UK Animation Talent Recognised

What a time for British animation? This Award season has saw a wealth of British talent recognised as a call is made to protect UK animation talent.
Bristol-based Aardman Studio’s Authur Christmas, Studio AKA’s A Morning Stroll and Jonny Duddle, the concept artist for Aardman film The Pirates! are among those being nominated for awards this year.
Why Did The Chicken Go To Hollywood?
Right on the heels of the Short Animation Bafta nomination, British animation short, A Morning Stroll, was nominated for an Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards.
The film, which focuses on the exploits of a chicken in New York, was made at London-based Studio AKA and despite being made as a ‘spare-time project’ it is causing quite a stir. Its creators are now getting ready to take their own stroll along the red carpet - after being nominated for the Short Animated Film Oscar.
Directed by Grant Orchard of Studio AKA, A Morning Stroll shows a New Yorker out for a walk when he passes a chicken in the street and plays on the age old joke: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Told over three acts, the story begins in 1959 and is told though flickery old-school animation. Then it leaps 50 years to 2009, where a similar scene plays out in a very different style.
Elsewhere Aardman’s Arthur Christmas was nominated for a 2012 Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. It was also one of the biggest earners in the UK box Office in 2011 and now their latest endeavourer is causing a stir.
The Pirates! A delicious confection of piracy on the high seas is not even released yet and already the concept artist has been short listed in the picture category of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize.
Will UK Animation Be Wiped Out?
These acknowledgments of British animation talent however come as UK animators are pleading for tax -breaks -they claim they can no longer compete with tax breaks offered overseas.
Animation UK, which represents producers including Aardman Animations and Astley Baker Davies, have written to George Osborne, Chancellor, warning him that Britain is losing its best animation talent and are urging him to “level the playing field”, according to Telegraph.
The companies behind Wallace and Gromit and Peppa Pig have said that they are not looking for handouts but need to be able to compete. They claim that animators overseas, particularly Ireland and Canada, where tax breaks and funding supply up to 50% of budgets have created "a distorted market place".
They are calling for an environment that allows them to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world as they predict the UK animation industry will be wiped out altogether if a similar tax break can not be offered in the UK.
(LB)