Aardman

Aardman

David Sproxton and Peter Lord founded Aardman Animations in 1972. They met at school and began their animating partnership in their spare time, using a 16mm camera.

For the show 'Vision On' they were asked to create a short piece using cell animation, which had a nerdish Superman character, called Aardman. In 1972 BBC then bought this film, which in turn started the creation of  “Aardman Animations”.

Morph the brown clay figure made his first appearance in 1976, in “Take Hart”, the follow up series to “Vision On”, and his success led to the BBC producing a 26 part, five-minute series, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Morph’ which was aired in 1981.

After years of making animated series for children, David and Peter where sure that there was an adult audience ready to watch an animated show. ‘Down and Out’ and ‘Confessions of a Foyer Girl’ where what was created, however the BBC rejected both of these as they thought it would diminish their reputation. In Quick retaliation to this they began to work on a very popular show called ‘Creature comforts’, which was a real lip synced interview with thousands of people.

1972:

David Sproxton and Peter Lord complete their first film, Aardman, for BBC Bristol.

1976:

Founding Aardman Animation, Sproxton and Lord create new character, Morph, for BBC's Vision On.

1978:

Aardman receives commission for two Animated Conversation short films from BBC.

1982:

Animated Conversation concept is developed into series of five "Conversation Pieces" for Channel Four.

1985:

Nick Park joins Aardman.

1986:

Aardman receives international acclaim for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video.

1989:

A Grand Day Out, the first film featuring Wallace and Gromit, directed by Nick Park, is released.

1993:

The second Wallace and Gromit film, the Oscar winning The Wrong Trousers, is released.

1995:

Wallace and Gromit's third film, A Close Shave, also earns an Oscar.

1999:

Aardman and DreamWorks sign 12-year, four-film deal for $150 million.

2000:

The first Aardman feature film, Chicken Run, is released to critical and popular success.

2003:

Filming begins on first full-length Wallace and Gromit film, with a proposed release date of summer 2005.

http://www.telepathy.co.uk/aardman/culture/index.html

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3428800010.html

mouse animation

Mouse animation

In this small animation the paper cut-out technique is used to imitate the mouse character talking. We tried to create a smooth transition between each different frame, including slight movement in the characters body (head) to bring the overall clip more life. We couldn't find a clip of Morgan freeman saying what we wanted him to say, so instead the advert 'More-than Freeman' we took the audio from there and synced it to the animation of our character talking. I thought that the overall project worked well although making sure that the characters body did not move, giving the mouse a different background and also giving the mouse colour would have improved the overall clip.

Creature Comforts Stop Motion Animation

Creature Comforts Stop Motion Animation

Creature Comforts was originally a British humorous animated short film about how animals feel about living in a zoo in 1989, featuring the voices of the British public which had been given to various animated animals. Nick Park alongside Aardman Animations created and established it.

Creature comforts went around the country interviewing all types of people weather they be foreign, religious, small, large, high/low pitched, old or young.

They recorded all the interviews, which are not scripted and rely soley on what the person says.

When starting up creature comforts they went with the use of plaster-scene stop motion animation instead of computer animation because they felt that they could get across the emotions and expression’s of the characters much more clearly. They began to see that the stranger and more foreign the voice the wider range of animals and situations could be used.

The amount of preparation that went into each episode was outstanding; they had the initial interview, which was not edited at all, followed by the creation of the characters, followed by the crew acting out the scene whilst lip sinking the voice to show how the act would come together, then lip sinking the interview with the created chosen characters and whilst getting all of the scales/proportions correct. This was a huge amount of work, they also when measuring proportions had to evaluate the size of the set and the animals themselves, if they had a full sized German Shepard to create that out of plaster-scene could way up to 300 pounds, so obviously they had to be scaled down to the write size for convenience.

By the end they had over 600 hours of recorded interviews, which contained embarrassing, personal, boring and outrageous knowledge. The interviewers realized that people began to open up in the interviews and almost ‘get a load of their chest’.

Persistance of vision

Persistance of vision

"Persistence of Vision" is where the retina in the eye keeps an image for a brief second after the image was actually seen, and helps create an illusion of movement when we view the images in a quick sequence. We don't notice the cuts in-between each image because that illusion fills in the cuts to make the motion seem like one continuos sequence. (about.com)

The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay

 The Brothers Quay work in England. In England they created there very first short films. The first short film they made no longer exists after the only print they made was damaged. Moving back and fourth from Netherlands to England they ended up teaming up with a Royal College student called Keith Griffiths who helped to produce all of their films.

 

Short Films created:

- Nocturna Artificialia (1979)

- Punch and Judy (Tragic comedy) (1980

- Ein Brudermord (1981)

- The Eternal day of Michel de Ghelderode (1981)

- Stravinsky - The Paris Years (1983)

- Leos Janacek: intimate Excursions (1983)

and many more

Both brothers influenced by Eastern European animation they presented a passion of breathtaking mix of  color and texture. They are known for their camera movements to make there films so unique and different. People recognised the brothers as their movies are creating an 'unforgettable world' from just tiny sets that they created. Creating such depth in something that is made so small.