In episode 92 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast we look back at 30 years of Lip Synch, the game-changing series of short films from Aardman Animations. A short film ‘package’ produced by Aardman for Channel 4 in 1989, Lip Synch expanded on the techniques used for earlier shorts series Animated Conversations and Conversation Pieces, consisting of five early outings for now-established directors: War Story, Going Equipped (Dir. Peter Lord), Ident (Dir. Richard Starzak), Next (Dir. Barry Purves) and the Oscar-winning Creature Comforts (Dir. Nick Park, later of Wallace and Gromit fame).
Following on from our 25th anniversary coverage, to mark the occasion special guest host Alex Dudok de Wit brings us an exclusive chat with Peter Lord, Barry Purves, David Sproxton and Richard 'Golly' Starzak.
Also discussed in this episode: The enduring legacy of the animation great Richard Williams – known for such industry milestones as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Animator’s Survival Kit and The Thief and the Cobbler – who sadly passed away this month.
Stream above or download here.
This past Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of Aardman Animations, the Bristol-based industry powerhouse that gave the world Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Creature Comforts and Chicken Run, and that's just barely scratching the surface.
Our team at Skwigly have been paying tribute to the event by writing up some of their own perspectives and personal high-points. Laura-Beth rounds up the studio's own celebratory endeavours as well as picking her top ten shorts; Steve looks back at their various TV series; Wez Allard explores their back catalogue of inventive commercials; Rachel Crook recalls the construction of the Wallace and Gromit theme park ride and Marc Hendry gives some love to the studio's feature films.
For this week's podcast we obviously wanted to pay similar respects, so on top of some fond remembrances of Raymond Briggs (and some overdue Sausage Party bashing) Steve and I wax nostalgic about all things Aardman, digging out interviews with the three studio heads Peter Lord, David Sproxton and, making his Skwigly Animation Podcast debut, Wallace and Gromit creator himself Nick Park! Cracking stuff. Give it a stream or a download, whichever puts more cheese on your cracker.
Also up on the site, Laura-Beth has a nice write-up of the recent Animation Super Grill event whose line-up I was a part of. I also have an interview with Regular Show alum Sean Szeles whose own animated miniseries Long Live the Royals has been showing on Cartoon Network UK this week. Meanwhile I've been pinging all over the place and, midst my travels, got to catch an advance screening of LAIKA's jaw-dropping new film Kubo and the Two Strings as well as meet its director Travis Knight. You can have a watch of our chat in the newest episode of Lightbox below:
Travis previously appeared on Skwigly while promoting The Boxtrolls but this was my first time meeting him. A truly impressive bunch, that LAIKA lot, so I implore you all to see this one in cinemas, you'll be glad you did.
The zen approach to dealing with BT's ungodly customer service...
Just a heads-up to any Bristolians who might find themselves in my neck of the woods: Keep your eyes peeled for any BT Homehubs that might fall from the sky and brain you, for I’m alarmingly close to chucking mine off my fourth-floor balcony with a previously-undisplayed athletic strength only made possible through being driven to the absolute edge.
After a 36 hour Mexican standoff wherein the crafty plastic s***head would choose to drop my broadband signal only at moments when I absolutely needed it, we seem to have come to some sort of understanding and it’s now being good. But any more shenanigans and the little bastard gets its first and only flying lesson while I use my free hand to call up Sky and switch services.
All this is a rather long-winded and excuse-laden lead-up to announcing that our latest Skwigly podcast special on Bristol’s Animated Encounters is now finally up. While nobody seems too miffed about the delays, a recent surge in audience numbers (hooray!) has put an added pressure on the future of said podcast, and we’re currently working out a way to make the process more consistent and audience friendly; Ideally we’d do two one-hour episodes a month rather than one massive two-hour chunk that leaves people hanging for 4-6 weeks at a time. There’s fine-tuning to be done, but we’re getting there slowly.
In the meantime you should probably get comfortable ‘cause this one comes in at over two-and-a-quarter hours. Granted there’s a lot of ground to cover, my enthusiasm for the festival and the many talents associated with it seeing me amass a lot of material. Not least of which is my own warbling self waxing-asskissey about all the festival highlights. As it turns out I enjoy talking about stuff I like more than stuff I hate. I know, right? I’m as surprised as anyone.
I also got to interview my lovely friends Paul and Jane of A Productions on producing the animated visual branding for the festival each year, as well as animation programmer Kieran Argo and this edition’s special guest Paul Bush, a man who, despite firmly residing on the artistic end of the animation spectrum (while I, as is obvious by now, am still at the coyotes-falling-off-cliffs end) was very down-to-Earth and a sincere pleasure to chat to.
With fortuitous timing playing a big hand I also got to interview David Sproxton, chairman of the festival and Aardman producer/co-founder (along with Nick Park and Peter Lord, who I also got to talk to back in March for episode one). While the podcast edit of the interview focuses on Mr. Sproxton’s involvement with Encounters itself, there’s an upcoming written piece that I expect will be a little broader and Aardman-ey, so stay tuned for that one. Good stuff indeed.
As usual you can stream it below or download it for later. Of course, if you want to subscribe on iTunes and possibly even give us a rating/review that’d be golden delicious of you! Skwigly Podcast Special 02 - Animated Encounters (11/10/2012) by Skwigly Animation Podcast
On a final note, this has nothing to do with anything, it just made me very happy tonight:
