John Wright Modelmaking provided the robotic dog model for Aardman's A Close Shave. © Aardman Animations.

The Wrong Trousers helped establish Aardman Animations as a major player on the world animation scene. © Aardman/Wallace & Gromit Ltd. 1993.

There are three types of stop motion animation in the UK today. There's the type everyone knows about; the type no one (bar serious festival-goers and professionals) knows about; and the type everyone `knows,' but barely registers on a conscious level. In Bristol, the island's undisputed capital of stop motion, the three levels are reflected throughout the town.

Aardman: Bristol's Hub
Bristol animation is, of course, dominated by Aardman, the only domestic `toon studio that's also a household name, thanks to the Oscar-winning triumvirate of Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). The director of all three, Nick Park, is immersed in the production of the studio's first feature, Chicken Run , to be released by DreamWorks SKG in summer 2000. Pathe will handle the distribution in Europe. A clay epic à la Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run concerns a group of chickens, voiced by the likes of Mel Gibson and Miranda Richardson, on the run from a poultry farm. The plot was paralleled in Britain last year by the much-publicized escape of two pigs from an abattoir.

Nick Park co-directs and writes with company founder Peter Lord. Lord and Park also produce, as do Lord's partner David Sproxton and Jake Eberts of Allied Films, who developed Chicken Run with Aardman and Pathe. The film has led Aardman to plan expanding its harbor site in central Bristol, as well as taking a bigger studio in the north of town to house the shoot. Unfortunately, little else has emerged about a film as closely guarded as the new Star Wars.

Peter Lord's Wat's Pig helped garner Aardman another Oscar nomination. © Aardman Animations.

Chicken Run is not the only new Aardman stop motion. Following the well-received shorts Wat's Pig (1996) by Peter Lord and Stage Fright (1997) by Steve Box, Aardman launched two TV titles this Christmas. Rex the Runt consists of thirteen ten-minute segments, repeated in a range of BBC timeslots during the prime holiday season. They are directed by Richard Goleszowski, who made Aardman's Barefootin' pop promo in 1987 and a couple of two-minute Rex films at the start of the `90s. In its present form Rex, about three gingerbread-men dogs who, bizarrely, keep a dog of their own, is clearly aimed at the alternative comedy market, with stream-of-consciousness adventures - to call them `plots' would abuse the word - and voice-cameos from Brit comedians Eddie Izzard, June Whitfield and Paul Merton. Animator Steve Box voices the psychotic Vince. Meanwhile, Channel 4 gave less-publicized airtime in the small hours to Angry Kid, three 90-second skits about a gross but excellently-animated teenager, directed by Darren Walsh.

Production Goes On
Beyond Aardman, the bolexbrothers is a good case of a studio operating on two tiers, producing a showreel of popular commercials beside a steady series of adult, much-acclaimed films - though even the ads, such as the EleFanta series, feature bolex's trademark flapping insects, pixilated human actors and perverse black humor. Since the feature The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993), the studio has gone on to make the enjoyably grotesque shorts The Saint Inspector (1997) by Mike Booth, part of Manga Entertainment's General Chaos cinema tour, and Keep in a Dry Place Away from Children (1998) by Martin Davies. Both Booth and Davies are debut directors. The films respectively feature a fat, naked Buddha-like figure and a deformed baby who follows the fate of Icarus.