Scott Newton fell in love with animation from his first memory of watching Toy Story at the Antrim Cineplex when he was just a child.
Now the Templepatrick man's own creation is gathering serious award attention and has recently been nominated for 'Best Animated Short Film' at the Irish Film and TV Awards.
With ten years of experience in the industry, the 31-year-old hopes his short film Candlelight will be the catalyst for a second Oscar to be brought to his home town, with Short Film 2023 winner An Irish Goodbye having filmed there.
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Speaking to Belfast Live, Scott said the "limitless potential" of animation set him on this career path after studying Film Studies at Queen's University Belfast.
Scott said: "Growing up, I spent so many hours in front of the TV watching Ninja Turtles and Dragon Ball Z that I don’t think I could have escaped pursuing a career in animation if I tried!
"Watching technology rapidly advance year on year, particularly in 3D CGI, meant I constantly had my mind blown by the latest Pixar or Dreamworks releases and it’s something that’s always inspired and captivated me.
"After graduating from Queens I began as an intern in Jam Media, a visual effects and animation company focussed towards kids TV and film. I began with zero experience just as an intern/general assistant answering phones, doing errands- just any excuse to be in a real-life studio.
Scott has been great to work on a variety of projects throughout the years including the Oscar-nominated short Late Afternoon, on-set work on Game of Thrones, kids' TV shows for BBC, Nickelodeon and Amazon and live-action feature films and TV shows such as Blue Lights.
Candlelight follows the story of two candles meeting and falling in love, but discovering that when they touch, the heat of their combined flames causes them to rapidly melt. Now, they both must decide whether life without the other can still be magical, or if they want to sacrifice everything for love.
Scott continued: "The idea for Candlelight came during a debate with my partner, Rosie, about something and I kind of zoned out from what we were discussing and thought about how passion and friction makes fire and how that makes life exciting.
"I think it’s an interesting dilemma, and in the film we explore how after they meet and subsequently separate, life and the things they once enjoyed don’t really feel as magical anymore.
"We actually started making the film before Covid was a thing, and then the shift to remote working slowed everything down as we had to create a new pipeline from scratch and various team members left the studio during the pandemic.
"So this was challenging and led to a longer than usual production time (nearly 2 years for a 7 minute short) but we got there in the end and I couldn’t be happier with the team’s efforts."
So far on the circuit, Candlelight has appeared at 38 festivals and taken home 14 awards and Scott said seeing the reaction to his work has been an "impossible" feeling to describe.
Watch the trailer for Candlelight below...
"A parent messaged me and told me that Candlelight is his young daughter’s favourite film and it just takes me back to how much joy and inspiration I got from my favourite animations back in the day and how they stayed with me far beyond their run time," he added.
"To potentially have an impact on a viewer is the reason we all do this in filmmaking, even if it’s just temporarily her favourite film until the next Disney release comes out!"
Preparing to head off to an Oscar Qualifying Festival this month, his goal is to direct an animated feature film and with the industry here in Northern Ireland continuing to boom, that dream is even closer to being a reality.
"It’s been truly incredible to watch the industry here grow from strength to strength. When I started working, Game of Thrones was in full stride and that really got the ball rolling for Hollywood productions to come here.
"There’s no need to move to London, Canada or the USA to find opportunities to work on a big production, it’s all on our doorstep! Now we have the fantastic courses over at the University of Ulster, new studios opening and arguably the most exciting thing is An Irish Goodbye winning the Oscar and putting our homegrown talent on screen and putting Templepatrick, where I’m from, on the map.
"Now I’ll have to settle for bringing the SECOND Oscar back to my home village!"
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