BAA Regional Focus – Bristol
Continuing our series of regional spotlights to mark the British Animation Awards’ first satellite events taking place across the country, today we’re setting our sights on the current state of animation in Bristol, home of such beloved characters as Wallace and Gromit, Morph, Shaun the Sheep and Count Fulchmuckle. You heard me.
Outside of the occasional global pandemic, you’d be hard-pressed to find a moment at any point throughout the year where there isn’t a cultural event of some significance occurring somewhere in the city. Among the assortment of festivals, exhibitions, workshops and initiatives the year round it comes as no surprise that animation plays a significant role, especially with Aardman Animations acting as a universally-beloved beacon with unparalleled, international reach. These stalwarts of the industry aside (for now), you don’t have to look too hard, or for too long, to see that animation rears its head with some frequency.
An event whose form has regularly shape-shifted over the years, Bristol’s Encounters Film Festival adapted to the challenges of the pandemic by launching itself headfirst into a 2020 online iteration that proved effective enough to resume for last year’s edition, building on the established programme with longer, more extensive focuses on filmmaker insights and the incorporation of Reflective Encounters, a comprehensive series of critical analyses of the entire short film programme. While the days of Animated Encounters being a separate event in its own right are far behind us, the animation strand of the festival remains a top-notch celebration of some of the most visually stunning and innovative work both the national and international landscape has to offer, as clearly demonstrated by their specially-curated 2022 BAA retrospective. Another long-standing tradition is the festival’s micro-short contest DepicT!, whose format has been a consistent draw for animators across the world up for the challenge of telling a story in 90 seconds or less since it began over twenty years ago. Animation even elbows its way into some of the city’s other long-standing events, with Morph (who also models for their award statues) making an appearance at this year’s Slapstick Festival, with creator Peter Lord in tow.
Of course animation production itself is an area that Bristol prides itself on. Among the city’s most firmly-established studios is A Productions, who continue a tradition of warmly-received animated series work with recent projects including the progressive picture-book adaptation JoJo & Gran Gran (with BBC Children’s In-House Production) and Love Monster (with the BBC, Boat Rocker Studios, UYoung and Karrot Animation), the latter nominated this year for a Best Original Music BAA (composers Jeremy Warmsley, Esther Joy Lane and Hannah Charman for the episode Super Sound Day). Following their 2018 Best Shortform win for the The Totems, A Productions have carried on a clement relationship with Sesame Workshop, new offerings including Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy, the upcoming Bea’s Block and the 2022 Best Longform BAA-nominated Sesame Street: The Monster at the End of this Story.
Since its beginnings as an ideas incubator, Wildseed Studios have continued to solicit new ideas for potential series development in a uniquely informal and creator-friendly manner, producing series such as 2016’s Counterfeit Cat for Disney XD along the way. More recently they have produced Dodo for Sky Kids (since acquired for Cartoon Network and HBO in the US), a series developed from creator Jack Bennett’s UWE Bristol graduation short Not the End of the World, as well as Cheng Li’s promising new IP Incredible Ant for Alibaba Group/YOUKU and a vibrant development slate including Lottie Bearshout and Tuff Pom for ViacomCBS.
Elsewhere the folks at Rumpus Animation have been hard at work producing some belting visuals for a range of corporate and commercial clients. While upcoming projects remain hush-hush for now, some recent highlights to check out would include a series of musical animations for YolanDa Brown, promotional visuals for the 2020 Channel 4 holiday special Quentin Blake’s Clown (Eagle Eye Drama) as well as their recent work for the charity organisation SARSAS and Facebook Creative Shop, both of which boasting the brilliant artistic sensibilities of rising animation stars Hend & Lamiaa. The studio has also recently started rolling out a fabulous new internal initiative through which their talented crew have been given the opportunity to produce their own studio idents, kicking off last month with Luke Hyde’s mini-masterpiece HUNT.
Sun & Moon have similarly embraced nurturing in-house creative talent with the development and production of animator Sam Shaw’s joyous 2020 holiday short All Hands on Duck: Christmas Dinner alongside an impressive roster of commercial projects. On the heels of their work on several high-profile Doctor Who lost episode restoration/reimaginings, notably 2019’s The Macra Terror – as well as the appealing CBeebies preschool hit Kit & Pup – the studio has recently created The Regenerators for BBC Bitesize, promotional animation for Life is Strange (Square Enix/Nintendo Switch) and are presently working with Farside Features on the upcoming Games Workshop/Warhammer anthology series Hammer & Bolter.
Although mentioned briefly at the start of this piece, no overview of the Bristol animation scene can go without looking at the work of industry leaders Aardman Animations, whose recent output has included new series, specials and feature film outings for the indefatigable Shaun the Sheep; following his second feature-length outing Farmageddon’s 2020 win for Best Longform, up for multiple awards at this year’s BAAs is the titular sheep’s latest holiday special The Flight Before Christmas, again competing for Best Longform with Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow up for the Writers’ Award. Another seasonal event from the studio that made waves within the animation community was Robin Robin, the first special-length offering from Mikey Please (BAA 2012 Best Student Film Winner and 2014 artwork contributor) and Dan Ojari, a much-anticipated marriage of the directors’ shared gift for stop-motion storytelling with the universal appeal of the Aardman brand. Among the film’s strengths is its fantastic score helmed by Ben Please and Beth Porter, whose work is BAA nominated for Best Original Music this year.
Aardman, naturally, show no signs of slowing down, with a full slate of exciting projects on the horizon. While there will doubtless be an appetite for the long-awaited Chicken Run sequel Dawn of the Nugget and an as-yet-untitled new outing for studio mascots Wallace & Gromit, audiences eager for something new will likely be rewarded with the upcoming CITV show Lloyd of the Flies, ostensibly a children’s series (that will doubtless have wider appeal) created/directed by 2006 BAA winner and 2010 prize artwork contributor Matt Walker and co-directed by Jane Davies. In the meantime another project that warrants a mention is Aardman talent Neil Pymer’s animated video clip for Jamie Cullum’s 2020 track Age of Anxiety, a visually meditative and pleasingly textural piece that sees itself nominated for Best Music Video at this year’s BAAs.
Another locally-produced (in part) series to shout about is Moominvalley, the latest incarnation of Finnish legend Tove Jansson’s enduring and internationally-beloved The Moomins, taking the form of a CG series with an all-star cast headed up by Taron Egerton, Rosamund Pike and Matt Berry. Having kicked off with a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2017, a significant percentage of the series (which airs on Sky this side of the pond) has been brought to life by the talents of Bristol-based Gutsy Animations UK in tandem with their main base of operations in Helsinki. Having made a point of going back to the roots of the characters and their world, Gutsy’s approach has proved successful as indicated by the show’s 2020 BAA win for Best Children’s Series, with Bel Powley (Little My) in the running this year for Best Voice Performance.
In truth the sheer volume of active animation outfits in Bristol and the surrounding South West makes for something of an embarrassment of riches, with corporate projects, social awareness films, mograph, campaign videos, factual content and animated TV graphics covered by the likes of Aspect, ForMed Films, Studio Giggle, Studio Panda, Shy Guys Studios, Trago, Wonky, Vaughan + Company, Reflective Films, Sons of Graham and Sparkol among others, not to mention the Bristol branch of top-tier animation/VFX studio Axis.
Those local to Bristol who are keen to participate in the BAA festivities without having to make the trek to London this Thursday will be able to experience the live BAA ceremony on the night at a special signal event hosted by Encounters at Bristol’s Watershed. The ceremony will be live-streamed from BFI Southbank in London to those in attendance who will be able to celebrate locally. Prior to the main event, from 6pm attendees can watch a special selection of award-winning works from prior editions of Encounters, as follows:
- THE EAGLEMAN STAG, dir. Mikey Please, UK, 2010, 9 mins
- THE DAY I KILLED MY BEST FRIEND, dir. Antonio J Busto Algarin, UK, 2012, 7 mins
- SMALL PEOPLE WITH HATS, dir. Sarina Nihei, UK, 2014, 7 mins
- TEETH, dir. Daniel Gray & Tom Brown, UK, 2015, 6 mins
- MAMOON, dir. Ben Steer, UK, 2017, 6 mins
- ROUGHHOUSE, dir. Jonathan Hodgson, UK, 2018, 16 mins
- MY GRANDAD WAS A ROMANTIC, dir. Maryam Mohajer, UK, 2019, 5 mins
For tickets and further information click here