Aardman: The animation house that became a cultural institution
With some of the most prominent stop-motion and clay animation works to their name, including Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Morph and Chicken Run, the British animation studio Aardman has transcended its humble roots to become a genuine cultural institution of its own and writing itself into the rich fabric of animation cinema’s glorious history.
The Aardman story began in Bristol in 1972, where two friends, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, embarked on a humble mission armed with a Super 8 camera and a kitchen table to create a series of stop-motion animations. Little did the pair know, sat across from one another with a burgeoning creativity that so many other artists could only ever dream of possessing, that their foray into the world of animation would spawn one of the most iconic parts of British cinematic culture.
Lord and Sproxton created the animated sequences for the BBC deaf children’s programme Vision On before a new segment from 1975 called ‘Gleebees’ would form the foundation for Morph, their legendary clay character. Throughout the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s, Aardman worked on a series of projects, including a music video for Peter Gabriel, another for Nina Simone, and an advert for Lurpak featuring a trombone-playing character called Douglas.
Following on from a number of shorts for Channel 4, and with fellow animator Nick Park also on board, the big breakthrough arrived in 1989 in the form of a knitted vest-wearing, cheese-loving inventor from Wigan and his patient and intelligent canine companion. Wallace and Gromit first came on screen in the short film A Grand Day Out, which announced Aardman as a serious force to be reckoned with within the animation world.
A Grand Day Out was a huge success, only eclipsed by the sequel short The Wrong Trousers of 1993 and A Close Shave of 1995, both of which won Academy Awards. What began as a pipe dream in Bristol some two decades prior had culminated in an unlikely man and his dog and left Lord and Sproxton as Oscar winners with the world at their fingertips.
As the 21st century approached, Aardman signed up with DreamWorks and Pathé to finance and release the Chicken Run, which pushed the boundaries and possibilities of the stop-motion animation medium while still staying true to its roots. The film remains one of the most celebrated animated films of all time, possessing the quirky humour that Lord, Park and Sproxton had become acclaimed for. Only this time was the audience beyond the trio’s wildest dreams.
Several other acclaimed projects arrived over the subsequent years, including Wallace and Gromit’s first feature-length film, 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, yet another Academy Award-winner and 2006’s Flushed Away, the company’s first computer-animated feature, proving that Aardman had not closed their doors to new technology, but always saw themselves as being slightly ahead of the curve somewhat.
However, even the now-giant animation studio has faced its problems. Even aside from a 2005 fire that destroyed 30 years’ worth of props and models, the very process of stop-motion and Claymation is painstaking to the nth degree, requiring a stoic and almost zen-like dedication to patience and time and a commitment to perfection.
Still, the company has come up trumps time and time again, spreading its wings further into the realms of TV, cinema, theme parks and advertisements. Shaun the Sheep, Morph, Chicken Run, and Wallace and Gromit are all ventures that have cropped up regularly in the global public’s consciousness with the effortless grace and tongue-in-cheek humour that has become an Aardman staple.
It’s the dedication to providing entertainment that has taken Aardman from that little Bristolian kitchen to the Academy Awards and beyond, and it’s an ethos that still rings true in the studio to this date. Park, Lord and Sproxton have forever woven themselves into the very fabric of animation cinema’s history, and their story is one of the true triumphs of the industry.
