Shaun the Sheep The Movie director “Chuffed to bits” at BAFTA nomination
As the only British film in the running for a BAFTA Richard “Golly” Starzak’s quintessentially British Shaun the Sheep The Movie (co-directed with Mark Burton) is the only UK feature taking on the might of Pixar and the ever popular Minions at this years ceremony. Shaun is also the only home grown hopeful in the upcoming Golden Globes awards ceremony which takes place on the 10th January.
We caught up with Richard Starzak and asked him how he felt about the nomination, how award season brings animation directors together and how the sequel to Shaun the Sheep The Movie is coming along.
Congratulations on the BAFTA nomination, you must be inundated with well wishers today?
Thank you, It’s great, when the announcement was made I was planning to be up but I overslept and my phone started “pinging” like crazy, it’s a nice way to wake up actually!
It’s a good alarm call, “you’ve been nominated for a BAFTA wake up!” What was your reaction when you rubbed the sleep away and found out you’d been nominated?
I was just really chuffed, its gratifying after all the work that goes into these films. It takes so long to make the film and once its over you feel a sense of loss and bereavement. The process is so much fun as well so it’s nice when these awards come out and the fun begins again, I can’t wait for the ceremony!
How’s Mark Burton and the Aardman team today?
I sent him a text but he hasn’t got back yet, the emails have been flying around and everyone is thrilled.
Makes up for The Pirates omission from a couple of years ago?
Yeah thats right, we never took anything for granted with Shaun because of that, that was quite a surprise really.
I’m not surprised it has been nominated, with it being a silent film going against the expectations of animated feature films with a genuine love of stop motion and slapstick, It must be good that that idea has been accepted in this way?
It is, the idea of making a film with no dialogue gave us a real fear so we wanted to make it work, but its also a selling point as it separates us from other films as we’re making a modern day silent movie, wether it would work or not was something we were not entirely sure about but once we started we knew it would be fine. Even then we wondered if it would work with kids, would they get itchy bums all the way through the screening and not sit still? I think the lack of dialogue requires more concentration and anecdotally I hear that kids sit very still when watching Shaun in the cinemas which was nice to hear.
Well they kept still in the cinema I was in so thanks for that!
I hope they were laughing as well!
They were! I suppose during awards season all of the animation directors get to meet after years of intense work? Is it nice to get together after years working in darkened rooms?
Absolutely because we never get to meet so it’s great, it’s kind of like an AA meeting because we go through the same ups and downs whilst making these films so its quite cathartic to talk to one another.
(L-R) Richard “Golly Starzak and Mark Burton
I don’t suppose you can tell us what’s next for Shaun the Sheep in his next feature?
It’s another feature which we wouldn’t want to do unless we thought we could top the first one, I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about it during the fragile early stage of the script that we are working on, but we wouldn’t be making it if we thought we couldn’t do a better film than the first one, its going well!
We spoke to Jay Grace before Christmas were you happy with The Farmers Llamas,
Yeah I worked on the script in several stages and I’m very happy with the way it turned out, Llamas are great characters, we wonder if we can bring them back in some other form…
Listen to Shaun the Sheep the Movie directors Richard Starzak and Mark Burton on the Skwigly Animation Podcast below.
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