Report on Aardman - Ivan Foy

Who are Aardman?

Aardman Animations as its know so very commonly known as Aardman Studios is a British animation
studio which is based in the English town of Bristol.

The Aardman company is best known for its work with clay animation due to their work on Wallace
& Gromit and Chicken Run which are very popular films for the 21th century. All of the stop motion
films they have created are among the highest grossing stop motion films of all time and their debut
stop motion film Chicken Run is the highest grossing stop motion film of all time showing that they
play a very large part in the stop motion industry.

The companies ground breaking hard work has led to them getting a grand total of 10 Oscar
nominations since they started in 1972, 4 of which they won. The two founders of the company
began their animating partnership at school where they first met and became great friends. In 1972
they registered the name Aardman Animations when they were just 19 years old and four years later
they both graduated from University and moved to Bristol where they produced their first
professional production called Morph which was shown on the children’s program Take Hart which
ran from 1977 until 1983.

6 years later in 1989 Aardman was once again was asked by Channel 4 to create a series of five 5-
minute films which they could show. The company came up with Lip Synch which was a ground
breaking series that further explored the world of animation based on true characters and real
voices. The fact Channel four came back to the company asking for more work shows the quality of
work the company was producing even when they just started out as a small business. As the
company has grown the quality of work has only grown.

In 1993 the company completed their firth 30-minute film, The Wrong Trousers which went on to
win over thirty awards. The film is still popular today with ratings of over 90%. The film was directed
by Nick Park but was produced by Peter and David. The film had a small budget of £650,000
compared to most modern films which have larger budgets. The budget was much lower because
only one voice actor was used throughout the whole movie. Peter Sallis voiced Wallace and all the
other characters are silent.

Two years after the release of The Wrong Trousers Aardman studio produced A Close Shave,
Another film featuring Wallace & Gromit. The film was an immediate success and helped establish
Wallace and Gromit as household names.

In the same year the company also produced Peter Lord's Oscar nominated short film called Wat's
Pig. It is a tale of two princes who are split as babies only to be reunited as adults during a war. The
whole short film is told almost entirely none verbally. The theme of telling a story using almost no
voices actors follows what they did with Wallace and Gromit.

Chicken Run was Aardman’s first full length film and was funded by DreamWorks. DreamWorks is an
American animation studio based in California that creates animated feature films, television

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programs and online virtual worlds. It was directed by both Peter Lord and Nick Park and was
released in June 2000 receiving excellent reviews. The film has grossed over $220M at the
worldwide box office, becoming the highest-grossing stop motion animated film ever. The plot
centres on a band of chickens who see a smooth talking Rednamed Rocky as their only hope to
escape from certain death when the owners of their farm decide to move from selling eggs to
selling chicken potpies.

Flushed away was released in 2006 by DreamWorks and Aardman, it was Aardman's first completely
computer animated film as opposed to the usual stop motion animations which is what they first
started out doing and did for many years. Flushed Away was also nominated for a BAFTA in 2007
but didn’t win. The budget for the film was £103 million and it grossed just over £123 million.

In recent years the Aardman company has been making Shaun The Sheep animations for the
children’s TV channel CBBC. In 2013 Aardman announced a new independent filmmaking
partnership with StudioCanal to create the first feature length Shaun the Sheep movie which was
release in 2015. The fifth series of Shaun the Sheep was made in 2015 along with a half hour
special Shaun the Sheep: The Farmer’s Llamas which was released for Christmas 2015. The company
also has a number of feature length films in development which will be released in the future.

In 2005 an electrical fire started in the Aardman warehouse where all their props were kept resulting
in them all being destroyed after the roof collapsed in due to the fire. Most of the original sets for
films such as Wallace & Gromit were destroyed along with all the clay figures.

About the founders?

Peter Lord is one of the founders of the Aardman company, He was born in 1953 on the 4 th of
November in Bristol. He’s now a well-known British animator, film producer and director after
starting up the company in 1972. In an Adventure with Scientists! which was nominated for Best
Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards and is also well known for his work on the popular
clay animations of Wallace & Gromit. In 1991 he animated Adam, a 6-minute clay animation which
was nominated for an Academy Award. On the 9th of July 2015 Lord received a Gold Blue Peter
badge for his work.

The co-founder of the Aardman is David Sproxton who helped set up Aardman as a low- budget
backyard studio which producing shorts and trailers for publicity. He was born on January 6th 1954
and became friends with Peter at a young age as they went to the same school. David graduated
from Collingwood College and then from the University of Durham before he started work as an
animator. David was credited as the cinematographer for the BAFTA Award nominated War Story as
well as the Oscar-winning Creature Comforts. Others works he has been involved in are: Chicken
Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Arthur Christmas.

What is the history of Aardman?

I was able to put together a list of works from the Aardman company history section on their site
and has been dated by to the 1977 to 2016 (Couldn't find anything in present day when
researching).

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This list includes feature films, short films, commercials TV shows and music videos that Aardman
has been involved in:

Year: 1977 - Animated Conversations: Down and Out

Year: 1978 - The Great Egg Race
Year: 1978 - Animated Conversations: Confessions of a Foyer Girl
Year: 1980 - The Amazing Adventures of Morph
Year: 1983 - Conversation Pieces: On Probation
Year: 1983 - Conversation Pieces: Sales Pitch
Year: 1983 - Conversation Pieces: Palmy Days
Year: 1983 - Conversation Pieces: Early Bird
Year: 1983 - Conversation Pieces: Late Edition
Year: 1986 – Sledgehammer

Year: 1986 - Sweet Disaster: Babylon

Year: 1987 - Going Equipped
Year: 1987 - My Baby Just Cares for Me
Year: 1987 - Barefootin
Year: 1989 - Creature Comforts
Year: 1989 - War Story
Year: 1989 - Ident
Year: 1989 - Next
Year: 1989 - A Grand Day Out

Year: 1991 - Adam

Year: 1993 - Rex The Hunt: North by North Pole
Year: 1993 - Loves Me, Loves Me Not
Year: 1993 - Not Without My Handbag
Year: 1993 - The Wrong Trousers

Year: 1993 - Pib and Pog

Year: 1993 - Pop
Year: 1993 - Wat’s Pig
Year: 1993 - Rex the Hunt: How the Dinosaurs Became Extinct
Year: 1995 - A Close Shave

Year: 1995 - The Art Box Bunch

Year: 1995 - The Morph Files
Year: 1997 - Owzat
Year: 1997 - Stage Fright
Year: 1998 - Viva Forever
Year: 1998 - Rex The Hunt
Year: 1998 - Humdrum
Year: 1998 - Al Dentre

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Year: 1999 - Minotaur and Little Nerkin
Year: 1999 - Angry Kid
Year: 2000 - Chicken Run

Year: 2002 - Wallace & Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions

Year: 2003 - The Presentators
Year: 2003 - Creature Comforts
Year: 2004 - The Non-Voters (BBC Election)
Year: 2005 - Planet Sketch
Year: 2005 - Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Year: 2006 - Purple and Brown
Year: 2006 - Pib and Pog
Year: 2006 - Flushed Away
Year: 2007 - Shuan the Sheep
Year: 2008 - Chp Socky Chooks
Year: 2008 - A Matter of Loaf and Death
Year: 2009 - Timmy Time
Year: 2010 - Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention
Year: 2010 - Dot
Year: 2011 - Canimals
Year: 2011 - Authur Christmas
Year: 2011 - Gulp
Year: 2011 - The Itch of the Golden Nit
Year: 2012 - DFC’s World Funnest
Year: 2012 - Wallace & Gromit’s Jubliee Bunt-a-thon
Year: 2012 - So You Want To Be a Pirate!

Year: 2012 - Wallace & Gromit’s Musical Marvels

Year: 2012 - The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
Year: 2013 - Darkside
Year: 2013 - Sphere
Year: 2014 - Zombie Fairy
Year: 2014 - Ray’s Big Idea
Year: 2014 - Brand new Morph
Year: 2015 - Special Delivery
Year: 2015 - Angry Kid Revival
Year: 2015 - Golden Morph
Year: 2015 - Life’s a Treat
Year: 2015 - Feels like Summer
Year: 2015 - Morph lost Tapes
Year: 2015 - Bristol Ageing Better
Year: 2015 - United Nations “We have a plan”
Year: 2015 - Shaun The Sheep Movie
Year: 2015 - Shaun The Sheep: The Farmer’s Llamas

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Year: 2016 - “Mac”
Year: 2016 - Morph
Year: 2016 - Meet David Attenborough

What do they produce?

Aardman design and create a wide range of media-based work using stop motion for particular films,
take a look at the Wallace and Gromit films these are shot using the stop motion animation
technique.

After detailed storyboarding, set and plasticine model construction, the films are shot one frame at a
time, moving the models of the characters slightly to give the impression of movement in the final
film. In common with other animation techniques, the stop motion animation in Wallace and Gromit
may duplicate frames if there is little motion, and in action scenes sometimes multiple exposures per
frame are used to produce a faux motion blur. Because a second of film constitutes 24 separate
frames, even a short half-hour film like A Close Shave takes a great deal of time to animate. General
quotes on the speed of animation of a Wallace and Gromit film put the filming rate at typically
around 30 frames per day – i.e. just over one second of film is photographed for each day of
production. The feature-length The Curse of the Were-Rabbit took 15 months to make.

Some effects, particularly the fire, smoke, and floating bunnies in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,
proved impossible to create in stop motion and were rendered by computer animation specialists,
MPC film.

As for films like flushed away it was created by using computer graphics to complement and enrich
the primarily stop-motion film with visual elements such as sea and scenery.

I must say that the new technology has made flushed away! really liberating to make, easy to make
because the fact that you can shoot a lot of green screen stuff, the fact that you can easily extend
the sets with CG, the fact that you can put the effects in there and beautiful worlds that, frankly,
would never be seen in a million years, you can take that and put it into a beautiful CG scene and
believe it.

What have they produced?

Aardman do a wide range of things for clients such as adverts, short films, films and social promo's
that is related to stop motion and so with this have built up a reputation of how this should be
shown off to a wide range of people with different features in mind and so use this to create well
designed and normal features to make a feature that looks both appealing yet understanding for the
user and so by doing so it gives yourself a greater leap ahead of other media companies and in doing
so it would work out as a very useful experience to the viewers and gain additional hits on these
product types just by having a high quality of designs based around that sort of stop motion style.

How are their Finances?

Since the company started in 1972 it hasn’t had many financial problems but it did have an internal
scandal after an employee was found to be using the company credit card for personal use. The
personal assistant Sarah Folan used a company credit card to spend around £5,000 for personal use
before her anybody noticed something was wrong and the 30 year old was caught. The money was
eventually retrieved through the employee’s salary and the company's insurance. Aardman films
(The film sector of Aardman animations) have made $972.1 million worldwide and average $163

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million per film since they started producing films. In 2012 the company had a massive reduction in
their profits from the previous year. Aardman’s profits dropped £43.8 million from £66 million in
2011 to £22.2 million. The company said there was no specific reason for the loss but they did ditch
a number of small projects that year which may have had some effect. The next year the company
then had a turnover of £18.7 million due to their success in the film and television divisions.

Who works there?

Peter Lord is one of the founders of the Aardman company, He was born in 1953 on the 4th of
November in Bristol. He’s now a well-known British animator, film producer and director after
starting up the company in 1972. In an Adventure with Scientists! which was nominated for Best
Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards and is also well known for his work on the popular
clay animations of Wallace & Gromit. In 1991 he animated Adam, a 6-minute clay animation which
was nominated for an Academy Award. On the 9th of July 2015 Lord received a Gold Blue Peter
badge for his work.

The co-founder of the Aardman is David Sproxton who helped set up Aardman as a low- budget
backyard studio which producing shorts and trailers for publicity. He was born on January 6th 1954
and became friends with Peter at a young age as they went to the same school. David graduated
from Collingwood College and then from the University of Durham before he started work as an
animator. David was credited as the cinematographer for the BAFTA Award nominated War Story as
well as the Oscar-winning Creature Comforts. Others works he has been involved in are: Chicken
Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Arthur Christmas.

Here’s some of the current employees at the company:

• Tessa Mapp - Talent Acquisition

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 • Dan Efergan - Creative Director
• Jenny WIlding - Directors Rep Europe
• Merlin Crossingham - Creative Director - Wallace and Gromit
• Chriss Bell - Senior Software Developer
• Heather Wright - Executive Producer
• Inès Pagniez – CG Animator
• Jay Clarke – Talent Acquisition

What is their level of responsibility?

I would rate Aardman's level of responsibility around a level 7, this means that the company is at the
highest level of organisation, has authority over all aspects of a significant of work, including policy
information and application. Is fully accountable for actions taken and decisions made, both by self
and others to whom responsibilities have been assigned.

Aardman makes decisions critical to organisational success. Inspires the organisation, and influences
developments within the industry at the highest levels. Advances the knowledge and exploitation of
technology within one or more organisations. Develops long-term strategic relationships with
customers, partners, industry leaders and government.

This leads on the formulation and implantation of strategy. Applies the highest level of leadership
skills. Has a deep understanding of the industry and the implications of emerging technologies for
the wider business environment.

Aardman has a full range of strategic management and leadership skills. Understands, explains and
presents complex ideas to audiences at all levels in a persuasive and convincing manner. Has a broad
and deep business knowledge, including the activities and practices of other organisations.

Communicates the potential impact of emerging practices and technologies on organisations and
individuals and assesses the risks of using such practices and technologies. Assesses the impact of
legislation, and actively promotes compliance. Ensures that the organisation develops and mobilises
the full range of required digital skills and capabilities.

How is Aardman Organised?

Creative:

Aardman have a wide range of creative minds within the business and so with this have a vast
knowledge in what sort of stories to come up with for many job proposals, with this Aardman can
use their creative flare to become organised using tools such as design boards by utilizing this tool
animators can structure how the stop motion animation are going to be used for the whole
development of different projects and show this Aardman have managed to keep on top of what
plans and idea they have in mind for there.

Design:

For designers at Aardman studio's I would think most of them are very messy compared to other
department since there is a lot of changes to things as the development of the story goes on and in
doing so they have a lot of work hanging around on their desks so the origination skills in this

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department isn't really as great as it is in others, using the latest hardware and software to complete
their work up to a nationwide brand standard, so of course their work space is going to be messy.

Technical:

I think that the technical team at Aardman are the most organised team of them all, due to most of
their work being on the computer and not much work done via paper or other materials and in doing
so it creates a very organised work space and layout as to how things are done within the company.

Business:

The business team to me seem very organised from the look at the finances above and having that in
mind I would say that this team is organised, they use a wide range of tools from software to
hardware and in business organization, you also want to determine opportunities for growth, but it
is usually based on the product or service and not the company as a whole. At this level, you want to
make sure you meet the goals of corporate. Also, at this level, you want to ensure each department
performs well, and you determine which departments are successful and which departments may
need assistance.

Entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurs need to be able to see the big picture to understand how their work goals contribute
to the overall company vision. Setting company-wide goals that employees will readily embrace and
work toward is the first step. Goals should be inspiring for all and relate back to what the individual
employee does best.

No matter how SMART goals are, they’re irrelevant if they aren’t actively communicated. This is a
top-down process, meaning employers need to play an active role in communicating the company
vision. Whether it’s through company-wide newsletters or calendars, weekly meetings or goal-
management software, keep employees up to date on progress toward goals.

Managerial:

Managerial should have goals that directly support team objectives. To properly align the goals of
the individual with the goals of the team, employees need to have a clear “line of sight” when it
comes to the team’s short-term and long-term goals.

In addition to holding weekly team meetings to discuss progress and ensure alignment, consider
having team goals placed somewhere in the office for employees to see on a daily basis.
Understanding the team’s mission will motivate employees by making it easier for them to see how
their work contributes to team success.

Marketing:

The market team to me seem very organised from the look at the finances above and having that in
mind I would say that this team is organised, they use a wide range of tools from software to
hardware and in business organization, you also want to determine opportunities for growth, but it
is usually based on the product or service and not the company as a whole. At this level, you want to
make sure you meet the goals of corporate. Also, at this level, you want to ensure each department
performs well, and you determine which departments are successful and which departments may
need assistance.

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Team Member:

Team member should achieve employee-goal alignment, employers need to make setting goals a
collaborative process. Rather than leaving employees to their own devices, when it comes to setting
objectives, work with them during quarterly performance check-ins to ensure that employee goals
remain SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) and that they align with the
overall company vision.

Subject Lead:

Subject leaders are the big picture employees who decide how to achieve goals set by an owner,
board or executives. For example, the owner of a shoe company might decide to add children’s
shoes to the company’s line. The marketing, sales and production directors would then meet to
decide the best way to do this. They would decide what types of children’s shoes would sell best,
determine distribution channels and set prices. They would then work with their managers to get
plans executed.

Producer:

Producer serve executives, often department heads or directors, handling specific tasks given to
them by their superiors. Producers are expected to use their education, training and experience to
handle tasks, with some autonomy and authority granted to get the task done. For example, a
director might tell a manager to organize a national sales meeting, giving the producer the purpose
for the meeting, the agenda, the guest list and the budget.

The producer then researches locations, airfares, catering, audio-visual and other meeting logistics,
presenting them to his superior with recommendations. After the director gives her approval, the
manager and his coordinator execute the plan.

Management:

Management are one step above staff members and have been given some type of low-level project
work or a position that requires them to perform simple, ongoing tasks for management. Like staff
members, coordinators have little autonomy or decision-making authority. Management might
handle such tasks as taking an employee or customer survey, creating a database of customer and
potential customer contact information, handling the logistics for a meeting or event a manager has
outlined or calling vendors to get competitive bids for a product or service, using parameters a
manager has set.

Office hours:

Standard working hours refers to the legislation to limit the working hours per day, per week, per
month or per year. If an employee needs to work overtime, the employer will need to pay overtime
payments to employees as required in the law. Generally speaking, standard working hours of
countries worldwide are around 40 to 44 hours per week, and the additional overtime payments are
around 25% to 50% above the normal hourly payments. Maximum working hours refers to the
maximum working hours of an employee. The employee cannot work more than the level specified
in the maximum working hours law, in Aardman its around 45 hours per week so a lot of hard work.

Irregular Hours:

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Employees work on average slightly less than 31 hours a week, divided between four days. Many
employees in the Netherlands work non-standard hours outside the standard working hours of
about eight hours a day, in the daytime, Monday to Friday. The study used evenings, night and
weekend work, overtime and shift work as indicators of non-standard working hours.

From what I was able to research I wasn’t able to find anybody at Aardman that works irregular
hours.

Hot-Seating:

Hot Seating is a strategy in which a character or characters, played by the teacher or a student, are
interviewed by the rest of the group. This activity invites students to recount a specific event,
explore motivation and multiple perspectives/experiences related to a theme, topic, event, or idea.

It's very useful for meetings and group discussions.

Freelance:

A freelancer or freelance worker is a term commonly used for a person who is self-employed and is
not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance workers are sometimes
represented by a company or a temporary agency that resells freelance labour to clients; others
work independently or use professional associations or websites to get work.

While the term independent contractor would be used in a higher register of English to designate
the tax and employment classes of this type of worker, the term freelancing is most common in
culture and creative industries and this term specifically motions to participation therein.

Fields, professions, and industries where freelancing is predominant include: music, writing, acting,
computer programming, web design, translating and illustrating, film and video production, and
other forms of piece work which some cultural theorists consider as central to the cognitive-cultural
economy.

There are many freelancers that work at Aardman and use their own flares to create something cool
and unique around the place.

Fixed-term:

Employees are on a fixed-term contract if aspects like this show up, they have an employment
contract with the organisation they work for and their contract ends on a particular date, or on
completion of a specific task, eg a project. From what it would seem only a few Aardman employees
have a fixed term contract from the research I was able to find.

Contract:

There are a wide range of contracts such as:

Full-time contracts
The most common type of employment contract is full-time.

These contracts are generally offered for permanent positions, and usually set out the employee’s
salary or hourly wage. Other details included within a full-time contract include holiday entitlements,
pension benefits, parental leave allowances, and details on Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).

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There is no set minimum number of hours that you must work on a full-time contract. However,
most employers recognise full-time work as 35+ hours per week.

Part-time contracts
A part-time worker works fewer contracted hours than a full-time employee.

However, they generally also hold permanent positions, and their contract contains many of the
same details as their full-time counterparts. The number of hours they’re scheduled to work per
week should be clearly visible within the contract, but they may have the option to work overtime, if
and when desired.

Benefits of part-time employment include a more flexible schedule, allowing individuals to fit their
work around other commitments, and the opportunity for people to try out new roles without
having to give up vast amounts of your time.

Temporary contracts
Similar to fixed-term, temporary contracts are offered when a contract is not expected to become
permanent.

Usually they would have some form of end date included, however, these may be subject to change.
As such, temporary workers may have their contracts extended in line with demand and availability.

Despite their short-term status, temporary workers are entitled to the same rights as any other
member of staff. Benefits of temporary contracts include increased flexibility, the ability to manage
work around study or other interests, and building experience within a specific sector.

Agency contracts
Agency staff have their contracts agreed and managed by a recruitment consultancy or employment
agency.

They usually work on a temporary basis, and the length of their contract will depend on demand
from the employer, as well as their availability.

It will be the agency’s responsibility to make sure their employees’ rights are protected. However, NI
contributions and Statutory Sick Pay will be paid by the employer to the agency you work for.

After 12 weeks’ continuous employment in the same role, agency workers are then entitled to the
same rights as permanent employees of the company.

Zero hour contracts

Also known as casual contracts, zero hour contracts specify that an employee works only when
required by their employer.

The employer is under no obligation to provide a set amount of hours to work. And, similarly, the
employee does not have to accept any work that is offered to them.

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Zero hour workers are, however, entitled to the same annual leave as permanent workers, and their
employer must pay them at least the National Minimum Wage to work.

Individuals on a zero hour contract may also seek employment elsewhere. In fact, their contract
would not be valid if it prevented them from looking for, or accepting, work from another employer.

From what it looks like Aardman have a wide range of contracts running at the moment and have
these contracts fitted for particular employees and in doing so gaining a wide range of employees.

Staff:

Staff should achieve employee-goal alignment, employers need to make setting goals a collaborative
process. Rather than leaving employees to their own devices, when it comes to setting objectives,
work with them during quarterly performance check-ins to ensure that employee goals remain
SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) and that they align with the overall
company vision.

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