Nick Park by Sam
Most well known in America for his animations “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run”, stop-motion animator Nick Park has played a very important role in the area of stop-motion animation by bringing clay animation to the the public. Nick Park was born on December 6th, 1958 in Preston, England. Nick Park’s passion for art began as a teenager, where he showed a keen interest in drawing cartoons. He made films with the help of his mother and her home movie camera. His creativity also showed in his hobby, as an amateur inventor. At National Film and Television School, he began work on his first film, Wallace and Gromit, A Grand Day Out. In 1985, Park joined the staff at Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he made many commercials. He also had a role in animating Pee-wee’s Playhouse. At around the same time, Park finished two of his biggest additions to stop-motion: “A Grand Day Out” and “Creature Comforts”. “Creature Comforts” was unique in that it played human interviews in synch with animal stop-motion animations. In the following years, Park produced “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Close Shave”. These three animations each won Park an Oscar. Nick Park produced 2 feature length films: “Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (the second of which gave him an Oscar for best animated picture of 2005). Park has made various other Wallace and Gromit shorts, and also an American version of the British show “Creature Comforts”.
Nick Park’s use of clay animation is very interesting, as often times he has to synch human voices to his animations. Creature Comforts is one example of this, while in Wallace and Gromit, many different characters were animated and synched together to show dialogue. He also is amazing at showing characters expression of emotion through body language. Nick Park uses clay to make almost any everyday substance in his Wallace & Gromit films, which is very impressive. Personally I believe Nick Park is one of the best, if not the best clay stop-motion animator currently producing work.
Here is a music video for the song Sledgehammer, by Peter Gabriel. The scene of the dancing turkey at 3:18 is produced by Nick Park.
Here is a clip from Nick Park’s television program Creature Comforts. You can see how well he synchs the actual talking to the movement of the animal.
Information From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Park
Filed under: Animators | Leave a Comment
No Responses Yet to “Nick Park by Sam”