Graham Ralph: From Spider to Opera

All in a day’s work Spider moved into the Top Ten Videos list in its first month, has run for over four years and sold more than 80,000 copies in the UK alone. Ken Clark visited director Graham Ralph. The road to success in animation is fraught with as many heartaches, setbacks and periods of … Read more

Graham Ralph: From Spider to Opera – Page 3

“Most of them are not employable straight away,” he explains, “Companies such as ours who do mainstream commercials require experienced personnel because there are so many professional requirements. No matter how talented newcomers may be they cannot possibly meet the standards. Jerry and I still direct, draw and animate and that is the problem, we … Read more

The Worldview of Youri Norstein

From a small flat in Moscow. By Karen Rosenberg. January 1988. A modern complex of high-rise apartments in outer Moscow. A small flat has been partitioned to create more living and working space for animator Youri Norstein, his wife Francesca Iarboussova, who is the artist for his films, and their family. By the dining-room table … Read more

The Worldview of Youri Norstein – Page 3

For Norstein, the denigration of human beings is not a historical problem. “In ‘The Overcoat’, Gogol chose the most painful situation in the modern world,” reads the published scenario for the film, written by Ludmila Petrushevskaia with Norstein’s help. Yet that doesn’t mean that Norstein sees his film as a coded attack on the Soviet … Read more

I’m just mad about Saffron

Paul Thomas is probably the most independent of London’s independent animators. He has turned his back on commercial work to follow his own dreams. He talks to David Jefferson about his latest production based on black and white photographs animated against painted backgrounds. If you have read past issues of Animator you may know something … Read more

I’m just mad about Saffron – Page 2

The production team was culled from various phases of Paul’s career. Co-animator/scriptwriter, David Skinner was an old school chum. He previously worked with Paul on RAM, a film for Channel 4. David’s fine art backgrounds add a maturity and logic that compliments Paul’s way out state of mind. David spent long days and nights working … Read more