1 00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:05,160 CHILD: Mummy, how do you make a cartoon? 2 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:07,200 MAN: The process in itself is quite simple. 3 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:09,360 WOMAN: You move the figure, take the picture. 4 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:10,800 Boom, boom. 5 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:15,360 Here we are. Here's a clap. 6 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:20,800 You take a photograph. 7 00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:23,600 Move the model. 8 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:25,040 Take a picture. 9 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:26,240 That's how it's done. 10 00:00:26,240 --> 00:00:30,200 In the world of animation, one nation rules supreme. 11 00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:31,320 SCREAMING 12 00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:32,320 SCREECHING 13 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:33,720 America! 14 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,120 AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS 15 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:40,240 Since the golden era of Walt Disney, big budget animation has largely 16 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:43,080 been owned by the American studios. 17 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:47,120 While the Yanks won the box office, other countries got 18 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:48,760 the film festivals, 19 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:52,360 where they could show off their own distinctive styles. 20 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:54,880 The Polish films tend to be very dark. 21 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:59,840 Now, the Estonian films are totally off the wall! 22 00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:01,800 You know, lots of fish. 23 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,720 French films - everybody goes, "Is that made by a human?" 24 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:09,120 You know, because they're so beautifully made. 25 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:11,720 And what makes British animation different? 26 00:01:11,720 --> 00:01:13,040 Lack of money. 27 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:14,720 THEY LAUGH 28 00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:20,200 A sense of innovation. 29 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,320 So many British animators were born outside the UK. 30 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:29,800 British animation is so much more than just kids' telly. 31 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:32,360 Its bloody-minded brilliance can be traced 32 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:34,080 from Victorian music halls 33 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:35,880 to the latest blockbuster. 34 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:38,200 BARKING AND WHINING 35 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:42,400 Even in today's digital age, this is an industry that is still 36 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:43,640 handmade at heart. 37 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:48,800 That's down to some unlikely pioneers, as extraordinary 38 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:50,480 as their films. 39 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:52,440 We always used to get high on these markers, 40 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:53,720 we used to...whoo! 41 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:54,800 HE LAUGHS 42 00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:59,320 These are the secrets of British animation. 43 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:03,560 The story of those pioneers, and the magic ingredients 44 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:06,720 that have made this improbable industry what it is. 45 00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:08,400 You know what? If there was a secret, 46 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:10,440 I'd love to know what that secret is. 47 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:21,480 At Aardman Animations in Bristol, their original star is limbering up. 48 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:31,400 MORPH SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE Morph! 49 00:02:31,400 --> 00:02:33,400 MORPH SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 50 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:37,360 For 40 years, he's pretty much been the handmade mascot 51 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:38,880 of British animation. 52 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:43,320 MORPH LAUGHS 53 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:46,040 MORPH SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 54 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:50,440 CHAS CRIES OUT, VOICE FADES AWAY 55 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:56,080 Standing by is a specially engineered piece of equipment 56 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:00,000 to make sure that Morph's camera-ready. 57 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:05,600 We did the first episode, and then thought, 58 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:08,760 "Well, I've got to reproduce him again next week." 59 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:13,760 And the easiest way to do it, the safest way to do it, was by weight. 60 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:19,920 At some stage in history, I see that 61 00:03:19,920 --> 00:03:23,560 I've stuck a little yellow sticker with an M on, 62 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:25,440 and that's Morph's weight. 63 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:34,000 Morph was created by Aardman's David Sproxton and Peter Lord. 64 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:37,680 He's designed to work quickly. 65 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:40,640 He used to film 20 seconds of footage a day. 66 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:45,240 Three times what you'd expect of a fast worker now. 67 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:48,000 He is what he appears to be on the screen. 68 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,200 On the screen, he looks like a little guy that's... 69 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:52,200 Whatever that is - five inches tall or whatever. 70 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:53,440 But this is on your table top 71 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:54,920 and that's exactly what he is, 72 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:58,000 and I think there's, sort of, honesty about that. 73 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,120 Morph was just one of those beautiful creations. 74 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:02,560 So simple, kind of genius 75 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:04,800 in and of itself in that, you know, 76 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:08,720 the whole purpose and function of the character is that it 77 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:10,160 can become anything. 78 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:11,240 Et voila. 79 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:15,360 MORPH HICCUPS 80 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:20,640 HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 81 00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:21,800 MORPH HICCUPS 82 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:27,720 Being made of clay means that there are some rather basic things 83 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:29,840 that Morph struggles with. 84 00:04:29,840 --> 00:04:31,600 CHAS SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 85 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,000 Walking, for instance. 86 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:36,720 MORPH SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE 87 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:37,920 What I can't do... 88 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,920 is that. with his heel off the ground - he's not strong enough. 89 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:42,600 So, he doesn't. 90 00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:46,400 What actually happens - in one frame, one instance, 91 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:50,640 it goes from toe-down to heel-down... 92 00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:52,320 ..like that. 93 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:54,360 His foot has kind of gone, snap! 94 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:58,160 And that little snap of the foot, never leaving the ground, 95 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:03,160 gives him a kind of percussive, sort of, snappy, Morphy walk - 96 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:05,680 which is pure Morph. 97 00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:07,440 I knew there was a secret somewhere. 98 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:09,120 That's the secret! That's the secret! 99 00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:11,840 CHAS LAUGHS 100 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:15,200 MORPH SPEAKS STERNLY 101 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,560 Simple, handmade, and very funny. 102 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,640 For Aardman, Morph is the perfect star. 103 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:27,000 Well, almost perfect. 104 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,840 It wasn't a financial success, really, at all. 105 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:35,600 Which surprises everyone, I think, because he's been a popular success, 106 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:37,560 a cultural success. 107 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:39,840 But...but not economic. 108 00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:41,640 As a business - hopeless. 109 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,960 We never made any money out of Morph, and we still don't. 110 00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:47,040 We just love doing him. 111 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:48,080 MORPH HICCUPS 112 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:50,840 TRUMPET SOUNDS 113 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:54,280 British animation... 114 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:55,480 It's artisan! 115 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:00,520 But lurking in its past is a big secret. 116 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:03,920 Animated films started out as a way to make a bit of cash. 117 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:18,080 Imagine you're a late Victorian musical impresario. 118 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:21,880 All you care about is getting bums on seats. 119 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:23,680 When all those acrobats and comedians start 120 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:25,640 to look a bit tired, 121 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:28,160 you need a new attraction. 122 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,320 Enter motion pictures - 123 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:35,360 a new technology you can project in between the usual acts. 124 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:40,560 To delight the crowd, film-makers like Walter Booth packed 125 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:42,640 their productions full of gimmicks. 126 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:45,440 Walter Booth made it a kind of a career of, kind of, 127 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:47,720 coming up with special effects. 128 00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:54,120 He was somebody who'd done lightning sketches himself - 129 00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:57,240 this technique of going on a stage and drawing quick caricatures 130 00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,520 of recognisable personalities, people from the audience... 131 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:02,320 And this was a skill that could be brought 132 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:03,680 into a cinema. 133 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:07,640 Booth stopped the camera to replace a drawing 134 00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:08,960 with a real woman. 135 00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:14,520 He ran film backwards so that cotton would weave itself. 136 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:19,160 SOFT PIANO MUSIC And in 1907, Booth went one step further, 137 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:20,760 into animation proper. 138 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:23,760 Can I fast forward it a bit? 139 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:26,320 Because it's all dancing, at the moment. 140 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:31,360 In The Sorcerer's Scissors, the sorcerer is Walter Booth himself, 141 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:36,040 cutting out photographs and moving them frame by frame under a camera. 142 00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:39,440 Very good. 143 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:41,120 Gosh, that's clever! 144 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:42,600 Deeply impressed. 145 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:47,360 It's a technique we now call cut out animation. 146 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:51,120 It does actually remind me of things that I've done 147 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:53,480 with scissors, with collages. 148 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:57,800 Scissors - they're our, sort of, tools of the trade. 149 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:00,000 It is quite an artisanal technique. 150 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:01,440 It's a very basic one. 151 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,600 You don't have to draw a long sequence of drawings, 152 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:06,320 and then replace them one by one. 153 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:07,640 You can use basic cut-outs. 154 00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:12,080 It's a tradition that really grows in the First World War...cinema. 155 00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:13,800 It's really familiar to us 156 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,680 through Terry Gilliam's work in Monty Python. 157 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:18,080 CHOMPING 158 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:20,320 AUDIENCE LAUGHS 159 00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:24,080 If you venture into the archives 160 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:27,720 of the British Film Institute, you can see 161 00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:29,200 British animation's baby steps. 162 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:33,120 Trick films that experiment with stop motion, 163 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:35,200 and even colour photography. 164 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,240 Even in the most impressive films, something is absent... 165 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:47,840 ..authentic human emotion. 166 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:54,560 When BFI curator Jez Stewart called up a forgotten 167 00:08:54,560 --> 00:08:59,200 First World War propaganda film, he made a remarkable discovery... 168 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:05,280 ..an early animated sequence that, if you could spot it, 169 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:09,080 had that missing ability to make you feel. 170 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:12,360 So, it's a film from 1915 that was catalogued 171 00:09:12,360 --> 00:09:15,480 as John Bull's Sketch Book in our database. 172 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:23,840 It was kind of what I expected. 173 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:26,880 I could see that Dudley Buxton's name was signed on the screen 174 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:29,360 at one point, and that's who I thought would have made it. 175 00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:32,120 And it was very typical of the time, in terms of 176 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:36,120 it was pieces of cut out animation, fairly basic. 177 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:38,720 Until I got to the last scene. 178 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:41,800 The last scene depicts the German Navy's bombardment 179 00:09:41,800 --> 00:09:44,760 of Scarborough in December, 1914. 180 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:49,000 Dudley moves his hand away 181 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:51,240 and these three characters appear. 182 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:54,200 And the time that I was first watching it, it was interesting but 183 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:55,520 it hadn't completely engaged me. 184 00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:57,840 It seemed familiar at the time, and then suddenly there was 185 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:00,920 this little flash and a blur, and something happened. 186 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:02,960 And I wasn't quite sure what it was. 187 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:08,000 And I was... Just that little blur bugs me, so I went back and had a look at it. 188 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:16,520 And what I found was these beautifully drawn characters had 15 189 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:20,400 frames of this extraordinary character animation 190 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,840 that was completely out of place. 191 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:28,560 If you look closely and slow it down, you can start to make out 192 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:31,440 extra little details that you don't see on the first notice. 193 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:35,320 You see that there's a flash from one the ships, just there. 194 00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:38,560 And then you look on the coast... 195 00:10:38,560 --> 00:10:39,960 ...and it hits. 196 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:42,440 There's a flash there, and that's when they move. 197 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:46,360 Just this little, tiny movement... very human gesture. 198 00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:48,200 So it explodes... 199 00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:51,280 ..there's a flash at this end, 200 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:56,320 possibly another shell, and her arm moves out towards her daughter 201 00:10:56,840 --> 00:10:58,360 in a protective gesture. 202 00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:03,040 Daughter clings to her, and the son grabs up to his face... 203 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:05,240 ..the horror of the moment. 204 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,960 It's something that really spoke to me and really... 205 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:13,160 it still actually sends shivers down my spine. 206 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:19,520 These 15 frames, separate drawing upon separate drawing, 207 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:23,120 would have taken a painstaking amount of time. 208 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:26,200 Buxton, clearly, didn't think it worth the effort. 209 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:29,400 He never returned to this experimental style. 210 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:40,200 It was a former commercial illustrator 211 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:41,680 on the other side of the pond 212 00:11:41,680 --> 00:11:44,480 who took this technique and ran with it. 213 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:48,160 The American market was vast, which meant that Walt Disney 214 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:51,920 could build an animation assembly line to make inventive shorts, 215 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:53,240 like his silly symphonies. 216 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:06,560 Animators in Britain struggled to compete. 217 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:10,840 And did better when they adopted a more abstract approach. 218 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:15,960 BRASS INSTRUMENT PLAYS 219 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:28,800 Living on a boat on the Thames in the early 1930s was a young 220 00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:31,120 New Zealander, Len Lye. 221 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:37,000 He was experimenting with more traditional forms of animation. 222 00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:44,120 Marrying them with one of his other great passions. 223 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:46,680 Lye loved to dance. 224 00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:49,480 He was renowned within London social circles 225 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:53,800 for being this...whirlwind dancer. 226 00:12:57,400 --> 00:13:00,880 And he wanted to create the same sense of musical 227 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:05,360 and movement interaction that you achieve in dance. 228 00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:09,280 UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS 229 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,560 When funding fell through for his dancing monkey, 230 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:15,000 Lye had to rethink... 231 00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:24,200 ..and in his 1935 film, A Colour Box, he tried out 232 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:26,440 the cheapest technique imaginable - 233 00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:29,080 animating without a camera. 234 00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:31,920 FAST-PACED UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS 235 00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:41,720 He didn't have a studio, he didn't have a large crew, 236 00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:44,640 and instead was forced to go back to simple techniques 237 00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:48,720 that were achievable on his own...with limited resources. 238 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:52,960 So he was acting directly upon 35mm film strip. 239 00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:56,120 He was scratching on it, painting on it, using stencils 240 00:13:56,120 --> 00:13:59,480 to apply regular patterns to them. 241 00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:04,560 So it was a very physical interaction with the film material itself. 242 00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:06,640 If you look at the film carefully 243 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:09,120 today, you can still see his own fingerprints, 244 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,480 just as a painter would, or a sculptor. 245 00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:16,040 MUSIC CONTINUES 246 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:19,680 Lye worked with a composer, Jack Elliott, to break down 247 00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:21,160 the soundtrack so his animation 248 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:23,440 would dance with the music. 249 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:30,760 I think it's the syncopation in the way the music, the musical 250 00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:32,720 instruments, come in and out. 251 00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:36,160 And that gives Len Lye the opportunity to change 252 00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:40,000 the materials, to change the line, to change the colour, 253 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:42,640 so we don't get bored with it. 254 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:50,960 This is the essence of the soundtrack. 255 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:53,960 So he's not illustrating it. He's almost, as an artist, 256 00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:56,000 reacting to the soundtrack. 257 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:02,120 By tethering music to DIY animation, Len Lye became a hero 258 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:03,840 to struggling animators. 259 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:10,680 In the 1980s, graphic design student Osbert Parker 260 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:12,880 was improvising with vintage clothes on the floor 261 00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:13,920 of his flat... 262 00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:23,160 ..and hit upon his own way to capture the same spontaneity. 263 00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:25,200 MUSIC: The Elks' Parade by Bobby Sherwood 264 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:43,200 Even though we're trying to make this perfect thing - 265 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:46,200 an animation is all about being precise - 266 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:50,960 I feel as though having this improvised moment, 267 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:54,920 allowing things to happen by chance, is really important. 268 00:15:54,920 --> 00:15:58,720 For me, it's about using your whole body, moving these clothes 269 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,560 around the characters, and you're working the frame - 270 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:03,520 very much like dancers and performers. 271 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:06,920 And so, I felt as though in doing that, it captures 272 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,000 and it kind of records the way you move as a creator. 273 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:16,560 Osbert tried out different music as he worked... 274 00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:21,960 ..but nothing felt right. 275 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,760 Only once I started to play different soundtracks with the film, 276 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:28,280 I stumbled across a track by Bobby Sherwood... 277 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:30,680 RECORDING: Getting back in the groove, we strut on down 278 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:32,800 to the Dark Town Strutter's Ball. 279 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:34,960 ..The Elks' Parade. 280 00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:37,440 This track, it was saying something more about the characters. 281 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:39,440 Even though it wasn't completely in sync, 282 00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:42,600 there were synchronised moments which I felt worked really well. 283 00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:44,640 MUSIC: The Elks' Parade by Bobby Sherwood 284 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:08,520 Osbert went on to produce dazzling commercials for Nike 285 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:09,600 and Budweiser. 286 00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:15,240 British animation requires money, and it does help that advertisers 287 00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:17,880 always want their logo on cool stuff. 288 00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:24,400 Back in the 1930s, 289 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:27,040 Len Lye dutifully plugged cigarettes 290 00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:28,920 to get his film, Kaleidoscope, made. 291 00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,280 Even A Colour Box had to pay its way. 292 00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,040 The state, in the form of the General Post Office, 293 00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:49,080 funded it in return for a mention of parcel post at the end. 294 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:02,640 John Grierson, who headed the GPO film unit, 295 00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:05,160 wanted the most interesting film-makers in the world 296 00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:06,640 to work for him. 297 00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:10,200 As well as the New Zealand-born Len Lye, he secured one 298 00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:13,560 of the greatest names in the history of animation - 299 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:16,520 German emigre Lotte Reiniger. 300 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:21,240 Which leads us to one of British animation's best kept secrets. 301 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,720 Many of Britain's most important animators came 302 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:31,600 here from other countries. 303 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:36,120 Len Lye, Richard Williams, Terry Gilliam - all chose to join 304 00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:39,080 an industry that welcomes free spirits 305 00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:40,680 from outside the mainstream. 306 00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:46,960 Lotte Reiniger first came to the UK in the 1930s. 307 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:49,640 A German left-winger, she wanted to escape 308 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:53,280 what she described as "the whole Hitler thing". 309 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,160 In London, she created films like The Heavenly Post Office, 310 00:18:57,160 --> 00:18:58,520 for the GPO. 311 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,280 She brought with her a silhouette style, 312 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:05,040 based on Chinese shadow plays. 313 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:07,080 GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS 314 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:14,720 Even the angels are cut-outs, 315 00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:16,840 made from translucent paper. 316 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,680 OK, so this is a puppet, a silhouette puppet in the style 317 00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:30,280 that Lotte Reiniger would have used. 318 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:36,080 It's fully jointed. 319 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:38,600 Black card is obviously the ideal, 320 00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:40,600 but if you didn't have it - if it was wartime 321 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:44,120 or you were hard up - then Lotte Reiniger, I know, 322 00:19:44,120 --> 00:19:45,880 used cardboard from her kitchen. 323 00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:49,000 So, maybe cereal packets or powdered milk boxes. 324 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:50,240 But it doesn't really matter, 325 00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:51,760 because whatever's on it 326 00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:53,640 doesn't show up - the lighting only 327 00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:55,440 comes from below and you just see 328 00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:56,800 the elegant silhouette 329 00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:58,680 of the character. 330 00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:00,520 In classic British fashion, 331 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,080 Reiniger played to her limitations, 332 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:06,040 conjuring up fairy tale worlds with just 333 00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,200 a light box and a pair of scissors. 334 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,840 I know you cut your silhouettes freehand. 335 00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:12,440 Could you show me how you do it? 336 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:13,720 Oh, certainly. 337 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:15,520 Nothing easier than that. 338 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:21,000 Of course, I make some sketches of the skeleton, 339 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,120 but the real shape is done by the scissors, you see. 340 00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:27,320 I have always been very quick with that. 341 00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:30,840 Like all animation, it takes ages. 342 00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:33,560 It's done very slowly, very carefully, and requires 343 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,280 lots of patience. I'm working directly under the camera - she 344 00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:38,080 would have been working with film, so she 345 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:40,640 wouldn't have had video reference, or anything like that. 346 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:42,600 She had to work, sort of, blind, she had to work 347 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:44,720 just through her own instinct. 348 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:47,640 If you make a mistake, the shot's ruined. 349 00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,040 So, if you do a bit that's wrong, if you kind of get a bit that 350 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:51,840 goes like that, and then you're like, 351 00:20:51,840 --> 00:20:54,000 "Ah, I'll put it back to how it was." 352 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:55,480 It doesn't really work like that. 353 00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:58,720 You know, you kind of would have to redo that sequence from the start, 354 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,040 or else you'd lose that fluidity. 355 00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:05,880 TINKLING TUNE PLAYS 356 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,520 How do you get the fantastic fluidity of movement? 357 00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:21,560 Well, I have the madness of making it really frame by frame and making 358 00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,840 a motion with the things each frame. 359 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:26,000 So that... 360 00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:28,640 This is the kind of thing 361 00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:29,840 that you learn by the time, 362 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:31,320 like a piano player knows 363 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:32,640 how to touch the notes, 364 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:33,960 you see. 365 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,280 Lotte finally settled in Britain after the war, 366 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:41,560 taking citizenship and working here for the rest of her life. 367 00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:44,600 You can spot her influence 368 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:46,080 in unlikely places, 369 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,600 like the Three Brothers sequence 370 00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:50,720 in the Harry Potter films. 371 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:53,960 While Lotte has become an inspiration for later 372 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:55,280 British animators. 373 00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,800 She sort of encapsulates a lot of those qualities which we think 374 00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,680 of as being uniquely British but, of course, aren't at all - 375 00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:04,240 since she was German. 376 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,200 She kind of had that quirkiness, she had that persistence of vision 377 00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:09,720 that she wanted to follow. 378 00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,320 Very low-tech and yet it's still possible to create 379 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,320 beautiful work that's still meaningful today. 380 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:16,920 How do you carry all these 381 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:19,200 different movements in your head? 382 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,280 This is how to speak the art, you know? 383 00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,720 And a special gift, I can do that. 384 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,280 In 1939, "the whole Hitler thing" 385 00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:31,320 reached the shores of Britain. 386 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,760 And in times of crisis, you sometimes need more than 387 00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:38,960 a one-person band. 388 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,280 A ship which brings a load. 389 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:51,920 A torpedo blow which sinks a ship. 390 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:55,240 Animation had a good war. 391 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,120 Suddenly, the state was paying for companies to make films 392 00:22:58,120 --> 00:23:00,680 about digging for victory and recycling scrap. 393 00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,160 As it turned out, diagrams 394 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:08,200 had escaped rationing. 395 00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:10,720 You look at some early examples of use of animation 396 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:14,120 in the Second World War, and they're really quite dry. 397 00:23:14,120 --> 00:23:15,840 They're based around symbols 398 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,640 and icons, and ships disappearing, 399 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:21,880 in quite a diagrammatic approach to animation. 400 00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:22,920 LOUD GROWL 401 00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:31,360 But in 1942, a new information film really woke up the public. 402 00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:40,120 Dustbin Parade was a high-quality animation on celluloid, 403 00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:42,120 just like Disney. 404 00:23:42,120 --> 00:23:44,760 With cute characters and backgrounds suffused 405 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:46,520 with modernist darkness. 406 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:53,720 It was the work of husband-and-wife team John Halas and Joy Batchelor. 407 00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,000 through the quite familiar technique of 408 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,520 anthropomorphising animals, 409 00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,120 objects - they made the stories 410 00:24:04,120 --> 00:24:07,800 more palatable to everyday audiences. 411 00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,280 Well, what do you want to be? 412 00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,200 We want to be a shell. 413 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,040 And a shell you shall be. 414 00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:21,520 Halas and Batchelor were a Anglo-European alliance 415 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,480 in their own right. 416 00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,920 John Halas was a Hungarian animator, 417 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:27,120 strongly influenced 418 00:24:27,120 --> 00:24:28,840 by the Bauhaus movement. 419 00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,360 Working in London just before the war, 420 00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:34,720 he found himself in need of help. 421 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,280 He put an ad in the paper for animators, and that's 422 00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:44,960 how he found my mother. 423 00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:48,920 He gave her a test, she did a line test 424 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:50,080 of a little ballet dancer. 425 00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:53,120 GENTLE, TINKLING MUSIC PLAYS 426 00:24:58,120 --> 00:25:01,680 He never said it until she died, but he felt that she was 427 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:03,680 the more talented one. 428 00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:04,720 And she was. 429 00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:07,800 CHARACTER WHISTLES Come on, boys! 430 00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,920 She brought her own special style and fluidity. 431 00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,120 She brought to it a knack for storytelling. 432 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:21,240 She could make something difficult accessible. 433 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,920 Getting the public to pay attention to vital 434 00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,520 but often pretty boring information was essential 435 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,640 to the war effort. 436 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,840 If you haven't got a garden, go to your local council office 437 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:39,480 and ask for an allotment. 438 00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,480 Between 1941 and '45, Halas 439 00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,800 and Batchelor made over 70 films. 440 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,840 They'd got all this experience and they had no time 441 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:50,200 to think about it. 442 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:51,680 They got on with it. 443 00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,960 And that's how they honed their skills, really. 444 00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:00,680 Once Hitler was out of the way, the government had other 445 00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:01,880 battles to fight. 446 00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,400 John and Joy were fully behind the Attlee government's 447 00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,000 radical programme for new towns... 448 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,600 ..education reform... 449 00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,160 ..and National Health Service. 450 00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,520 There have been many personal health services, 451 00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,520 but different kinds of financial arrangements. 452 00:26:19,120 --> 00:26:20,280 Morning, George! 453 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:21,640 Morning, Charles! 454 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,560 Morning. 455 00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:26,320 And so Joy Batchelor designed Charley, 456 00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,600 to sell the new welfare state to a sometimes sceptical public. 457 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,560 The Charley character is an everyman, he's someone 458 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:35,840 that people can understand. 459 00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,320 And when he misunderstands the world, we would feel connected 460 00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:43,520 to him, and therefore, when he suddenly understands 461 00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,520 the world, we go along on that journey with him. 462 00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,800 When you're ill, you won't have to pay for treatment. 463 00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,520 I don't have to pay the doctor now. I'm on the panel. 464 00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:53,600 Yes, that's true, 465 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,040 but your wife and children aren't. 466 00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:58,920 In just eight minutes, 467 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:00,800 Your Very Good Health 468 00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:02,960 shows the impact of the new NHS 469 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:04,640 right across society. 470 00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,640 Here, what's your opinion of this new Health Act? 471 00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,000 No use to me, old man. 472 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,440 Animation lets characters see their alternative futures - 473 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,920 with, and without, the NHS. 474 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,880 ..call my doctor and have a private ward at the local hospital. 475 00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:24,960 My parents made those information films for social security 476 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,360 and the beginning of the NHS. 477 00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:32,480 They really believed in it. It was, you know, the socialist dream. 478 00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,920 By the early '50s, Halas and Batchelor were the country's 479 00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,040 leading animation studio - a British Disney. 480 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,080 So they were the obvious choice for American producer 481 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,120 Louis de Rochemont when he wanted to make a British 482 00:27:48,120 --> 00:27:50,760 film of George Orwell's Animal Farm. 483 00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,080 But they were about to learn another secret of British animation. 484 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:07,280 All animals are equal! 485 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:08,440 JEERING 486 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,840 Animal Farm, with its rebellious farmyard, 487 00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:15,840 was perfect for the Halas and Batchelor treatment. 488 00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,600 ANIMALS SING IN OINKS, BLEATS AND MOOS 489 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:25,560 This was the first full-length animated feature film 490 00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:26,600 made in the UK. 491 00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,680 It was in production for three years, and the working process 492 00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,520 is preserved in the archives of the BFI. 493 00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,640 This is the first colour storyboard. 494 00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,960 In the first fight, you can see that it's almost exactly 495 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:46,240 as it is in the film. 496 00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,920 And the colour palette as well is pretty much like the film, 497 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,920 which is a bit dark - and that's where it departs 498 00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:54,360 from a Disney movie. 499 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,360 DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS 500 00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:06,120 Halas and Batchelor's staff swelled from 20 to 80. 501 00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,880 Animal Farm required 250,000 drawings, 502 00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,480 1,800 backgrounds, 503 00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:14,520 and two tonnes of paint - everything 504 00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,880 planned with military precision. 505 00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,160 These drawings look remarkably like the ones that they used 506 00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,400 as a sort of living storyboard, 507 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:30,400 and they had hundreds and hundreds of drawings stuck through four rooms 508 00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:32,200 on the wall. 509 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,760 And so they could chop and change. 510 00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,920 If they didn't like a bit, they'd take one down 511 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:38,400 and put another one up. 512 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,600 But one decision remains controversial to this day. 513 00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,040 Here's to a greater animal farm! 514 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,240 To peace 515 00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:53,560 and plenty 516 00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,880 under pig rule. 517 00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,840 The film changes Orwell's bleak ending, where the animal 518 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:03,400 revolutionaries become just like their human oppressors. 519 00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:11,360 Producer Louis de Rochemont had secrets of his own - 520 00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,640 silent investors with particular views on revolutionary politics. 521 00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,560 The CIA, no less. 522 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,480 There is no doubt that they were obliged 523 00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,600 to have a more optimistic ending, 524 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:35,600 where there is - as my father would say - a glimmer of hope. 525 00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,960 Halas and Batchelor always denied knowing the identity 526 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:41,200 of their backers. 527 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,400 But they accepted an ending where the rule of the Stalinist 528 00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,760 porkers is shown to be temporary. 529 00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,880 And they were used to working to the necessities of a sponsor, 530 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:57,440 and whoever was paying the bills. 531 00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,200 That was work, that's what paid the bills, 532 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:01,920 that's what paid for this massive 533 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,120 growth in the number of employees that they had. 534 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,080 So, they were realists. 535 00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,360 Animal Farm was commissioned to deliver a message, 536 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,880 not to kick-start an industry. 537 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,120 Which meant that, 538 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,560 as a British animated feature film, 539 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:17,920 it would be a rare beast indeed. 540 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:28,800 Instead of the cinema, animation in the UK reshaped itself 541 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:30,920 to fit a smaller screen. 542 00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,840 When ITV launched in 1955, 543 00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,960 it created the British television advertising industry. 544 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,560 They'll be in soon, like a herd of hungry elephants. 545 00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,160 What can I give them? 546 00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,320 Emerging from this new world was a young Soho-based animator, 547 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,840 who would tower over British animation for the next 50 years. 548 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,440 In both his commercials, and his own films, 549 00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,920 Bob Godfrey had one secret that he lived by. 550 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:17,400 I couldn't imagine Bob producing a feature film, 551 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,720 because you couldn't sustain it that long. 552 00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,520 His stuff was, you know, the vaudeville actor who comes 553 00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:31,880 on and says his joke and goes off, and that's it. 554 00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:37,120 By graphic, if you'll excuse the word, 555 00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,440 present the first do-it-yourself cartoon. 556 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,280 At last, here's your chance to make your very own cartoon film 557 00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,280 with our free do-it-yourself cartoon kit. 558 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:46,240 You'll get five Mickey Mouses, 559 00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:47,800 three Tom and Jerrys, 560 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,160 six geese a laying, 561 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,280 ten fat old women, one Brazilian conjurer, 562 00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,040 four flugelhorns, one Union Jack, seven little men in bowler hats, 563 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,000 one Florence Nightingale, four admirals. 564 00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,360 A rear admiral, a front admiral, a red admiral, and a vice admiral. 565 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:06,320 It was all about finding the best creative solution, 566 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,040 with the minimal amount of work. 567 00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,440 You'll also get one dozen assorted noises for use 568 00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,120 in any cartoon situation. 569 00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:19,520 These include a... 570 00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,120 What was key to Bob's principle is, 571 00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,400 if you could animate something with two drawings, 572 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,640 you know, like, one there, 573 00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,760 one there, and just flick it on and off, 574 00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:36,920 and it worked and it was funny, 575 00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,400 why bother to draw, like, you know, 48 of them? 576 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,320 But do you realise it takes 8 million separate drawings to make 577 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,960 the lady's arm move from there, to there? 578 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:57,600 You know, animation is a lot of cliches - how to walk, how to run. 579 00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,200 I don't do that, you know. 580 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,320 Part of my ethos is that I have no patience, 581 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,440 I want to get things done. 582 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:07,920 Boom, boom. 583 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:14,360 The beauty of Bob's ethos was it could be applied to anything. 584 00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:19,280 Take the sexual revolution. 585 00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:25,000 Something you could hardly ignore around Soho in the '60s and '70s. 586 00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,440 It inspired Bob to try his hand at that 587 00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,880 peculiar British genre - the unsexy sex comedy! 588 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,360 Many people lead dull, 589 00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:44,160 boring, grey, monotonous, 590 00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:48,280 dreary, uninteresting lives. 591 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,600 But not my wife, Ethel, and I. 592 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,800 In Kama Sutra Rides Again, Stanley and Ethel liven 593 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:57,600 up their marriage with a laundry list 594 00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:58,800 of sexual positions. 595 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,480 It almost starts to feel like a Looney Tunes. Yes. 596 00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,600 It's like each sexual position is, like, another item 597 00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,400 in the Acme catalogue. 598 00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,480 And, you know, then how they go awry each time, 599 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,400 increasingly toward the end. 600 00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,120 And yet, again, paired with this gloriously, 601 00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,960 quintessentially British dialogue. 602 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:29,880 CRASH! 603 00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:31,520 CAR HORNS 604 00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,320 A word of caution - the crossbar can be chilly 605 00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:35,920 in inclement weather. 606 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,400 Bob's collaborator on the film was writer 607 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,400 Stan Hayward. 608 00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,840 If you were working in a studio at the time, 609 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:44,840 you would end up in one of Bob's films, 610 00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:46,080 sooner or later. 611 00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,000 In Kama Sutra, the guy in that - that's me. 612 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,520 You know, the little guy there. 613 00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:53,200 So Bob always used to draw me with my eyes wide apart, 614 00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,920 and you know, one eye a bit boss-eyed because that's 615 00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:57,040 how he saw me. 616 00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:01,560 Yeah. 617 00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,720 One unlikely fan was director Stanley Kubrick, 618 00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:09,240 who put Kama Sutra on the same bill as A Clockwork Orange. 619 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:20,120 Britain in the early '70s! 620 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,680 When the next logical step from making a supporting feature 621 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:25,560 for Stanley Kubrick was... 622 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,360 Make a children's TV series! 623 00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:36,760 When fellow adman Grange Calveley turned up 624 00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,640 with an idea for a kids' show, Bob saw how it could suit his style. 625 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,720 Draw this green dog, like this, in outline... 626 00:36:44,720 --> 00:36:46,600 And so Roobarb was born. 627 00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,840 And he dived his nose towards the water, and crashed 628 00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:50,760 it into the ice with a thud that could be heard 629 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,440 all over the garden. 630 00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,920 As angry as an alligator, Roobarb demanded to know 631 00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:57,280 who had double-glazed the pond in the night. 632 00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,840 Bob Godfrey Films was the last studio that Grange went into. 633 00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:04,400 He took it all around, it finally arrived with us. 634 00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,600 And I looked at it, and, you know, we'd been doing commercials 635 00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:12,200 for pretty good money, and suddenly there was this £2,000 for five 636 00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:16,560 minutes. I thought, no wonder he can't get anybody interested. 637 00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:18,640 But I liked it. 638 00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:20,400 To make the money work, 639 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:22,200 they created their own low-budget 640 00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:23,520 form of animation. 641 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,120 First of all, we did it in magic markers on paper, 642 00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,800 because of the economy and we didn't have big budgets. 643 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,000 And we all used to get high on these markers, 644 00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:36,120 we used to... 645 00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,640 I don't know what they put in them, but wow! 646 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,000 Unlike traditional cel animation, where backgrounds were kept 647 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,960 on a separate layer, every frame of Roobarb 648 00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,640 had to be completely redrawn. 649 00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:55,000 I then flick, you see, between that and that, and you do get this kind 650 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,800 of discrepancy between the inks, 651 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,840 because they never dry the same way. 652 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,320 And this gives a kind of shimmering effect. 653 00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,200 Well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that because that gives 654 00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,080 the film vitality. 655 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,280 That's called boiling, in the trade, and it's fantastic. 656 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,200 "That's show business," grinned Roobarb. 657 00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,960 "That's show business!" 658 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,320 The economic animation going on there. 659 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,800 Felt tip pens, bright white pieces of paper - 660 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:24,880 this is stuff that you watched as a kid thinking, 661 00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:26,120 "I could do that, 662 00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:27,280 "I could be an animator!" 663 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:28,440 It was aspirational! 664 00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,240 It was. It was aspirational, but it was so perfect! 665 00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,480 Bob did more than anyone to demystify the art of animation. 666 00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,520 He inspired hundreds of animators, and was never above sharing 667 00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,640 even the most basic piece of advice. 668 00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,920 I know a lot of people who have shot a whole 669 00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,040 film with a lens hood on, 670 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:52,800 or no stock in the camera. 671 00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,680 So, just check these things out before you start, right? 672 00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,480 Up and down the land, polytechnics began 673 00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,360 running animation courses. 674 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,720 And in the 1980s, a pack of art school animators 675 00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:09,720 were released into the wild. 676 00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:17,280 From Middlesex Polytechnic's graphic design department came Joanna Quinn. 677 00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:24,200 Now based in Cardiff, she skewers British life in work 678 00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,640 as brutal as it is beautiful. 679 00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,240 SOMEONE FARTS Christ! Oh, God! What's that smell? 680 00:39:29,240 --> 00:39:32,040 Digger! Ach! Oh, Digger! 681 00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:34,640 You dirty dog! Have to put a nappy on him for the wedding, Ma! 682 00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,480 For over 30 years, Joanna Quinn has 683 00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,080 told stories from the life of Beryl - a working-class 684 00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:00,800 Welsh everywoman. 685 00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,240 This is a scene of the new film, 686 00:40:04,240 --> 00:40:08,120 and this is Beryl talking to camera. 687 00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,480 At the moment she's talking about her sister, Beverly, 688 00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:13,160 who has strange habits. 689 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,360 So, she's saying, "She was quite weird, though." 690 00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:23,560 Was quite weird. 691 00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,920 Animated films were still quite... veering towards sexist. 692 00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,080 And then Beryl comes along and she's a real women. 693 00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,160 She's not a Betty Boop, she's not a Jessica Rabbit. 694 00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,960 She's more real than any animated woman. 695 00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:39,200 It's superb. 696 00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,880 Beryl was born in a comic strip about a group of women who go to see 697 00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:45,040 a male stripper. 698 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,160 Turning it into a student film 699 00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,200 involved a rather unusual field trip. 700 00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:55,760 I told some friends that I needed to go and see... 701 00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,960 Do some sketching at a strip club. 702 00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,120 Then suddenly I had all these friends going, 703 00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:02,560 "Can I come, can I come?" 704 00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,360 And so it was about ten of us ended up going. 705 00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:09,520 But it was a bit scary, actually, I have to say. 706 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,000 It was a bit wild. 707 00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,080 These women - they were mad! 708 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:18,440 The laughter, because it was just, like, mad laughter. 709 00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,280 These women were just laughing, they were having such a fun time. 710 00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,960 I think the fact that it was all women together, 711 00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,280 just totally enjoying themselves. 712 00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,800 Maybe the strippers are sort of irrelevant, in a way. 713 00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,760 It was more about the camaraderie of all these women together. 714 00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:41,000 Getting a bit drunk and just roaring with laughter and enjoying 715 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:42,600 each other's company. 716 00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:44,920 And so that's what I wanted to get across in the film. 717 00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:46,960 RAUCOUS LAUGHTER 718 00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,800 EXCITED CHATTER 719 00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:55,160 Get 'em off! 720 00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,560 Everybody loves animation, so you can suck them in, 721 00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,040 because people will just watch anything, you know? 722 00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:04,880 If it's moving, it's magical. 723 00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,200 And so you've got people hooked, that's when it twists, 724 00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,200 and you think "whoa", because it's not what you expect. 725 00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:17,600 Quinn's superb draughtsmanship often conceals 726 00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:19,640 biting political observation. 727 00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,360 Like in her 1993 film, Britannia. 728 00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:34,840 So, these are the original ideas books for Britannia. 729 00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,680 Here, she wanted to explore what makes the British... 730 00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:43,960 There's Britannia! 731 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,080 ..so British. 732 00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,040 This is a professional Guinness drinker. 733 00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:51,640 A teacher. 734 00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:54,680 There's a judge. 735 00:42:56,760 --> 00:42:58,840 Sloanes - you can tell when I made this film. 736 00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:00,240 SHE LAUGHS 737 00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:04,440 Public schoolboy, he looks very Rees-Moggian. 738 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,120 In the sketchbooks, Quinn shifts from observation 739 00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:09,280 to vicious satire. 740 00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:14,760 There you are, that's typically British. 741 00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:19,760 A sort of conveyor belt of babies with corks up their bums. 742 00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:25,760 The observation in Britannia itself came from political cartoons, 743 00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,920 Gillray, Cruickshank, all those wonderful cartoonists 744 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,080 who were quite savage. 745 00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:35,920 So I wanted it to be more like that. 746 00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,560 This is supposed to be the class system, 747 00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:40,360 really, summed up in a cake. 748 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,160 Funnily enough, we actually had a meeting with 749 00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,280 Steve Bell, the political cartoonist, who, 750 00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:48,680 we showed him the original storyboard because it was really, 751 00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:53,760 really big and he saw straight away that there was too much in it. 752 00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:55,680 He told us, just keep it simple. 753 00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,160 You know, just keep it one idea. 754 00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:03,200 So we just ended up with the idea of the bulldog representing Britain. 755 00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:05,560 And then just taking over the world. 756 00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,520 And then ending up a sort of lap dog at the end. 757 00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:18,240 Mm. Walkies! Good boy. Come on. DOG BARKS 758 00:44:18,240 --> 00:44:22,680 It went down really well, you know. 759 00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:24,240 The French loved it! 760 00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:25,680 Particularly. 761 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:30,240 Everybody loved it abroad. They thought it was terrific. 762 00:44:30,240 --> 00:44:33,080 But in Britain, everybody was like, "Hmm." 763 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:38,360 Using animation to capture contemporary Britain... 764 00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,080 ..had a big future. 765 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,360 Across the Severn Bridge, the inventors of Morph had stumbled 766 00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:52,720 across the technique that turned their fortunes around. 767 00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:54,560 Do you like lions as well, then? 768 00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,040 Do you like steaks and chips, with lions with it? 769 00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,120 Not with lions, Andrew, no. 770 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:00,400 I don't like lion steak, 771 00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,040 I prefer the ordinary steak. 772 00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:09,320 It all began in a Bristol homeless shelter, back in the late 1970s. 773 00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:17,360 This was the location of Down And Out, an experimental 774 00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,440 animated film that used recordings of real conversations. 775 00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:22,480 Er, Mr... Er... 776 00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:25,960 ..what's in charge... 777 00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:28,480 Initially, when we started with Down And Out, 778 00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:29,560 we had no idea 779 00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,280 what sort of film we were making. 780 00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:35,040 Our instinct was to make it, sort of, a bit wacky. 781 00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:37,360 Because animation is wacky, right? 782 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,880 But the producer, Colin, encouraged us to be quite straight, 783 00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,400 and because we were working with puppets - plasticine puppets - 784 00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:49,400 it had a kind of reality and immediacy that was surprising. 785 00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,560 Good. Now, I wanna go over and get a dinner. 786 00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:55,040 He said you could come in... 787 00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,280 It made you listen to conversation, and how inconsequential most 788 00:45:58,280 --> 00:45:59,400 of it is. 789 00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:02,240 And how, actually, verbal communication is pretty inaccurate. 790 00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:05,000 Now, the other one... Mm? 791 00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,040 Captain, he turned round and he says, 792 00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:11,920 you can't get your beers here at all. I see, yeah. 793 00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,320 We kind of discovered this idea of using little wooden beads 794 00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:17,240 for eyes, so you can move the eyes. 795 00:46:17,240 --> 00:46:21,480 And once we locked into that idea, suddenly, the characters came alive. 796 00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,720 Well, don't you think you'd do a lot better, 797 00:46:23,720 --> 00:46:26,760 and get better value for money, if you went over to the cafe 798 00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:31,800 up the street? Cafe? Yep. I think you'd get better value for money. 799 00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,480 Well, that's not very much help, is it? No... 800 00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:38,760 When a new broadcaster, Channel 4, saw the film, 801 00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,960 the Aard-men were suddenly making a series. 802 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,040 No, east. West. East. West. 803 00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,560 And, and, er.... 804 00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,560 But how to deal with characters who were based on actual people? 805 00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:56,360 There was a kind of an instinct not to be too sympathetic 806 00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:58,240 with the real people. 807 00:46:58,240 --> 00:47:01,040 And we made the film, which was done for laughs, 808 00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,440 at a listings magazine. 809 00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,680 Could cut this part, here. This whole lot. 810 00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,040 We thought we'd really taken the piss out of these people. 811 00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,520 Better planning, where's the planning? It does fit on one page, it does. 812 00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:14,880 Yeah, with a picture. 813 00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:15,960 Yeah. 814 00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:17,720 Doesn't it? 815 00:47:17,720 --> 00:47:20,280 I bet you that fills a whole page, that, almost. 816 00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:21,560 Does not. 817 00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:22,960 I'll show it to you. 818 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:24,240 Smartarse. 819 00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:26,680 But they were delighted with it, absolutely delighted. 820 00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:28,520 They weren't insulted at all. 821 00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:30,720 They showed it at the Christmas party with great pride. 822 00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:32,560 Just tilt it down a little bit. 823 00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:36,880 Conversation Pieces marked a turning point for Aardman. 824 00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,920 The adverts, Creature Comforts - 825 00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,360 which won Nick Park his first Oscar - 826 00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,600 all followed on from this breakthrough. 827 00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:48,360 As they cemented their reputation 828 00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:52,960 with a certain cheese-loving duo, Aardman knew they'd eventually 829 00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:57,120 have to face British animation's age-old challenge - 830 00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:58,960 the feature film. 831 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:04,040 It was obvious to us that a feature film is a semi-industrial process. 832 00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,600 And ours is a very artisan, small-scale process. 833 00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:10,640 So, we had to build up. 834 00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:13,280 We had to build up and learn that you could do that without 835 00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,680 losing the warmth and the humanity. 836 00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,400 Once we found that out - then we dared to do it. 837 00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,800 Chicken Run, Aardman's first cinema blockbuster, wasn't released 838 00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:31,880 until the year 2000. 839 00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:35,720 Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 840 00:48:35,720 --> 00:48:37,440 You've been a wonderful audience. 841 00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,520 LOUD METALLIC CLANG 842 00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:43,440 It's made nearly a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office, 843 00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,480 and that sort of money talks. 844 00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,560 I suppose what the Aardman feature films have done is they've created 845 00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,120 a feature industry in the UK now. Mm. 846 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,440 And that, in some regards, it is a little bit of a shame, 847 00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,320 because they all come at once. 848 00:48:57,320 --> 00:48:59,840 LAUGHTER You get the Aardman film, you get a Tim Burton film 849 00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:01,720 and you get a Wes Anderson film - 850 00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:03,880 all stop-motion, all at the same time. 851 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,000 And this new stop-motion feature film industry 852 00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:12,840 isn't just the poodle of American directors and dollars. 853 00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:13,920 THEY PANT 854 00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,600 Get out of here, and don't come back. 855 00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:25,200 For the last few years, a British independent film 856 00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:28,480 has been under way in an old speaker factory in Bridgend. 857 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,880 If you think that sounds strange, just wait until you meet 858 00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:34,960 Chuck Steel. 859 00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:37,640 Asshole police. 860 00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:38,800 You're busted. 861 00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:39,920 Uh? 862 00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:41,120 Ohhhh. 863 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:43,280 Hurgh! 864 00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:44,400 HE WHIMPERS 865 00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:45,440 Urghh. 866 00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:50,000 I suppose, on the surface, Chuck Steel is a very American film. 867 00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,080 Just give me till midnight. Cut the crap, Steel. 868 00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:54,960 When are you gonna realise it's not 1985 any more? 869 00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:56,840 It's 1986! 870 00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:00,840 But I don't think it's a film and that could be made in America. 871 00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,320 It's got a very British sense of humour, 872 00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:05,520 and there's moments within it that are straight 873 00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:07,400 from the pages of Viz. 874 00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:14,040 It's Americana as viewed through the lens of a dude from Wales. 875 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,000 You know? Yeah. 876 00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,600 Do you want a shot of the... fiddling with the bollocks? Yeah. 877 00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:24,200 This one's got a special X-rated bit where he's got his 878 00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:26,560 bollocks moving around. 879 00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:27,600 There, so.... 880 00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,200 Which does make perfect sense when you watch the film. 881 00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:34,880 It's not just a weird thing that I've put on this for no reason. 882 00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,960 Mike Mort had a rather specific vision. 883 00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:41,040 HE GROWLS 884 00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,120 He wanted to make a schlocky action horror film 885 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:46,000 in stop-motion animation. 886 00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:50,280 A massive task, which he made a little easier by setting 887 00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:52,040 it in the 1980s. 888 00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:55,480 I wanted to make the film feel as though it was a live action film 889 00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,840 from that era - which had limitations back then. 890 00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,280 Come on! 891 00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,840 They didn't have CGI, so they didn't do so many crazy, 892 00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:06,920 all-in-one shots, where the camera's 893 00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,000 just flying around and you're seeing everything all in one go. 894 00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,240 It was more about editing and through interesting camera angles, 895 00:51:13,240 --> 00:51:14,760 and sequences, really. 896 00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:20,240 The limitations of '80s cinema kept costs down. 897 00:51:20,240 --> 00:51:23,560 Short shots means simpler set-ups. 898 00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:24,880 Come on! 899 00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,040 Hurgh! 900 00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:28,960 PUNCHING AND BOINGING SOUND EFFECTS 901 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:30,920 Hurgh! 902 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:32,000 CHAINSAW REVS 903 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:35,800 Amid the hundreds of animators and model-makers, 904 00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,120 there was some classic British upcycling going on. 905 00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:43,120 Our lenses wouldn't work, you know, sourced from various places - 906 00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:45,040 a lot of them was eBay. 907 00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,480 They're just your standard camera lenses 908 00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,360 that you'd use for still photography. 909 00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:54,240 This was something from a commercial years ago that I've reused, 910 00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:57,960 so it's kind of... Came in handy that I kept it. 911 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,200 The car chase was a hard thing to get done because it took 912 00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:03,520 the entire length of the shoot just to shoot that scene 913 00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:04,680 on one unit. 914 00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:08,600 Which is three years, probably for five minutes of film. 915 00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:13,280 Argh! 916 00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,040 I'm a maverick. Renegade. Loose cannon. 917 00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:17,560 Lone wolf. Look out! 918 00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:19,840 Cop on the edge, who doesn't play by the rules! 919 00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:23,160 Waaaaaarghhh! 920 00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:24,520 Ha-ha! 921 00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:27,880 There's no major studio behind Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires. 922 00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:33,000 Just independent backers, headed by entrepreneur Randhir Singh Heer. 923 00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:37,000 It CAN be done, you know. 924 00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,640 You don't have to be a big Hollywood studio, 925 00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,960 or you don't have to be backed by a billion-dollar company. 926 00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:45,280 LAUGHTER 927 00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,520 And you can do it in Bridgend, in a studio with 150 people 928 00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:51,720 and $20 million, 929 00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:54,320 rather than, you know, $100 million, 930 00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,240 that a lot of the studios throw at projects. 931 00:52:56,240 --> 00:52:57,440 HORN BLARES 932 00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,360 British animation has always been hard to pigeonhole. 933 00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:05,720 Yeah! 934 00:53:05,720 --> 00:53:08,320 But now, it is many things. 935 00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:11,840 World-beating kids' TV... 936 00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,840 ..blockbuster visual effects... 937 00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:18,600 ..but it's handmade heart 938 00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:20,120 hasn't disappeared. 939 00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,160 You just have to know where to look. 940 00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:36,560 You still don't need a lot of space for an animation studio, 941 00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,320 just somewhere big enough for your camera. 942 00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:40,560 And your ideas. 943 00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:51,720 Take Emma Calder and her studio in Brixton. 944 00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:58,280 You step into Emma's, kind of, studio-home, 945 00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,880 and you're walking into a world of...just creativity. 946 00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:05,160 There's pieces from all kinds of projects 947 00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:07,080 just littered around the place. 948 00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,880 You're having a conversation with her and you notice there's 949 00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,520 a lacy glove dangling in the background with a doll's face 950 00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:14,600 staring at you. 951 00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:21,360 Emma's shed - oh, sorry - studio...is an animation laboratory, 952 00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:24,680 where experiments are constantly on the go. 953 00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,640 Playing around here gives her inspiration. 954 00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:33,240 What do you do when you have to make a film about Boudica? 955 00:54:33,240 --> 00:54:35,480 Look among the bric-a-brac! 956 00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:41,960 I just noticed I had this, like, little bit of broken china, 957 00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:46,040 that I'd found when I was mudlarking at Vauxhall, 958 00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:47,360 with a face drawn on it. 959 00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,720 And I thought, oh, my God, that is really great, and, 960 00:54:50,720 --> 00:54:53,960 maybe I can do another one that looks more like Boudica. 961 00:54:57,400 --> 00:54:58,640 WOLF HOWLS 962 00:54:58,640 --> 00:54:59,640 HORSES' HOOVES APPROACH 963 00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:01,320 HORDE SHOUTS 964 00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,000 ARROWS WHISTLE 965 00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:04,600 SHOUTING INCREASES 966 00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:08,440 WARRIOR WHIMPERS 967 00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:13,440 Even when Emma's not working, she's still her studio - 968 00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,120 messing around with a character she calls Random Person. 969 00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:19,120 TV BEEPS 970 00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:22,320 WHIMPERING VOICE: I want a new body! 971 00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:25,360 SHE SIGHS DRAMATICALLY 972 00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:30,400 Here you go. 973 00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:33,160 They're a kind of excuse for me to just play 974 00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:35,960 around with new ideas, techniques... 975 00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:37,880 TV BEEPS 976 00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:44,160 Like, today, I came in here and I thought, oh, 977 00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:45,760 I've found some nice leaves, and 978 00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,320 because it's going to be autumn soon, I thought, 979 00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:51,760 well, maybe I'll make an autumn Random Person, 980 00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:54,880 so that's what I'm actually doing right now. 981 00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:56,320 Dead leaves... 982 00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,720 # It's that time of year... # 983 00:55:59,720 --> 00:56:02,400 I see your lips, but they are shrunken. 984 00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:05,640 The window's shut. 985 00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:10,120 # Life's passed us by-y-y-y-y... # 986 00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:13,080 CUP CLATTERS ON FLOOR 987 00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,560 Creative play isn't always fun, I think. 988 00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,640 You're playing but you might not be having a good time. 989 00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:21,680 You might actually be having a bad time. 990 00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:23,840 In fact, some of the best work I've done, 991 00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:25,200 I've been really miserable. 992 00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:29,840 Which brings us to our last secret - 993 00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,680 one that you've probably already picked up on by now. 994 00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:34,320 Because in your town, 995 00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:38,160 maybe in your street, is a home animation studio, 996 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,400 and inside it is an animator, 997 00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:43,160 quietly losing their mind. SHE VOCALISES SOUND EFFECTS 998 00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:51,680 If you're into animation and that's what you want to do, 999 00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:53,800 then you're already slightly peculiar. 1000 00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:58,040 I think... And your peculiarities show in a very specific way. 1001 00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:00,480 "What do you want to do when you grow up?" 1002 00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,960 And I said, "I want to go to prison so that I can just be alone 1003 00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:06,200 "in a room and draw." 1004 00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:09,240 So I think what I was really trying to say was, 1005 00:57:09,240 --> 00:57:10,640 "I want to be an animator." 1006 00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:14,400 Because it is like that. 1007 00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:18,240 INAUDIBLE 1008 00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:22,440 Maybe from an outsider's point of view, it looks insane 1009 00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:25,080 because you're moving a puppet a frame at a time and taking 1010 00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:27,360 a photograph for three years. 1011 00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,160 You look at the careers of some animation directors, 1012 00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:32,520 and by the time their career's over, they've made four films. 1013 00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:35,880 And it's... You think, it's your life going by. 1014 00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:40,640 But Britain's animators have never just made films. 1015 00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:45,560 Almost by accident, they've also built something else - 1016 00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:47,640 an industry, of sorts. 1017 00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:49,440 Going to do the ATS girls, then? 1018 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:51,120 Eccentric... 1019 00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:52,520 ..charming... 1020 00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:54,920 MORPH AND CHAS CHATTER ..entertaining - 1021 00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,120 it's an industry that continues to defy common sense. 1022 00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:01,920 But magically, it works. 1023 00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:05,480 A bit like animation itself. 1024 00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:10,320 I think there's always a little bit of madness in having to make a film 1025 00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:14,040 one frame at a time, when you can pick up a camera 1026 00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,320 and you can film at 24 frames a second. 1027 00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,120 120 frames a second, 1,000 frames a second! 1028 00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:24,400 Why would you want to film one frame at a time? 1029 00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:29,000 I think that's incredibly insane, but, boy, is it fantastic 1030 00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:31,200 when you see these frames come together. 1031 00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,040 And something that shouldn't come to life comes to life. 1032 00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:39,120 That is magical, and that is why animators make films. 1033 00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:43,480 SHE SIGHS