The History Of Animation Part 5 - Aardman

Aardman began with Dave Sproxton and Peter, they met as childhood school friends, both mothers taught art and both fathers worked in the BBC. Pete and Dave became good friends, Dave was always interested in process. One day they just decided to play with cut out animation on the kitchen table, this was shot with absolutely no construction. But they laughed our socks off and loved it but there were also political udnertones. They pair were gratley inspired by the TV show Vision On broadcasted by the BBC, and after Daves father showed the BBC what his son was doing, they were given music and said do whatever you like to it. They found it great fun.

They then left surrey and went to Bristol, came up with a charcter that was a complete idiot. Aard man. the producer throuht it was great and the bbc baught it. Then got a check and had to open a bank account, so they called it Aardman. We wanted to do somthing that was fun all the way through, we started playing around with clay work. Gleebies 1975. this was broadcasted. the ancestors to morph. They were lucky to get that brake.

Take Hart 1977 asked can you come up with a chracter to mess up a desk. and it worked really well. They brought in Chaz, then we got the idea to make a series out of them both. They made a series of the amazing adventures of morph. which was pretty amazing at the time.  Aardman built a set downstairs from a georgian house. blu peter came to film them in the studio and how they worked and made a film. In 1981 they were aiming to shoot one episiode in 18 days.

Animted comercials were popular but you were learning on your own. it was a very small industry and were desperately looking for how do we learn this stuff. It wasn't taught in school. Aardman still do a lot of work in animations, and in one way it really does hold the business together

Then they came up with the idea of recording real voices and real situations and trying to do little films for them. Down and out was made in 1978 and found that was a really lovley way to work. with a real audio. Chanel 4 put money into an animation festival, as Channel 4 was just starting and they were aiming for minorities. Suddenly all these animtors came out of the wood work, they used these 5 films in the transmission of the festival.


This is a fantastic piece of animation, properly one of my favourite pieces by Aardman. It's so raw, the audio is completely untouched and the clay animation has a really dark way it's sculptured. Early bird 1983- we did a second series with live recordings. They found its hard to made stuff to people say spontaneously. 

Aardman has met Nick Park by that time, he was very naturally gifted. We helped him with the story boared.  Aaedman helped to make a film babylon 1986 about nuclear holocaust. 

Nick was very intrested in animals and he selected to do creature comforts. By this time Aardman had model makers and helped nick through it. In 1989 Nick didn't use video play back. it allways flowed out, it was magic it went together. Aardman created a completly different approach to what you can do with animation. Mixing children and adult viewers together.

Aardman had advertising agencies asking them to do adverts. They thought to just take the money and get some more equipment and carry out with short films. But it's something the business realies on still today today. In late 60s when television really began to build. They wanted high production value, they learnt so much and bring more model makers, designers and model men and built so many skills from it.

These animations raised the game at Aardman and so A Grand Day Out was realsed, an endearing real British animation. The wrong trousers and a close shave. you can see how the sophistication grew. In the train sequence, timing was flawless. Animation was becoming smoother and smoother.

Chicken run 2000 for nick was a realese of some nutty ness. A good 5 years in the making but by that time they learnt an awful lot on scale, management and writing. The legistics on how to bring this thing to life. Output per animator, how to keep the animators busy, keep them focus on the character when they are working on 3-4 seconds. Having 2 directors they could split the workload, which really helped. Remember why they were doing the scene and make sure the blueprint they put down works. Its good for the actors to see what they are voicing to get into that characecture mode.

Nick came back to wallace and gromit and bring more characters. Instead of a weerewolf it was going to be a rabbit. They locked themselves for 2 years in a victorian shed and had to really concentrate. 24 thousand story bord pictures. Every scene was re written 3 or 4 times. Writting is re writting and re writting only 4 thosand only got on the blueprint. It takes a long time, pixar takes 3-5 years and proberly 3 and a half of those years is in the creatiuve writting and design side. and maybe developing as you go on. It feels like an endless task is ahead of you, they didn't want star names just for the sake of star names we wanted them because they were the right voice. Giving a cinematic quialtiy with light control and depth of field in a small set of a few inches was a challenge and in creating a set you've got more control.

Flushed away 2006. It was an idea that came out of Pete's head. A posh character falls out if his perfect life to find out about reality. They realised it would be a massive thing to do it all in stop motion. So they have a CGI plan available, plugged into their pipe lines. They learnt so much with how the departments work in CGI. its incredibly powerfull tool. Aardman have since made a lot with it.


One of my favorite TV ad's by Aardman are the Serta commercials, the idea that the mattress are so comfortable you don't need to employ counting sheep. Advertising is masive in America, Aardman have worked for Hershys, dont stuff for Jpan, Spain and Swindon. Work needs to be produced a lot faster now, more boundaries are being pushed.

BBC the three blobs 2004 was another one of my favorites. Quirky and funny at the same time.

Aardman have also done change your life 2008 a campaign for the government.

Dave Sproxton says "we are allways trying to come up with ideas, allways chucking things away to keep coming up with the best. keep trying and exploring different media. Now all our departments are in the same building, so  its often that we interact with each other. it's very livley it's great. it reminds other people that how many people are in the company but we all link together and thats great"