As Aardman Animations marks its 50th birthday, its creators have been sharing some of the surprising twists behind the rise of Bristol's best-known creative success story. Founded by school friends Sir Peter Lord and Sir David Sproxton in 1976, Aardman has given us Morph, Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run, the world's most successful stop-motion film. But the journey from two teenagers "mucking about with plasticine" to an Oscar-winning animation powerhouse has often hinged on chance decisions, practical compromises and creative instinct.
Wallace and Gromit became Aardman's most famous characters after animator Nick Park joined the studio in 1985. "I had this idea of an English guy who builds a rocket, in the basement of his house," recalled Park. "I was thinking he may have a pet, probably a cat." "I started modelling the cat, and it was just very difficult, so I thought I'd do a dog instead!" Attempted murder arrest after crash on M4 Firefighter heads to US to honour 9/11 colleagues No date for long-delayed £40m 'ghost junction' Park was developing A Grand Day Out at the National Film and Television School in London when Lord and Sproxton came to speak to students.
"We met him and thought, 'Oh, he's good'. Now I know him, he's actually a genius," said Lord. The combination was electric.
A Grand Day Out was nominated for an Oscar in 1990, losing only to another Aardman production, Creature Comforts, also directed by Park. Pointing to a poster of Wallace and Gromit floating over Bristol in a hot-air balloon, Lord reflected on their appeal. "When they appear on the screen, you laugh before they do anything." Park later won three more Oscars.
Perhaps it was just as well he never mastered Gromit the Cat. By the mid-1990s, Wallace and Gromit had made Aardman one of the most talked-about names in animation. That success led to an unlikely meeting with Steven Spielberg.
At dinner with Spielberg and DreamWorks chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, they pitched what became Chicken Run. "We want to do The Great Escape," Lord told Spielberg. "I had always been a fan of Aardman," Katzenberg said.
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