy game Warhammer 40,000 is the first ever interpretation of the dystopic, war-torn universe for the screen. A special edition collector's set DVD is also available to buy direct from the producers at: www.ultramarinesthemovie.com
Martyn's 24 years of experience as an animator, his studies at St Martin's School of Art and his individual visual style were key to creating the very specific look of the film. The team worked very closely with designers from Games Workshop to capture the mood and experience of the game. Martyn's distressed style with a great painterly quality was perfect for capturing this.
Martyn said: "I'm not from a gaming background, but I have a huge amount of experience in fine art and animation. This project was a great opportunity to use that experience and develop it for a different genre. I've always been a big fan of action cinema and, with such a quality script that had so strong a sense of atmosphere and imagery; I could easily fit my visual style around it. It really was a fantastic project to be involved in."
Over the last two decades, Martyn has experimented with introducing live action CGI and digital compositing into the expressionist flow of his work. Most recently, he has directed a commercial to promote the Turner exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland and Franny Armstrong's highly acclaimed climate change documentary feature, The Age of Stupid.
He was also commissioned by Film London and the London Development agency to make London, a five minute film which premiered at the Beijing Olympics to celebrate the capital's diversity leading up to the 2012 Olympics. As a commercials director, Martyn has made numerous commercials, TV indents and promos for the BBC. He also won commissions from Filmfour and Channel 4 and has been awarded with the Gold Plaque for Animation at the Chicago Film Festival.
The film was completed in 14 months by global teams working on animation, face capture and story boards. Collaboration partners included Good Story Productions in Cardiff, Canadian co-producers Pop6 in Montreal and, in Manchester and Santa Monica, Image Metrics, whose contemporary face capture technology enabled the voice actors' faces to be filmed and their motions transplanted into the animated heads of the characters. The results are very life-like representations of the super-human space marines.
(KMcA/GK)