Animation in Britain

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Animation in Britain
Len Lye George Dunning Bob Godfrey Halas and
Batchelor Brothers Quay Aardman studio Nick Park
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Len Lye (1901-1980)

• 1901 born in Christchurch, New Zealand.
• Lye was deeply interested in movement and wanted
  to portray kinetic energy within artistic works
  he also drew on aboriginal art, which for Lye
  again represented a 'pre-rational' artistic
  tradition.

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Len Lye (1901-1980)

• 1923 moved to Australia, Sydney to continue art
  studies
• 1924 returned to New Zealand to study Poyinesian
  culture and tribal art
• 1926-1929 moved to London where he made drawings
  for what would eventually become his first film,
  Tusalava.
• The film was a painstaking effort, involving
  around 4000 separate drawings, but the result was
  a unique animated film that dramatized active
  processes of a not-quite-concrete nature.

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Len Lye (1901-1980)

• 1933 Experimental Animation (aka Peanut Vendor)
  a three-minute puppet film sponsored by exhibitor
  Sidney Bernstein.
• 1933 joinined the GPO Film Unit and began to
  experiment with painting directly onto celluloid,
  a technique that he pioneered.
• 1935 A Colour Box
• In order to satisfy sponsorship requirements he
  had to include advertising slogans, but managed
  to do so without relinquishing his abstract
  objectives.

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Len Lye (1901-1980)

• 1936 Kaleidoscope - a puppet film with Humphrey
  Jennings.
• 1936 Rainbow Dance - experimented with the
  Gasparcolour process.
• 1937 Trade tattoo
• 1941-1945 during the war made a number of
  propaganda films for the Ministry of Information
  as well as filming British material for the
  American series March of Time.

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Len Lye (1901-1980)

• 1943 moved to New York
• 1952 Color cry
• 1958 Free radicals
• co-directed four educational one-reel films with
  I.A. Richards. This marked a new stage in his
  career, and in the post-war period, he continued
  experiments in abstract filmmaking, as well as
  making a number of kinetic sculptures exhibited
  Howard Wise Gallery in NY.
• Trilogy kinetic sculture
• 1968 returned to New Zealand
• Govet-Brewster Art Gallery
• in New Plymouth, New Zealand

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• 1912 John Halas born in Budapest, Hungary
• 1914 Joy Batchelor born in London, England
• 1932 John Halas (János Halász) formed his first
  film studio in Budapest after work with George
  Pal.

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• Halas left Hungary for a job in Paris where he
  also continued studies he had begun in Budapest.
  During this period, Joy Batchelor was an
  established illustrator producing work for
  fashion magazines and newspapers in London.
• 1936 moved to London complete the production of
  Music Man (1938), met Joy Batchelor, who also
  worked on the film.

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• 1938 Music Man
• 1940 Halas Batchelor Cartoon Films Ltd was
  established in Bush House, Aldwych - the
  headquarters for the J Walter Thompson
  advertising agency.

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• 1940 Train Trouble for Kelloggs Cornflakes and
  a cinema commercial for Unilevers Lux soap
  flakes
• 1941-1945 worked on public information films for
  government departments during the war
• 1940 - late 1950s propaganda and public
  information films.
• 1940 Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard
• 1941 Dustbin Parade
• 1943 Health in Jungle Warfare
• 1950s represented the true birth of the studio
  as a recognised source of high quality animated
  films. It continued to make public information
  films for governmental offices.
• 1951-54 Animal Farm first English the
  feature-length production.

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• 1951-54 Animal Farm first English the
  feature-length production.

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• increased number of commissioned commercials,
  and in particular animated commercialsforty
  producers of cartoon films with the arrival of
  ITV.
• 1955 was promoted as the largest cartoon studio
  in Europe.
• 1959 turn out 39 one-reelers for theatrical and
  Television release at least 10 industrial reels,
  and about 250 Television commercials.
• 1959-1960 Foo Foo
• 1959-1960 Habatales
• 1960 Snip and Snap
• 1963 Automania 2000

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Halas Batchelor StudiosJohn Halas (1912-1995)
and Joy Batchelor (1914-1991)

• 1964 feature length animated film Ruddigore
• based on the Gilbert and Sullivan musical
  developed by Joy Batchelor.
• late 1960's sold some shares in the studio to
  Tyne Tees Television.
• 1970 sold the studio
• mid 1970's bought the studio back from Tyne Tees
  Television.
• 1974 European Folk Tales (1974), a series of
  thirty-three films co-produced with the Italian
  television station RAI.
• 1970s thus became more concentrated on the
  European market and co-productions and less on
  the USA
• 1984-1986 Great Masters series -Botticelli (1984)
  , Leonardo da Vinci (1986) and Toulouse-Lautrec
  (1986)

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George Dunning (1920-1979)

• 1920 born in Toronto
• study at the Ontario School of Art and
  freelance work as an illustrator,
• 1943 joined National Film Board of Canada, worked
  with Norman McLaren. Directed his first film the
  same year, Auprès de ma blonde, one in a series
  of 'Chants populaires'.

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George Dunning (1920-1979)

• 1947 Cadet Rousselle
• Instead of conventional animation, the film used
  flat metal figures, treated almost as puppets,
  their position altered frame by frame.
• 1948 worked for UNESCO in Paris under the
  mentorship of Czech-born animator Berthold
  Bartosch.further experimentation with painted
  designs onto glass
• 1949 returned to Canada and worked on a grant
  from the NFB to continue his experiments with
  painting on glass.
• 1949 formed the company Graphic Associates with
  another former NFB artist Jim McKay to generate
  the commercials and industrial spots that
  provided his life's bread and butter.
• 1955 worked on UPA's Gerald McBoing Boing
  television show in New York

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George Dunning (1920-1979)

• 1956 moved to England to manage UPAs new London
  office.
• 1958 began The Wardrobe
• 1961 Dunning's production company, TVC, was
  producing about one hundred commercials a year,
  eight films for the National Coal Board's work
  safety campaign.
• 1962 The Apple - winner of a British Film Academy
  award
• 1962 The Flying Man - won the Grand Prix at
  Annecy's International Animation Festival.
• 1967 The Ladder - further developed the
  brushstroke technique in a story with the
  'eternal triangle' theme.
• 1967 Canada Is My Piano, a triple-screen film for
  the Montréal 1967 Expo.

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George Dunning (1920-1979)

• 1968 Yellow Submarine, Beatles animation
  extravaganza produced by Dunning's company T.V.C.
  London.

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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)
Yellow Submarine 1968
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George Dunning (1920-1979)

• commissioned by King Features in America -
  storyline and a visual approach capacious enough
  to sustain a feature and embrace a dozen Beatles
  songs. rotating the graphic style with each song
• Director, supervisor of the army of over 200
  artists 11 monthsworked with art director
  Heinz Edelmann, the German poster artist, Charles
  Jenkins, responsible for specific technical
  effects, animation directors Robert Balser and
  Jack Stokes Erich Segal, script wwriter, Alison
  de Vere, the chief background supervisor and
  John Coates.
• 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' sequence.
• 1972 Damon the Mower
• 1973 The Maggot -Annecy prize-winner
• 1979 died in London during the work
• on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

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Bob Godfrey b.1921

• 1921 born in West Maitland, Australiaeducated
  in Ilford, and later at Leyton Art School.
• 1931 graphic artist for Lever Brothersadvertising
  soap and sausages for Lintas, gained work for
  the Rank-financed GB Animation unit. Worked in
  London on ancillary products related to the
  Disney-styled Animaland series

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Bob Godfrey b.1921

• 1950 he joined the W. M. Larkins Studio, which
  sought to draw upon modern art sources and comic
  strip idioms in the creation of sophisticated
  promotional and technical films.
• 1952 member of the semi-professional
  Grasshoppers group
• 1952 The Big Parade.
• 1955 formed Biographic Films with Jeff Hale,
  Keith Learner, Nancy Hanna and Vera
  Linnecarfirst commercials for ITV.
• 1959 Polygamous Polonius
• 1961 Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit

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Bob Godfrey b.1921

• music hall routinesavant-garde comedy
  political satireconcerns with British attitudes
  to sex and social conductsurreal satire on the
  social identity of the 'small' man and the
  inhibitions of British masculinity
• 1964 left Biographic to form Bob Godfrey Films
  mock-erotic exploitation films (co-written with
  Stan Hayward)
• 1970 Henry 9 'til 5
• 1971 Kama Sutra Rides Again
• 1975 Roobarb and Custard

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Bob Godfrey b.1921

• 1978 Skylark
• 1979 Dream Doll
• 1975 biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, GREAT
  - Oscar-winning
• 1980 Instant Sex
• 1981 Bio-Woman
• 1983 Henry's Cat
• 1986 awarded an MBE
• 1994 Oscar nomination for Small Talk,
• 1995 asked by John Halas to make the British
  contribution to the Know Your Europeans series
• 2000 Millennium - the Musical amusingly condenses
  the whole of British history into a manageable
  half-hour.
• 2002 Kevin Saves the World

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• 1947 identical twins, born in Norristown, near
  Philadelphia
• 1969 graduated from the Philadelphia College of
  Art (illustration and graphics) and won a
  scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London.
• Made first short film at the School of Film and
  Television and met fellow student Keith Griffiths

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• 1979 Nocturna Artificialia funded by the BFI
  Production Board collaboration with Keith
  Griffiths
• Working together as Koninck Studios, with
  Griffithssurreal and fastidious puppet animation
  films, supplemented by design work for opera,
  theatre and ballet, TV commercials, channel
  identification footage, and numerous music
  videos, including the Stille Nacht series, and,
  less characteristically, Peter Gabriel's
  Sledgehammer.
• immersion in European art, literature, and
  culture
• the diaries of Franz Kafka
• Wladyslaw Starewicz, Walerian Borowczyk and Jan
  Švankmajer
• polish writer and artist, Bruno Schulz - Street
  of Crocodiles

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• 1984 Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• 1984 Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• puppetsconstruct their own setsarrange the
  lightingcamerasatmosphere1986 the Street of
  Crocodiles

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947
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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947

• 1988 Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies
• 1990 The Comb
• 1991 De Artificiali Perspectiva, or Anamorphosis
• 1991 The Calligrapher
• 1995 Institute Benjamenta (UK/Japan/Germany),
  inspired by the
• writings of the Swiss novelist Robert Walser.
• 2002 collaborations with the choreographer
  William Tuckett in Julie Taymor's Frida (US)
• 2005 The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
  (Germany/UK/France)

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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947
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Stephen and Timothy Quay b. 1947
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Aardman studio Nick Park

• an Academy Award winning animation studio based
  in Bristol, UK
• claymation/stop-motion animation productions
• mid 1970s founded as a small backyard project by
  an ambitious pair named Peter Lord and David
  Sproxtonanimated sequences for the children's
  art series Vision On and Morph

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Aardman studio Nick Park

• number of shorts for Channel 4 these included
  the Conversation Pieces series. These five shorts
  worked in the same area as the two shorts Lord
  and Sproxton made for Animated Conversations, but
  were more sophisticated. Lord and Sproxton began
  hiring more animators at this point three of the
  newcomers made their directorial debut at Aardman
  with the Lip Synch series. Of the five Lip Synch
  shorts two were directed by Peter Lord, one by
  Barry Purves, one by Richard Goleszowski and one
  by Nick Park.
• Park's short, Creature Comforts, was the first
  Aardman production to win an Oskar.
• Park also developed the world-famous clay
  modelled shorts featuring the adventures of
  Wallace Gromit

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Aardman studio Nick Park
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Aardman studio Nick Park
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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 1989 A Grand Day Out
• 1993 The Wrong Trousers Oscar winning
• 1995 A Close Shave Oscar winning
• 2000 Aardman Studios "let the birds" fly with
  Chicken Run, Aardman's first feature film.
• 2005 Wallace Gromit The Curse of the
  Were-Rabbit - Academy award for full-length
  animated film.

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Aardman studio Nick Park
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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 2005 a fire at Aardman's storage warehouse
  destroyed over 30 years of props, models, scenery
  and awards collected by the company. This
  warehouse was used for storage of past projects
  and so did not prevent the production of their
  current projects at the time. An electrical fault
  was determined to be the cause of the blaze.
• "Even though it is a precious and nostalgic
  collection and valuable to the company, in light
  of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal."

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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 1958 born in Preston, Lancashire
• started making films in his parent's attic at
  the age of 13.

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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 1975 One of his earliest works entitled
  "Archie's Concrete Nightmare" was shown on BBC
  Television
• 1980 BA degree in Communication Arts at Sheffield
  Art School
• 1980 study animation at the National Film and
  Television School in Beaconsfield where he began
  work on "A Grand Day Out".
• 1985 joined Aardman Animations and it was here
  that he completed "A Grand Day Out" in 1989. The
  film won the BAFTA award for Best Short Animated
  Film in 1990 and was nominated for an Academy
  Award in the same year.
• worked as Director and Animator on numerous
  projects, including pop promos, title sequences
  and inserts for children's television.

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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 1989 "Creature Comforts" - Oscar for the Best
  Short Animated Film
• 1993 "The Wrong Trousers" Oscar for Best Short
  Animated Film from the Academy of Motion Picture
  Arts and Sciences in March 1994.
• 1996 "A Close Shave"

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Aardman studio Nick Park

• 1989 "Creature Comforts" - Oscar for the Best
  Short Animated Film
• 1993 "The Wrong Trousers" Oscar for Best Short
  Animated Film from the Academy of Motion Picture
  Arts and Sciences in March 1994.
• 1996 "A Close Shave"