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Aardman

Aardman Animations is a British animation studio founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. It is known for its stop-motion clay animations like Wallace and Gromit. Nick Park co-founded the studio and created beloved characters like Wallace, Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep. Aardman has partnered with studios like DreamWorks and Sony Pictures to produce successful films. It employs over 250 people across departments like story, model making, and animation.

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157 views6 pages

Aardman

Aardman Animations is a British animation studio founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. It is known for its stop-motion clay animations like Wallace and Gromit. Nick Park co-founded the studio and created beloved characters like Wallace, Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep. Aardman has partnered with studios like DreamWorks and Sony Pictures to produce successful films. It employs over 250 people across departments like story, model making, and animation.

Uploaded by

api-295378159
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Aardmans Animations

Introduction
In this report I will be covering all aspects of Aardmans Animations,
mainly talking about who they are, what they do, how they structure there
work and the different departments within Aardmans Animations.

Founders of Aardmans Animations


Nick Park born on 6th December 1958 in Lancashire, English is an English
animator, director and writer who has won 4 Academy awards and been in
the nominations for 6.
Nick Park is mostly known for being the creator for Shaun the Sheep and
Wallace and Gromit Before going into The National film and television
school he attended Sheffield Hallam university, this is where his ideas and
very early production to Wallace and Gromit.
David Sproxton born on 6th January 1954 and is one of the co-founders of
Aardmans Animations. He first graduated from Collingwood College and
then went on to the University of Durham, after he graduated from
university he then started animating for the Vision on TV program.

The History of Aardmans Animations


Aardmans Animations is mainly known for their animation productions,
especially there Stop-motion / Clay animation production such as Wallace
and Gromit.
David Sproxton and Peter Lord founded Aardman in 1972 with a very low
budget project. They first got partnership with the BBC to produce a series
for deaf children on something called Vision On.
In 1975 they created a simple clay animation programme called Greeblies.
Sproxton and lord also then supplied animations for many great award
winning songs such as, my baby just cares for me, by Nina simone and
also the animation sequence for the Great Egg Race in 1987.
Aardman then started to produce quite a few shorts animation for Channel
4 series. All these short animations were used in the same areas, which
was a animation conversation piece series, at this point now Aardman was
producing animation for multiple channels and series they start hiring new
animators to the company. There first newcomers animation debut was

the Lip Synch series which were directed by Peter Lord, Nick Park, Richard
Goleszowski and Barry Purves.

Nick parks animation Creature Comforts, was the first Aardman production
to win an Oscar. Parks careers highlights are also the development of
Wallace and Gromit which is a huge Animations series about 2 very
comical friends.
In 1997 Aardman and DreamWorks collaborated to both finance and
produce a new animation film called Chicken Run. This was Aardmans
first film production and after that in October 1999 Aardman and
DreamWorks signed a $250 million to produce a further four films that
were had an estimate to be complete 12 years from then.
Chicken Run was finally released in June 2000 which got really good
reviews and also hit a huge financial success.
In 2005, after there had been no further Wallace and Gromit series or films
for 10 years! Wallace and Gromit returned with Wallace & Gromit: The
Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which received very good reviews and was a
very successful movie!
Later that year Aardman produced there first computer animated
production film, Flushed Away. Just before the release of Flushed Away a
newspaper report was released stating that Aardman and DreamWorks
were to split and end there 12 year production contract early due to
Creative Differences. 3 months later on 30th January 2007 the contract
was officially terminated, an Aardman spokesman said that the contract
termination and the overall split from DreamWorks couldnt have been any
easier.
There was another film which was still in production while the companies
split, the name of the film is the Crood Awakening which was announced
in 2005. The rights for this film was given over to DreamWorks and the
name of the film was changed to The Croods which was then later
released in Early 2013 and made over $587 million just from Box office
alone.

Only after about 3 months of Aardman and DreamWorks splitting, in April


2007, Aardman signed and a 3 year deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment
to support and co-produce featured films for the future. Aardman also
renewed there 3 year contract with Sony in 2010.
In 2011, Aardman released a brand new Wallace and Gromit short
animation called A Matter of Load and Death. Later that year Aardman
finally released their first film with partnership with Sony Pictures

Entertainment, Arthur Christmas, which made over $147 million in Box


office sales alone.
2012 Aardman released there very first 3D animation film called The
Pirates! Band of Misfits which made $123 in box office sales.
Peter Lord, one of the co-founders of Aardman Animation created a fun
raising project in October 2013, the target was $75,000 which would be
used to fund 12 new 1 minutes episodes of Morph! The production was
hoping to start at the start of 2014 depending on they reach the goal and
also the people who contribute will get early access to the new episodes
and also some other goodies afterwards.
In 2015, Aardman bought the majority shares in an animation company
called Nathan Love, An Animation studio based in New York. Aardman
later announced the merger of the companies making a short animation
film called Introducing: Aardman Nathan Love on the 25th September
later that year.

Featured Film Productions


This is a list of Aardmans top 8 featured film and which companies they
partnered with for the production of the full film.
1. Chicken Run (DreamWorks Animation)
2. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (DreamWorks
Animation)
3. Flushed Away (DreamWorks Animation)
4. Arthur Christmas (Sony Pictures Animation)
5. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (Sony Pictures
Animation)
6. Shaun the Sheep Movie (StudioCanal)
7. Early Man (StudioCanal)
8. Untitled Shaun the Sheep Sequel (StudioCanal)
The reason these are the top 8 featured films by Aardman is mainly based
off the amount of gross profit they made from the movie after release and
also how high reviews they got by the public, most of them with a rating
above 90%.

Financial Aspects of Aardman


Aardman has always been a very successful animation company, globally
for their animation and cartoon creations but 2011 was Aardmans Grand
year!
The main reason for this is because in 2011 Aardman produced 2 featured
films when partnered with Sony picture entertainment which was a huge

leap in sales and gross that year. If you compare sales from the end of
2011 to the end of 2010 there is a gross of nearly $53 million!
Total Revenues in the USA in 2011 was around $16 million gross compared
to 2010 and in EU revenues they had a gross of over $2 million compared
to 2010.
2011 was a massively successful year for Aardman.
Aardman animation headquarters is now based on Gas Ferry Road, Bristol
in a very impressive unique architectural design. At the moment
Aardmans net worth is just over 13 million. Thats not all they have
though, Aardman has over 9 million in cash it is to be believe and also a
staggering 17 million in assets!

Here is a graph based on the key financial points of Aardman animation

Technical creation

For Aardman to produce there any of their animation they use someone
called Stop motion which is the technique of manipulating objects and
slightly adjusting and taking a photo of the scene, each photo will

represent 1 frame so when you join all the photos together you will get
some kind of sequence.
Aardman make all there scene and characters out of some kind of clay
which is easily adjustable so when record Aardman need to create a lot
of assets and character parts which need to be very specific so they
look the same all the time.

Aardman Public Limited Company


Aardman is a Public limited company which means that it is a public
registered company and also means that any member of the public is
able to invest and buy cares of Aardman.

Company Structure
Aardman has over 250 employees to keep the whole company running
from all aspects, creating films, short animation, advertisements,
everything.
List of head of different departments within Aardman:

David Vinicombe and Michael Salter - Story Team


Enty - Head of Model Making
Gareth Owens - Series Producer
Matt Purgaus - Assistant Editor
Phil Lewis - Production designer
Rebecca Rose - Head Previsualisation Artist
Spencer Cross - Head Compositor
Helen Schroeder - Head Storyboard Artist
Rosie Ashforth - Head Animator
Marie-Louise Hjer Jensen - Assistant Animator
Nick Hanks - CGI Animator
Luis Cook - Commercials Director
Steve Pegram - Producer
Victor Vinyals - Senior Character TD
Mike Shorten - Prop Designer
Jay Clarke - Story Artist
Matt Perry - Art Director
Sarah Jex - Junior Development Producer

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