Penny Mix Films

March 5th 2010

For the last few weeks I've been working on
The Empire Strikes Back 30th Anniversary. Taking a while.....

February 28th 2010

Some scans from the April 2010 Empire magazine,
confirming my finalists position.

February 9th 2010

Great news, Return Of The Jedi Done In 60 Seconds
made the final 20 in the Empire Competition.

Please vote here

THANKS!

February 8th 2010

New today, Action Man Kart!
Now up on Youtube, click the picture to watch the movie.

January 30th 2010

My Jedi Done In 60 Seconds movie gets another screen shot in Empire Magazine
again for the March issue, thanks ! Fingers crossed I get through to the
last 20 for public voting. Find out on February 8th.

January 24th 2010

Many thanks to Empire Magazine for mentioning one of my movies !
What a great quote too.

January 17th 2010

Another new movie is complete,
Action Man : Pound Shop Snooker Championship

click here to see it !

Filmed in just 7 days, this film sees an Action Man and a GI Joe face off against each other on a
non-regulation snooker table from the Pound Shop. Featuring a minimal amount of red balls,
a table that is too large and a slight alteration in the rules, it is possibly the first ever Action
Man Snooker movie !

January 3rd 2010

Halo : The Toy Wars 2 is now live, click here to see it !

January 2nd 2010

Action Man in The Palitoy Express

Film #88 and our first movie of 2010 is done and uploaded,
you can see it here.

For this movie I wanted to create something using a single set,
hopefully giving more focus to the two characters.

January 1st 2010

2010 Preview and 2009 Review

2010
2010 will see the follow up to the most watched Penny Mix films production - Halo : The Toy Wars 2. The movie is complete with effects, just awaiting the musical soundtrack from Alex now. For this movie, the Joyride figures aren’t used, I opted for an all Kubrick scale movie. As well as Halo characters, there are a wide variety of guests in this, a couple you can see in the trailer. Yes that is Paul Stanley from Kiss ! The first Halo Toy Wars, made in 2007 reached the 250,000 hit mark in 2009.

A couple of movies are almost finished, one being an Action Man train movie and the other being a competition
entry for Blu-Tack !

The only other film that I definitely plan to make in 2010 is The Empire Strikes Back 30th Anniversary.
I have thought about follow ups to Mario Kart and Monster 3, they might get made this year.

2009

Videos from the back catalog of Penny Mix films continued to get many hits. Old favourites like the Doctor Who karaoke films, Ten Doctors, Mario Kart Christmas Race and the original Doctor Who Monster movie from back in 2006 were still getting comments posted about them regularly.

Whilst I’m happy that Halo : The Toy Wars continues to be watched hundreds of times a day,
the visuals are pretty poor compared to my later movies. Mind you, having used a Halo Joyride figure in one of the 2009 Christmas movies, I can confirm that they are still really difficult to animate, or even stand up!

2009 started with a couple of Action Man movies, with Flock In Hell being the first. This is one of my own favourite films, mainly due to the jail set working well. Tron inspired ‘Troff’ faired not so well, hasn’t even broken 250 hits yet! Maybe Tron and Sylvanians shouldn’t go together! Around this time we had the single Dr Who themed movie of the year, Donna’s Noble Adventures. An attempt at a Marvel comic book non-animated movie with some fancy shading didn’t really work, but maybe the Marvel figures will get animated at some point.

The first of two Star Wars movies, ‘Farmboy Tales’ was inspired by the San Diego Comic Con, with their exclusive figure ‘Smiling Luke’ putting in an appearance. Whilst it was a Star Wars movie competition that inspired Penny Mix Films to form in 2006, I only make one or two Star Wars films a year. It was good to meet the Hasbro people in America and tell them that their competition started it all, wonder if they did watch the Penny Mix Films dvd?

I was able to get the attention of the Iron Maiden fans with my custom Mego Eddie’s musical adventure but the biggest hit of the year was my Kiss animation ‘Halloween Special’. This was featured on the official Kiss website and gained over 10,000 hits. Also fairing well with 4,000 hits was Toyminator Salvation, with a great voiceover from Chris Walsh. October was spent making Halo Toy Wars 2 before the annual Christmas movies were created. Just 2 were released this time around.

It was the first year since we started that we hadn’t created a music video for Bo Pepper following their split, so any promotion had to be up to me this year. Subscribers to Penny Mix Films are over 450 now, many thanks to you all.

Hero of Penny Mix Films, Isaac from The Love Boat got used in a number of movies this year, including being the central character in Toyminator Salvation and a leading role in the Wham parody
Last Squidmas. He seems to have a bit of a following too. Watch out for Christmas With Isaac in 2010
( if he doesn’t break during the year).

2009 must have been the year of competition entry, with films made for the following –

Gi Joe Film Festival
Flock In Hell and Carnage In Coalville were both submitted but didn’t get selected.
Hula Hoops
After months and months of voting, Stunt Challenge came third in the viewers vote. I also made a second film for this ( Hole Lotta Love ), but this never even got through the upload process.
Empire Magazine – Done In 60 Seconds
An edit of my Return Of The Jedi movie has been submitted,
should hear something in January if I got through.
Star Wars Uncut
I created three different 15 second pieces for this movie –
should know sometime in 2010 if any are to be used.
Queen / Logitech
Their uploader didn’t work, so my very short movie won’t get seen!

December 22nd 2009

Nice mention on Toysblog.it for Toy Box Christmas

December 19th 2009

Just finished a movie for the Queen / Logitech competition.

December 8th 2009

Just uploaded the trailer for Halo : The Toy Wars 2.

Follow up to our most watched movie.
The blue guy below isn't in the trailer, you'll see why he is there in the finished movie !

Click here for the trailer

December 6th 2009

Toy Box Christmas, the second and probably last Christmas video,
is now live - see here
By my reckoning, this is our 86th video

December 1st 2009

Last Squidmas is now live - see it here

Last Squidmas :-

A Star Wars Christmas tale featuring Squid Head, Princess Leia and Isaac from The Love Boat.

Based on the original video for Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ – ( please watch it first at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpdRWDxkbQ if you haven’t seen it before ).

A film I was going to make last year, but decided I hadn't enough time.
In the end, it only took a week and a half. The film features some snow effects
for the first time and the welcome return of Squid Head and Isaac.

A follow up to 'All I Want For Christmas Is Oola'. Unfortunaltely, Oola is long
gone, after a romantic liason with Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica.
Squid Head is now with Aunt Beru, but he longs to be with Slave Leia once again,
as he was last Christmas......

November 30th 2009

I finished third in the Hula Hoops Golden Film Awards People's Choice.
Many thanks if you voted.

Two Christmas films are now complete and ready to upload

Toy Box Christmas

Last Squidmas

Both to be uploaded shortly ...

Also, links for all 3 Star Wars Uncut competition entries are here -

Star Wars Uncut Scene 209
Star Wars Uncut Scene 51
Star Wars Uncut Scene 1452

November 8th 2009

My 2 final scenes are complete for Star Wars Uncut.
Just waiting for them to be cleared. Here are some stills.

Scene 51 - Gonk Droid Inside The Sancrawler

Scene 145 - Imperial Meeting Room

November 5th 2009

I've finished my first video entry for

This is a film project where A New Hope is broken up into 15
second parts for everyone to re-film. The best will get put into a
new edit of the movie using the original soundtrack.

You can see my scene 209 here
Many thanks to John for the Han voice

October 28th 2009

More than 8000 hits on Kiss Halloween thanks to the official site and the
following Kiss fan sites

http://www.kissfanclub.de/news.htm ( Germany )

http://www.kissarmy.com.br/ ( Brazil )

http://www.kisscreatures.ch/ ( Switzerland)

http://kissmaskwebzine.blogspot.com/

http://kissarmynews.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

Many thanks to you all !

October 27th 2009

Kiss Halloween video gets some great publicity on the Official Kiss Website!

The video is also now featured on the homepage as well as the letters page, fantastic
Look for "Early Kiss Halloween Treat"

October 18th 2009

Doesn't look like Hole Lotta Love will see the light of
day on the Hula Hoops voting site now. You can download it from

Return Of The Jedi In 60 Seconds is also downloadable from there.

October 11th 2009

Another competition entry has been submitted.
'Return Of The Jedi In 60 Seconds' has been entered
to the Empire Magazine 'Done In 60 Seconds' competition.
The judges vote for the top 20 then open it up
to the public. Click the logo below to read more.

October 3rd 2009

Halo : The Toy Wars 2 is now 5 days
into production, many more weeks to go on this...

September 27th 2009

The second (and final!) Hula Hoops video
has just been uploaded to their site.
Waiting for clearance before I send out invitations to vote!

The title I gave it was ..... Hole Lotta Love

Thanks to Alexis and Tony for their input on this

September 24th 2009

New section today,

Look in here for previously unreleased videos
and videos no longer available on Youtube.

September 22nd 2009

Kiss movie is now online here

September 20th 2009

Kiss movie is complete, online in a day or so....

September 16th 2009

Still making a Kiss movie, here's the title screen for it .....

September 8th 2009

A few test shots for the Halloween 2009 movie....

September 7th 2009

There is a second Hula Hoops video almost done.

August 26th 2009

Competition entry for Hula Hoops is ready to be voted on,
please register (takes a couple of seconds) and vote for me by clicking here

Voting for me daily would be much appreciated and you could win a video
camera every day just by voting.... thanks!

August 24th 2009

Star Wars : Farmboy Tales is done, see it here

August 16th 2009

Another film is in the works, Star Wars : Farmboy Tales

There is also another Article, this time on 'The Joy Of Sets'
This goes into detail about how I make the sets and includes
information about the making of the new film.

August 7th 2009

Latest movie has been uploaded - Caravan Of Evil.
An idea I had to make something non-animated, with a
comic book style and effects...

( click to view movie )

July 31st 2009

Back from the San Diego Comic Con with a few suitcases
of stuff to make films with.

None of which went into the making
of the movie for today - Hula Hoops Stunt Challenge.

It hasn't been approved yet by the competition people, but will
post a link when it is.

July 12th 2009

Plans are being made for the next 2 films. One might be
a Star Wars / Tatooine based movie, the next should be a competition entry.
After that the Christmas films will probably be started !

June 19th 2009

First part of a new series of behind the scenes information
can be found over at

June 16th 2009

Great news today, Iron Maiden album cover artist Derek Riggs
checked out the link I sent to my Animaiden video and emailed me back -

Q"Thanks for that, that was a real fun animaiden"

Another great quote for the quotes page for sure -

June 9th 2009

As promised, here's a link to the next finished movie ..... Animaiden

Here are a few shots from the film

June 7th 2009

Next up will be .... Animaiden

May 23rd 2009

Toyminator : Salvation is now on Youtube

One of the longer movies to make, Toyminator Salvation
was filmed over 10 nights in May 2009. Using the new
TS Playmates action figures and some old favourites.