many more productions, including ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (2005) and ‘The Corpse Bride’
(2005), which received an Oscar nod for Best Animated Feature Film. Burton was inspired by Dr.
Seuss, his childhood hero for his stories and cartoon drawings. This really shows in Burton’s work as
he would have at least one or two of his character’s wear stripes, in most of his films. The leading
women in his films tend to have pale faces and locks that stand out. For his animated films, he
usually tends to make his characters have pointy noses and chins and the sets for the scenes for his
films are usually very exaggerated and abstract. This is almost like his signature, as this is shown in
many of his films, such as Frankenweenie, the Corpse Bride and the Nightmare before Christmas.
When filming, he tends to put his camera’s on dolly’s and drones and use Steadicams. This is to
make the shots seem smoother, and one of his favourite film tricks, is to use high-angled tracking
shots that glides. He does this to show off his sets that he designed himself or helped to design, and
you can see this technique in the opening sequence of Beetlejuice.
Aardman Animation is a British Animation studio that
was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in Bristol,
in 1972. The company has been nominated for as many
as 10 Oscars and have won 4. Aardman Animations is
known for using clay techniques for their stop motion
animations. They're most well-known characters include
‘Wallace and Gromit’, ‘Morph’ and ‘Chicken Run’. Wallace and Gromit was a major hit when it first
came out in 1995. Morph was first introduced by Aardman Animations in 1977,
it is a clay stop-motion comedy animation, which doesn't involve much dialog
but more action, and the characters talk in 'gibberish'. They produced their
first professional production in 1976, creating Morph for a children’s
programme. In 1986, Peter Gabriel suggested that they team up with director
Stephen Johnson and the Brothers Quay, to create a new rock video. It was
called Sledgehammer, and it went on to collect almost every award that year.
In 1993, the company passed another milestone with the completion of theirs and Nick Park’s 30minute film, ‘The Wrong trousers’, which won an Oscar. It became the winner of over thirsty awards,
and was one of the most successful animate films ever made. In 1998, Aardman won a BAFTA for
‘Stage Fright’ which was an 11-minute short film that Steve Box, Nick Park’s key animator, directed,
and it was shown on Channel Four on TV. ‘Angry Kid’ was Aardman’s first series to be released on
the internet via Atomfilms.com.
In 2000, Aardman made their first full-length theatrical feature film, ‘Chicken Run’, which was funded
by DreamWorks, with Peter Lord and Nick Park as directors. It was first released in the US and UK,
and received excellent reviews and outstanding box office receipts. It grossed over $220 million at
the worldwide box office. And in 2005, Aardman’s famous Wallace and Gromit had their first feature
film released by DreamWorks. It received awards such as the Academy Award for Best Animated
Feature Film and a BAFTA for Best British Film. Since 2006, Aardman Animation have started
exploring more with Computer Animation and CGI, as a result of the film ‘Flushed Away’, which got
nominated for a BAFTA award in 2007. Aardman animation is always very detailed with their
animations, for example Wallace and Gromit, which is where the characters are made with clay, and
they move their lips and limbs in every frame rate, so that it looks like they are pronouncing real
words, making them appear as more life-like because of how they made them look when they were
speaking, and the facial expressions and body language the characters made.