The influences, history and workings
of Nick Park, Aardman and Ted Geisel AKA Dr.Seuss
Introduction:
In this
essay I will be exploring, discussing and analyzing the influences and workings
of two artists who have successfully reproduced their work commercially, worldwide
over the 20th and 21st Century and the effects their
unforgettable work has had on their audience, the illustration / animation
world itself and the influence their workings may have had on illustrators and
animation artists of today. I have chosen artists/animator Nick Park of
‘Aardman’, who I think is a prime example and perfect representation of an
illustrator / animator that has consumed the world with his nostalgic animation
series and films such as ‘Wallace and Gromit’, ‘Chicken Run’ and many more.
The second artists I have chosen to
research is Ted Geisel AKA Dr.Seuss, also another nostalgic artist that I don’t believe many
childhoods have managed to escape. His work ranging from fine art to zany, wacky
children’s stories both educational and entertaining a perfect balance and in
my opinion as he still manages to concoct these amazing stories and films, a
perfect recipe for world domination.
History of Aardman and the artists
behind it:
Aardman
is an award winning studio that has received ten Oscar nominations and has won
four. Aardman first came about when two animation artists, Peter Lord and David
Sproxton who were both studying together collaborated and registered their name
as Aardman Animations in 1972.Their first creation was MORPH of the children’s
program ‘Take Hart’. Lord and Sproxton’s primary idea was to appeal to an
adult audience for model animation. In 1982 the pair were commissioned by
Chanel 4 for a few conversational pieces, this enabled them to develop their
now world famous insightful, light hearted and humorous technique of animating
puppets to real life conversations. Lord and Sproxton met Nick Park at the
National Film and Television School who was at the time working on the now
unforgettable, ‘A Grand Day Out’, Park went on to join Lord and Sproxton full
time at Aardman in 1985. The trio then took the animation world by storm going
on to animating rock videos, another Chanel 4 Series of 5-minute films such as Peter Lords’ ‘War
Story’ and ‘Going Equipped’, Barry Purves’ ‘Next’, Richard
Goleszowskis’ ‘Indent’ and last but most defiantly not least, Nick Parks
‘Creature Comforts’ which later won an Academy Award for best animated short
film in 1990. Nick Park then went bustling through the animation world with
Oscar winning films starting with, ‘The wrong trousers’ going on to ‘A close
shave’ and many more. Aardman progressed into further films and television
series engaging both adult and child audiences and shaping the animations world
as we know it today. The Studio has grown in both film but is in high demand
for commercial work with clientele such as, Chevron, Hersheys, McVitties, Kellogg’s
and much more. Aardman produces on average around 75 commercials a year. Aardman’s
animations have progressed, developed and improved vastly from Peter Lords and
David Sproxton’s Amateur ‘Table-top’ creations to impressive, insightful,
iridescent workings of today.
A further insight into Nick Park:
I have
chosen to concentrate on Nick Park as I personally believe him to be the main
successor of Aardman Animations. Nick Park is a Lancashire born animator; Park
first found his love for animation as Plasticine was widely available when he
was a teenager. Park experimented working with plastic cels but as a teenager
this was much too costly. “I didn't have enough money to buy
cels, at least not enough to make more than four-and-half seconds of animation”.
As Plasticine was widely,
abundantly available, highly pliable and cheap, it became the best route to go
down and progress with, progression being an understatement of his workings
today. His work began with a camera, angle poise lamp, a table and a blob of Plasticine to make whatever he simply desired.
Nick Park’s influences and influences for his
characters:
Park from
a young boy was fond of and grew up with Hitchcock films such as ‘Close
Encounters’, Chuck Jones’, Tex Avery Films, Tom and Jerry cartoons and
Disney. Park also had a love for
slapstick, he loved Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy, he suggests Gromit’s
often ‘kind of knowing, almost looking for sympathy’, regular look into the
audience is a reflection of Oliver Hardy’s looks. From a boy Park loved book
illustration and collected comics and read graphic novels such as Herge’s
‘Adventures of TinTin’ and illustrated books of Raymond Briggs who created
things such as ‘Bogeyman’ and ‘The Snowman’ park noted he loved the chunky
style that Raymond had of which he adjudicated every aspect. In an interview he
mentioned he loved the 1950’s shapes and post World War II, and used to watch
Ray Harryhausen’s ‘Mother Goose Stories’ and was inspired by the aesthetics and
styles of these things.”I guess it’s the satisfaction of everything coming
together, you know, Jules Verne stories, H.G Wells, ‘TinTin Adventures’ and
Laurel and Hardy comedy kind of all coming together but with the atmosphere of
a Hitchcock movie”. Park mentioned on a radio interview, that his character
Wallace of, ‘Wallace and Gromit’ is loosely based around his father who he said
was an, “incurable tinkerer” creating un-necessary objects, tools and
contraptions from scratch for his pure amusement, he also went on to explain
that Gromit wasn't inspired from a family dog, but the dog he never had and
could only dream of. Park also mentioned two of the chickens, Ginger and Rocky
of ‘Chicken Run’ were named from two pet chickens he had as a boy.
Stop Frame:
Working with stop frame / stop motion is an extremely time consuming
route to animation manipulating your plasticine or clay (clay-mation) and
photographing it between each motion bringing them together to create a final
satisfying piece, perseverance is defiantly key but the final product is a
rewarding result of your efforts.
Ted Geisel AKA Dr.Seuss:
Theodore
Seuss Geisel was an American born legend in children’s literature and films. He
began his career in advertisement, advertising cartoons such as, ‘Quick, Henry,
the Flit!’. Seuss then went on to create his own first children’s book, ‘And to
think that I saw it on Mulberry street’ which fled onto the market in 1937
which coincidentally was rejected 27 times before finally making the cut,
little did we know he would change the face of children’s literature as we know
it today!. Seuss then went on to create two further books, ‘If I ran a zoo’ and
‘Horton hears a who!’ which were slated by a critique in Life magazine for the
reading levels of these books. Seuss was then set a brief to write a book that
used 220 vocabulary words, this resulted in the world famous ‘The cat in the
hat’ which was published in 1957 and was the true turning point of success in Geisel’s
career when it was described as, ‘tour de force’, which translates into ‘masterpiece’
or ‘feat of strength’. With this new found technique of simple-vocabulary, which
simply shifted the children’s literature world as we know it today, Geisel went
on to write the nostalgic, ‘Green eggs and ham’ and ‘how the Grinch stole Christmas’.
‘The Grinch’ a film that Christmas wouldn't feel right without was adapted and
animated by Chuck Jones in 1966. Geisel like an unstoppable force in nature,
won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984, as well as three Academy Awards. Despite his
untimely death in 1991, the legend still lives on stronger than ever, with his
work on tapes, television specials, films for children of all ages, and was the
successful writer and illustrator or 44 children’s books, despite never having
children of his own.
Inspirations for Ted Geisel’s work :
Before
Geisel began writing and illustrating, he used to make elaborate sculptures of
fantastical animals in the style of taxidermist wall mounted heads with names
such as, Two Horned Drouberhannis, Andulovian Grackler and Semi-Normal
Green-Lidded Fawn, most of these surreal animal
sculptures reflect in allot of his book illustrations you can see today. The
true inspiration behind ‘Green eggs and ham’, was apparently a bet with his
publisher that he couldn't create a book with only 50 words, despite it being
so few words, it became one of his most iconic pieces. Geisel’s book, ‘the 500
hats of Bartholomew Cubbins’, was inspired by a pompous, obnoxious, stuffy
looking man he saw on a train platform that wore a bowler hat, Geisel wondered
what would happen if someone was to knock the hat off the man’s head, and
thought the man appeared so self-righteous and full of himself, that most
likely another hat would appear to replace the hat that was knocked off.
Many scholars have tried to find method
to Geisel’s madness, but truly there isn't Geisel’s work came from his
enjoyment of writing for children and most books were reflections of his own
life experiences and opinions to a certain extent, his work was also said to
express his political views through his stories and characters in his books. ‘The
Lorax’ spurred from the tranquility he had in La Jolla that was threatened buy
construction, billboards, and his concern for the environment, Geisel believed
manufacturers, businesses and people themselves should take full responsibilities
for their actions, and deal with the consequences, ‘you make the bed, you line
in it’ so to speak. ‘The Lorax’ story reflects how he felt at this time as it’s
a story of ‘a good thing gone bad’, a once beautiful place in the Truffula
Trees (La Jolla), was taken over by a business man at the expense of the
surroundings and creatures that depended on it. “Geisel managed to shame the current generation and challenge the next generation by
demonstrating the pitfalls of progress”.
The most controversial of his stories was. ‘The
Butter Battle Book’ it was written as a reflection of the nuclear threat during
the Reagan administration, the story evokes the growing threat of the war
between the Yook’s and Zook’s which is solely based on the order in which they
eat their bread and butter, butter-side-up or vice-versa. Geisel chose to end
the book with a cliff-hanger in the form of a blank page, opening a door for
interpretation by anyone who also felt as strong as he did politically. Despite
this inspiring idea Random House sought this to be a bad idea.
Due to the controversy
caused by, ‘The Lorax’, art directors begin to speculate and analyse every
aspect of the marvelously zany story of Dr.Seuss, Geisel found himself
defending his workings, trying to hang on to his integrity and fought to keep
the story as true to the original as possible, as what the book represented was
truthful, few things were changed.
How Ted Geisel AKA Dr,Seuss create his work:
Geisel
was extremely scrupulous about his color choices, despite the fact there was
limitations in color printing and it was highly costly in the 20th
Century, he would create specifically numbered color charts to reach complete
perfection within each of his drawings. Each color chosen appropriately, for
example high saturated reds and blues meticulously chosen as they engage and
withheld the attention of his target audiences such as children. Geisel managed
to maintain and acquire a technique of being able to translate an image and
move a story line with tension, movement filled with color His surreal style
that developed over years became the impetus of inspirational, educational humor.
There was allot of Geisel’s work that was
never exhibited in his life time such as workings he did at night for his own
enjoyment that can be seen in the Dr.Seuss Archival Works, alongside his
political cartoons, advertisement illustrations and other more ambiguous
children’s books.
Conclusion:
During
my investigation into Aardman Animations, Nick Park and Theodore Seuss Geisel AKA Dr.Seuss I have learned
many things. For example whilst researching Aardman Animations I have learned
who the founders were, who they collaborated with and stages of production they
went through to reach such success. Iv learnt
about the labor intensive process of stop frame/ stop motion and the processes
of their work whilst researching Nick Park, one of Aardman Animations main
successors.
Whilst
researching further into Nick Park I found out how he found a passion for
animation through the love of films, comics and art, of that now he’s so creditably acclaimed for today, and despite the
fact of money matters, persistence paid off indefinitely.
Whilst researching Ted Geisel AKA Dr.Seuss,
I learned of his processes, beliefs and his political views and the struggles
and perseverance he had, to progress further with his dream. I loved learning
about his life through his stories and how they represent happenings, opinions
and experiences of his own.
Something that is true for both artists, in
my opinion they both shaped most childhoods in a way that no other has been able
to accomplish as of yet. Both artists accurately taking things from real life
that isn't necessarily appealing to youth but transforming them into
educational, entertaining, emotionally exhilarating, comical products with the
perfect balance of fact and creativity. Even so taking their target audiences
into account I believe they have both mastered their talents to their full
potential appealing to all audiences commercially world wide,
Referencing:
Aardman . (). Aardman History. Available: http://www.aardman.com/about-us/history/. Last accessed 20-04-13.
Ron Barbagallo. (2005). Making his mark in clay. Available: http://www.animationartconservation.com/?c=art&p=wallace_gromit. Last accessed 20-04-13.
IMDB. (). Dr.Seuss Biography. Available: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0317450/bio#trivia. Last accessed 20-04-13.
DR.Seuss. (). Dr.Seuss Biography. Available: http://drseussart.com/biography.html. Last accessed 20-04-13.
Children's Classics. (). Dr.Seuss Biography. Available: http://www.childrensclassics.com.au/ccp0-display/dr-seuss-biography.html. Last accessed 20-04-13.
DR.Seuss. (). Dr.Seuss overview. Available: http://drseussart.com/overview.html. Last accessed 20-04-13.
Morph of Aardman Animations 'Take Hart'
Nick Park of Aardman Animations with models of characters Wallace and Gromit
Taxidermy sculptures of Dr.Seuss
Selection of book covers from Dr.Seuss
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