Classic characters 'up in smoke'
By Neil Smith
BBC News entertainment reporter
The fire at Aardman's Bristol warehouse may have destroyed some of British animation's most iconic characters.
For while the company remains best known for its Creature Comforts and Wallace and Gromit shorts, it has a distinguished track record that stretches back some 30 years.
"Our history has disappeared in a couple of hours," said spokesman Arthur Sheriff.
"Everything has gone. Props, sets, models - even our awards were in there."
Three of the only things certain to survive were the Oscar statuettes for short films won by creator Nick Park, which were kept elsewhere.
Aardman Animations was established in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who began their animating partnership when they were still in school.
The company took its name from a deadpan superhero character devised for a brief animated segment made for the BBC TV programme, Vision On.
Its association with the corporation continued when Aardman created a Plasticine character for the children's programme, Take Hart.
The now legendary Morph went on to have two highly successful series, The Amazing Adventures of Morph and The Morph Files.
Talking heads
The company received international recognition when Nick Park's Creature Comforts won the Oscar for best animated short at the 1990 Academy Awards.
But Aardman had already experimented with the talking heads format on a series of films based on real-life conversations.
The Conversation Pieces series included 1981's On Probation, about a young ex-offender, and 1983's Early Bird, which depicted an average morning at a big-city radio station.
This led to the Lip Synch series, five short films commissioned by Channel Four that again used "vox pop" recordings.
These included War Story, about one man's experiences in London during the Blitz, and the aforementioned Creature Comforts.
But Aardman was also establishing itself in TV commercials and pop videos - most notably for Peter Gabriel's hit single Sledgehammer.
Having spent a couple of summers working with Lord and Sproxton while studying at the National Film and Television School, Park joined the studio fulltime in 1985.
This allowed him to finish his graduation film A Grand Day Out - the first short to feature Aardman's most celebrated characters, Wallace and Gromit.
It was followed by The Wrong Trousers in 1993 and A Close Shave in 1995, both of which went on to win Oscars.
Subversive humour
But Park was not the only Aardman employee to court Oscar glory. Lord's 1996 film Wat's Pig also landed an Academy Award nomination, as did Peter Peake's 1998 Humdrum.
Rex the Runt, devised by Richard Goleszowski, was launched on BBC2 in 1998, its satirical and subversive humour marking the company's first venture into 'adult' cartoons.
By this time, however, the company had begun its first feature-length project, Chicken Run - the first film to be produced under a five-picture arrangement with the US studio Dreamworks.
More recent characters include Angry Kid, a red-haired, bicycle-riding adolescent who made his debut on the internet before landing his own BBC Three series.
Aardman also developed the "blob" characters featured in the digital channel's trailers.
In the pipeline is Flushed Away - Aardman's first foray into computer-generated animation - which will see British actress Kate Winslet voicing a sewer rat.
It is not yet known how much of the company's archive perished in the blaze, though its spokesman said the damage was extensive.
"Everything as far back as Morph has all gone up in smoke," he told the BBC.
"Everyone is devastated, from Nick Park downwards."
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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 326624.stm
Published: 2005/10/10 12:28:24 GMT
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