interview

Mill Kahl confirmed that. Disney was always trying to do different things. He said he never chewed his cabbage twice, he never did a sequel. But those were the guys he had to work with and they tended to draw that way, so the pictures came out that way. They were developing the medium from … Read more

Animation is very technical. The essence of it is like Vincent Van Gogh starting out, he goes to life class and draws a woman. His early drawings look as if they have been drawn with a hammer. You can say they look great, but they’re not great. He became great. He had to get the … Read more

Graham Clutterbuck, founder and managing director of the FilmFair Group of companies, was responsible for bringing many popular animation series to our television screens, including Paddington, The Wombles, The Perishers, Parsley, The Herbs, Simon, Portland Bill, Moschops and The Blunders. This article is based on an interview conducted by David Jefferson. GRAHAM CLUTTERBUCK: I entered … Read more

The Magic Roundabout was a great success on British television and the BBC were looking for other series in a similar style. In 1966 Monica Simms, who was then the head of BBC Childrens’ Television, invited us to discuss a new venture. She introduced Michael Bond, who had become successful with a character called ‘Peppot’. … Read more

Czechoslovakian filmmaker Jiri Barta is at last finding wide recognition of his work outside his own country. Jeremy Clarke telephoned him in Prague. Jiri Barta’s feature length puppet film The Pied Piper is now being distributed in Britain by the BFI. The film illustrates the legend of ‘The Pied Piper’ with a cast including sixteen … Read more

JC: How interesting. I didn’t pick that up. I assumed they were drinking blood, which of course made them worse. JB: No, no, no. When it came to the banquet, it was really wine. Blood came only with the animals – it was really wine. But of course the analogy was intentional, and that is … Read more

JC: What made you decide on making things which were both two and three-dimensional? You mentioned cubism, which is one of the elements which comes to mind watching the film. What made you want to go for that kind of style and look? JB: For the stylization there are two sources of inspiration. One is … Read more