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Aardman Animation Bristol

Bristol’s Aardman Animations

By The Drum, Administrator

October 16, 2008 | 7 min read

They say you should never work with children or animals, but Bristol’s Aardman Animations has made its name creating some of the most recognisable animals in the world.

"This is what you need to know: Making animation is a bit like making a cake,” says Aardman Animations’ executive producer and head of commercials, Heather Wright. “First you decide what kind of cake you want, chocolate, vanilla sponge or fruit, then you assemble the correct ingredients. They are all mixed up, put in the oven and baked. When the cake has cooled it’s then iced. If you don’t do things in the correct order it can cause a lot of problems later in the production. As it’s very difficult to take the fruit out of a cake once it’s baked or even iced, it’s very difficult to change the shape of a character or set after it’s been built or change the length of a shot after it’s been animated.”

Wright has helped make a good few “cakes” (or should that be “a few good cakes”) in her time at Bristol’s world-famous animation studios.

And these “cakes” have obviously gone down well, given the awards adorning the studio’s trophy cabinets.

Now, The Drum is used to visiting agencies with awards adorning their boardrooms and reception areas, but Aardman’s awards aren’t Roses or Scottish Advertising Awards... or even D&AD pencils for that matter (although Aardman has been behind award-winning work in all three cases). These are Oscars. Four of them.

It was while at school that Peter Lord and David Sproxton began their animation partnership as a hobby.

DEAD-PAN

Commercial success first came when they sold a 20-second animated film to the BBC. The star of that clip was a dead-pan superhero they called Aardman. And in 1976 they established Aardman Animations in Bristol.

While the team has reaped columns (and trophy shelves) of commercial acclaim for their features and films, they have been in high demand to produce commercials too, working with all the major advertising groups across the globe – from BBH, AMVBBDO, DDB, JWT, Fallon, M&C Saatchi and Grey in London, to Y&R, BBDO, Arnold, JWT and Leo Burnett in the US. In fact, the team at Aardman Animation are now responsible for between 25 to 30 commercials every year.

The team helped launch a new TV commercial for TBWA\Manchester earlier this year for Resolva. It was also behind the award-winning Tennent’s Lager ‘Pintlings’ campaign (left) created by The Leith Agency, mimicking the detective genre of Taggart and Silent Witness. However, the Bristol studio has also worked with the likes of Chevron, PG Tips, Homepride, Nike and Dr Pepper.

“Everyone remembers Frank the Tortoise from The Electricity Council ads which ended with the tagline For All Your Creature Comforts, which was actually done in 1991 and was inspired by Nick Park’s Oscar winning short Creature Comforts which was made in 1989,” says Wright. “But the first ad we made was directed by Peter Lord in 1984 for Enterprise Computers.

“Our advertising work comes mainly from London, New York and Chicago, and is aired in the UK and US,” she continues. “But we have also done a number of international campaigns, including Johnnie Walker – Paintings directed by Bobby Proctor which shows a character travelling through a series of famous paintings from Delacroix to Seurat to Miro, being one of them.

“This went on air all over Europe and Africa. We also recently produced an ad for Duracell – Skywalker – directed by Luis Cook which shows the famous Duracell bunny racing and jumping across the rooftops in Bristol, which will be shown all over Europe and the Far East too.”

However, for agency teams well accustomed to creating TV adverts, Wright is quick to point out that working with Aardman can be a bit different to the usual production schedule.

“With animation the editing is done before the shoot which is obviously the opposite of live action. Because animation takes so long to do, we only create the exact frames we need for the film. There are no handles and no outtakes for adjusting later. The director and editor will spend quite a bit of time editing the storyboard frames to make an animatic. The animatic is key to making sure the story is working well both in terms of shot composition and length of shots. Often storyboard frames are redrawn and re-edited to improve the animatic.”

Wright continues: “The director will either design the characters and sets or environments himself or will brief other designers. And these characters and sets are then built or created and approved by the director and agency.”

VOCAL TICKS

And, again unlike the real-world alternative, the imperfections of the character are often the key to creating a memorable performance, says Wright: “A voice with character, pauses, stumbles or vocal ticks for example is great because the audio cues give cues for animation actions. A pause is great for a nose scratch, a stumble makes it feel more human, a hiccup or funny mispronunciation of a word adds humour and character. For this reason, the voices are recorded before the characters are animated.”

But while some of the processes will be alien to even the most seasoned ad agency TV producer, there are some very similar ways of working at Aardman to most creative agencies, says Wright.

“Ideas for our own shows can come from anywhere. Internally people are always welcome to pitch an idea but they can also come from externally too.

“They can be an one-line concept ‘I’ve got a great idea about chickens trying to escape from a chicken farm’ on the back of an envelope to a two or three page treatment or even a first draft script of an episode for a TV show.

“Our creative people are encouraged to come up with ideas all the time and we hold regular talks and masterclasses with other industry professionals as inspiration.”

Aardman currently employs around 150 staff but use regular freelance crews from Bristol – and sometimes further a-field too – to supplement the in-demand team.

LOAF AND DEATH

Nick Park – the man behind Aardman’s most famous creations (not counting Morph, of course) Wallace and Gromit – is currently involved in shooting a new half hour film featuring the famous double act, A Matter of Loaf and Death, which will be shown on the BBC over the Xmas and New Year period.

And while many people tend to associate Aardman with “the Nick Park look” Wright stresses that Aardman’s output has a wide range of styles.

“Peter Lord is busy in advanced development on his next stop frame feature film Pirates. And we’ve also got another feature film in advanced development which is CGI – Arthur Christmas – and is being directed by Sarah Smith who came to us with a very strong background in TV Comedy,” lists Wright.

“Meanwhile, our new kids TV show Chop Socky Chooks, which goes on Cartoon Network this week, is animated in CGI and looks completely different again – it’s the brainchild of Sergio Delfino who used to be one of our key animators.

“Luis Cook, who is one of our top commercials directors, made a short film The Pearce Sisters last year which has done amazingly well at festivals all over the world and was the winner of this years BAFTA for Best Animated Short. He also just delivered the Nytol and Duracell commercials. We offer a wide range of styles and looks.”

Aardman Animation Bristol

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