Aardman report

Who were the Founders? – The Founders of Aardman were Peter Lord and David Sproxton. They met at the
National Film and Television School.

Who are Aardman? – Aardman Animations is a company that creates animations

and the headquarters can be found in Bristol, England. The kind of animations they
create are stop-motion animations with models made out of clay. The name is a
combination of “Aardvark”, which was a Superhero on a TV show called “Vision On”
and “Superman” because Peter Lord found it funny. David Sproxton also said that they chose the name Aardman as
they were struggling to find another name with more than two A’s in it.

What do they produce? – Aardman has produced animations whether it be in films, adverts, music videos and
more. As well as Claymation productions, they have helped produce Computer animation productions.

What is the history of Aardman and what have they produced? – Peter and David first came together as
Animators at School to create Aardman Animations and in 1972 they started Aardman Animations. After they
graduated in 1976, they moved to Bristol and produced the Children’s show “Take Hart” starring their first
Character named Morph.

In 1982, they teamed up with Channel 4 to create an animated show called “Conversation Pieces” which was
aimed at Adults. In 1986, Aardman teamed up with Director Stephen Johnson and Animators Brother Quay to
create the music video “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel. They also helped animate the music videos for “My Baby
Just Cares For Me” by Nina Simone and “Barefootin'” by Robert Parker.

Channel 4 came back to them again and asked them to create a series of five films that lasted five minutes titled
“Lip Synch”. Aardman went on to create more short films such as “War Story” and “Going Equipped” and “Creature
Comforts”, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1990.

In 1993, Aardman produced the film “The Wrong Trousers”, which has features Aardman’s famous Wallace and
Gromit and the film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The Wallace and Gromit
series consisted of six films and won three Academy Awards in total. In 2007, they created the Kids TV show
“Shaun the Sheep” which airs on CBBC.
They have gone onto help produce films such as “Chicken
Run” with Pathé (2000), “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the
Were-Rabbit” with DreamWorks Animation (2005), which
won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in
2006, “Flushed Away” with DreamWorks Animation (2006),
“Arthur Christmas” with Sony Pictures Animation (2011),
“The Pirates! Band of Misfits” with Sony Pictures Animation
(2012), “Shaun the Sheep” with StudioCanal (2015) and
“Early Man” with British Film Institute (BFI) (2018).
“Chicken Run” is the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all
time.

They also helped produced adverts for companies such as

DFS, Change 4 Life, PayPal, Yoplait, Innocent and Chevron. In
2013, Nick Park, who created Wallace and Gromit opened
the Thrill-O-Matic ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 2013.

Who works there and what is their level of

responsibility? – There are many jobs at
Aardman Studios and they have employed around
201-500 Employees. Examples of jobs at Aardman
include the Executive Creative Director, Director,
Producer, Assistant Editor, Commercials
Director, Unity Developer, Secretary, Finance
Director, Lighting Technician, Assistant Art Director, Background Artist, Camera Technician, Senior Systems
Administrator, Assistant Animator, Key Animator, Editor, Model Maker, Rigger, Media Product Manager,
Storyboard Artist, CGI Animator, Technical Director, VFX Editor, Receptionist and Canteen Worker.

The level of responsibility within the jobs will probably

determine the hourly salary of the Employee. The Executive
Creative Director has a lot of responsibility compared to a lot
of other jobs at Aardman as they are in charge of the ideas for
upcoming Aardman projects. Jobs that don’t have as much
responsibility as the Executive Creative Director, such as a
lightning Technician do roles such as testing and repairing
lighting equipment and
setting up dimmer racks and lighting desks. The
Receptionist has roles such as answering phone calls,
letting in deliveries such as Plasticine and knowing who
is in, who isn’t, where they’re working and who they’re
working for. The Riggers have roles such as fixing the
Props and Puppets used.

The Editors have roles such as making sure nothing gets lost, putting voices, sound effects and music together. The
VFX Editor has roles such as tracking the status of every VFX shot in a film and make sure that the VFX shots
required for a film are used. The Canteen Workers start working four and a half hours before lunch time and food
such as free range Meat, fresh Fish and bakery foods are delivered to them. The Media Product Manager sorts out
the partnerships with TV, video, digital, merchandise and marketing. The Finance Director has roles such as
collecting money, processing invoices and paying People. The Camera Technician has roles such as testing
extension leads, cleaning the sensors on Cameras, supplying Cameras, fixing broken Cameras and testing them.
The Senior Systems Administrator has roles such as checking the Computer hardware and software is working.

How are their finances? – In 2010, they made £53,500,000 and at the end of 2012, Aardman had made
£22,300,00, which was a big loss compared to the previous year when they made £66,800,00. At the end of 2013,
Aardman had made £18,700,00 and the films “The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists!”, “Arthur Christmas” and
“Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit” were part of this profit. In 2015, Aardman’s pre-tax profits
increased over 60% from the previous year’s pre-tax profits, giving them a pre-tax profit of £3,300,000. At the end
of 2016, Aardman made £26,300,00 and out of that, £7,100,00 was made from the films they produced. Aardman
had previously made £23,600,00 in 2015. They also make £5,000,000 from adverts every year. As of 2016,
Aardman Holdings Limited had a net worth of £25,404,076.

How is Aardman organised? – Employees

at Aardman work in the same building based in
Bristol. They will have an organisational chart
which shows how the company is organised
and the relationship between jobs within the
company. It will probably look something like
this image on the right.

By Annie Magner.