New Tom Rosenthal Music Video Animated by UWE Animation Graduates 

Efa Blosse-Mason and Sophie Marsh, graduates of UWE’s BA Animation course, have collaborated on a new music video for singer Tom Rosenthal. The video can be viewed here, and follows someone on a long train journey playing the popular online game ‘Wordle’ while passing through beautiful landscapes.  

Sophie said, ‘It was great fun coming up with different ideas for worlds that the train would pass through and giving our imagination muscles a good workout. We get a lot of freedom working on these particular music videos, and we can explore tangents to make weird and wonderful things happen. Also my mum is a big Worldle fan and so she loved it.’ 

Efa added, ‘I’m a huge fan of Tom’s and it was a dream of mine to work with him, so I sent him my graduation film…a year later, I got a call from an unknown number and it was him asking about working on a new project!’ 

Tom had initially contacted Efa to ask if she could make an 11 minute music video in just 3 weeks for April Fool’s Day, and Efa brought Sophie onboard to help – the video is available to watch here. They then continued to work together on more Tom Rosenthal music videos and other projects.

The pair have also experienced success with other animation projects since graduating. Efa’s Welsh-language animation Cwch Deilen has been screened on BBC iPlayer and Channel 4, as well as being selected by Whoopi Goldberg for Tribeca film festival in New York.  

Sophie has been freelancing in Bristol, working on projects for brands such as L’Oreal, Maybelline, and Tate & Lyle, as well as gaining funding from the British Academy to work with an anthropologist, Camilla Morelli, to make animations with Matses people living in the Amazon rainforest. They are now making films with young people on the topic of climate change.  

Both filmmakers collaborate with others on multiple projects, as ‘it’s the key to enjoying work and creating amazing things.’ According to Sophie, ‘The biggest thing I gained from UWE was the connections I made whilst at university. As a freelancer you never know where work can come from, and having a great network when graduating really helped me form my business. My advice would be to build your network, find people who you work well with and trust your artistic instincts.’ 

Sophie and Efa are now collaborating on a new stop-motion animation called ‘Flourishing’. Bristol School of Animation look forward to seeing what they produce next.  

@efabm @sophiemakesbooks