Aardman Animations ToLeave The UK?
The harsh reality of the current restrictions placed upon the UK by overseas competition has worked its way right to the very top of the british animation tree.
Morph is an animated Plasticine stop-motion character that appeared with the late Tony Hart, beginning in 1977.
Aardman animations, the UKs largest animation producers is threatening to move production overseas according to head of Broadcast Miles Bullough in an interview with “The World This Weekend” on BBC Radio 4, Mr Bullough told the show that there is “genuinely a crisis at the moment” and went on to explain that we risk “outsourcing the cultural heritage of our children” by getting cheaper labour from abroad to animate our projects. It was also highlighted that whilst the UK currently gets 16-20% return of the money spent on a feature film in tax credits TV production gets nothing causing the consideration to move production abroad. He also explained that foreign countries benifit from “substantian government support and protection from imported products.”
In a report entitled “Securing the future of TV animation in the UK” by Robert Kennedy and Tom Broughton, it is demonstrated that animation should be profitable for the treasury, Mile Bullough explained that “animation is such a labour intensive undertaking by retaining jobs in the uk we increase national Insurance receipts, tax receipts, expendature and VAT receipts, tax credits and should be profitable in the long run” he added “if we were to be given the tax incentives we would catch up in one single leap, it would be a tremendous boost to our industry.”
Miles Bullough
Aardman has managed to keep its productions british and produces most of its programmes in Bristol such as “Shaun the Sheep” which is a major worldwide hit for the studio with over 5 million DVD sales as well as merchandise despite the lack of government support, however the studio is considering a change to this system. Miles Bullough added “When a company like Aardman is considering offshoring stop-frame animation, which we are at the moment, something’s got to be wrong.”