Killing Time: The Story...

Is set somewhere in 20th Century Europe in a once grand street that has seen better days, much like our story’s protagonist.
We enter the cold and musty world of a lonely frail old man named Ernest Gittings. He ritually sits at the window of his top floor room, observing the world below, transfixed by this particular day’s miserable incessant rain and continual gloom. The monotonous passage of time is draining his will and yet another day is ebbing away… The clock ticks… Time waits for no man…

What or who will come and save his soul from the confines of boredom and the apparent meaningless existence of this old man perched in his top floor flat? He wants to feel alive again…

Killing Time: Genesis

Here is a breakdown of what this site is and who we are so that the confusion of domain name and story title can be explained… or muddied further depending on how you view things...

Spinning Divil is the tree house at the top of the tree, in which there are two notoriously picky individuals sitting like crossed legged monkeys picking the Idea Lice from each others head. The undeveloped but interesting Idea Lice are kept, pinned (just by the top of the ear which we understand is painless) to the wall so that they can happily wiggle their numerous legs and mature and ripen with just the right amount of care and preening. As time passes, a few certain lice may turn a distinct gold colour and insist (by constantly screeching in a high pitched shriek) on being dissected with the use of sharp mind and cutting tongue.
The Golden Idea Louse is unpinned and amongst much whooping and dramatic remonstrating, sliced and diced and amid the apparent cacophony, if all the parts can be found, the idea is then reshaped and kneaded into the shape of a complete story, topped with egg white and put in a small basket, lowered on a rope and sent to be baked by the appropriate chefs.

In this particular case the golden story made ready for baking was named “Killing Time” and the cooks happen to be the same two monkeys who look after the Idea Lice.

Killing Time: Project History and kit

All of Killing Time has been/is being produced from one of our homes on two home computers. One is a pretty potent 3 years old and the other being a more sensible 5 year-old laptop workstation. We originally set up in a dedicated office (converted bedroom) but subsequently moved into a downstairs (sitting room) office because of noise and a neighbour’s resulting insomnia. We are sure they’ll be as pleased as us when the final render finishes…
The two of us have created everything from scratch in our regimented spare time and tried to juggle the project’s completion with spending time with family and working 9-5; a very supportive wife (in my case) and dedicated fiancée (in mine) have made this task somewhat easier.
We set out with the intention of producing a piece of work to the highest standard we could reach in a given timeframe and have refused to cut corners or sacrifice the quality, preparing to extend the finish date rather than have a finished animation that wouldn’t be as good as we envisaged.
The results of some of our labours can be viewed in the render section, and though compressed and at a substantially reduced sized, are pleasing. The final renders are of cinematic size as our intention for the final piece is to compete in some of the worlds’ film festivals and hopefully entertain as many people from as many different countries as possible.

Spinning Divil: Who We Are

Spinning Divil is made up of a collaboration between two individuals named Roger Rosa and Robin Clarke. As luck would have it, their separate paths crossed 7 years ago and after the mess was cleared up, it became apparent that a shared hip was going to cause problems. There was only one way to rectify the situation and a challenge was set and shook upon.

The hip was agreed to be owned outright by the individual who came up with the most ingenious fantastic story that would entertain everyone presented with it in its finished guise and providing it couldn’t be altered in any way to improve its richness… Much like a cup of tea, only visually more entertaining and less wet.

Well since that day, the pair of them have consistently tried to outdo the other with a variety of inventive amazing stories and scenarios, aided by a plethora of visual cues and models made from their respective mothers’ washing up liquid bottles… But alas to no avail, each individual plot, though excellent, has been added to and bettered by the other’s interception or improvised addition, and the shared hip sits gently swaying to a distant beat that only itself can hear, tightly shut in its glass jar next to the biscuits, and gathering an unsightly layer of dust… And so the imaginative bickering continues…