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Peter Lord, the Creative Director of Aardman Animations, follows the path from that shortest of short films through to the animated feature The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists – and discusses along the way the many-sided job of the Director.

Peter Lord and David Sproxton were still at school when they successfully sold their first film to the BBC. The film featured an unconvincing super-hero character – and it was all of twenty seconds long. The young film-makers, starting out on their career, named their studio after the superhero. They called it ‘Aardman’.

Since Aardman’s first screen appearance, Peter has been constantly involved in creating animated films in many formats.  His output has included TV series, music videos and commercials as well as independent short films like Adam and the Conversation Pieces. In the mid 1990s Aardman made its most ambitious move to date and along with Nick Park, Peter co-directed Chicken Run – the first of five animated features.

Peter will talk about the principles and the practice of making animated films, from development right through to directing. The first essential is to identify the right idea – the one in thousand that is really worth pursuing. But that’s only the first step in a lengthy process (perhaps as long as five years) that leads from story, to screenplay to production. Eventually!

Key creative elements like storyboarding, the story-reel, voice-recording, design, editing, animating and directing will all be covered in a wide-ranging overview of the creative process. Illustrated by clips from short-films and unique behind-the-scenes material there will also be a glimpse into ‘Worlds That Could Have Been’ with abandoned plotlines for Chicken Run and the Pirates.

Visit the Aardman website.

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