Visual Arts

Completely consumed with artifacts, this kind of garage conversion won’t be seen on most home improvement shows but for Dan Richards and his crew this has been their workshop for several months whilst producing their amateur model animation ‘The Windmill Boy’.

Dan, currently Canterbury Christ Church University’s maiden Animator In Residence, trained at the Bristol School of Animation.

Under tutelage from Head Animator on Wallace and Gromit-The Wrong Trousers, Arril Johnson, and Peter Lord the creator of Morph and a partner of Aardman Animation, Dan was the only British student and realised there was a serious lack of home grown talent. 

He proceeded to work with model- making firms in Bristol, including Codsteaks who produced all of the sets for the Oscar winning feature film Wallace and Grommit-The Curse Of The Were Rabbit.

One year on, at the premier showing of The Windmill Boy at Canterbury Christ Church University, the night is celebrated with a red-carpet and black-tie dress code with over two hundred attending the screening. 

Dan, making models outside his home.

Richards admitted, “Making the film was a painstaking task. It’s been 14 weeks of model-making, 12 weeks of animation and over 18 months putting this film altogether. I’m so proud of the finished film”.

The excitement of a Kent based model animation has seen this film viewed around Canterbury and throughout East Kent, including a showing inside one of Kent’s most symbolic features the Sarre Windmill.

But why should one clay model film stir-up such interest? Since the 1960s characters from Camberwick Green, The Clangers and Bagpuss to name but a few were all filmed in Kent and were all very popular programmes.

Despite this rich history very little produce has grown in England’s Garden County for over 25 years.

Why has stop-action animation in Kent become a dying art? The decline isn’t caused by lack of interest.

Annually, in Kent and the south east, tides of graduates are looking to work in the animation industry but are left to wash-up on the shore: numerous post-graduate and amateur model animation shorts are entered into animation festivals: television companies still commission model animation cartoons like Bob The Builder, Bill and Ben and Pingu.

The decline is due to failing economics.

Expensive rents for workshops, rising production costs and a reduction of commissioned model animation films since the late 80s/early 90s from companies, like MTV and Channel 4, have all contributed.

Most importantly the spawning of CGI has created a new dimension to the animation industry leaving behind stock frame animation as an analogue process in a digital age.

The most successful stop-motion animation film this century, Wallace & Grommit’s The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, made an estimated worldwide profit of £100 million: as opposed to Shrek 2 which accumulated over four-times that figure.

A scene from Windmill Boy.

Film producers and television companies cannot afford to risk commissioning model animations which may not become successful or can be produced cheaper abroad.

The physics of clay model animation means it’s a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. In the last twenty years this has been overtaken by more efficient and faster methods. Basically, it’s no longer business viable.

The market for 3-D model cartoons are still primarily produced for infants. It hasn’t successfully crossed the boundary too all-age family viewing as swiftly as 2-D animation, for example The Simpson’s and CGI films which have flooded the market since the success of Toy Story.

So, in order for an amateur model animation film to happen a real life fairy tale story will inevitably proceed: enter The Windmill Boy.

The film’s workshop began inside Dan’s home garage. Model makers included students from Canterbury and qualified amateurs from France and Spain. The main supply for the budget came from his father’s back pocket. Individual sacrifices for the communal cause very much made this a team effort.

Using features from Faversham, Dan’s home town, this debut animation short tells the tale of an orphaned boy’s escape in a windmill from an evil horde. It’s an adventure story reminiscent of a classical gothic tale where good defeats evil.

Guiding the team was Canterbury based model maker, Steve Allen, who has worked in Jim Henson's Creature Workshop for over six years and worked on projects including The Muppets and Fraggle Rock.

Steve now freelances in designing prototype models used for merchandising and is aware the market for merchandise will never die.

He said, “I’ve seen at least twenty-three studios and film companies go bankrupt since the 80s. As a result most model makers are used for making and designing toys. But there’s always been a demand for merchandise and always will be. Goes to show kids who grow up watching stop-action cartoons end up buying some form of memento”.

Market trends have shown model animation programmes still connect with today’s youth. Kent based animations like Bagpuss has had an increase in merchandise sales:  Quaker Oats recent advertisements are using characters from Camberwick Green.

Amateur productions are the heart and soul of any sector of The Arts industry.
Every new creation has the chance of becoming a household commodity. Dan is in the process of submitting his film to nationwide festivals and is hoping his creation will end up as a household commodity.

Within the UK, Bristol and Manchester are the chief locations of the more successful animation production studios. To include Kent on that list is a long way off right now but the attention brought by The Windmill Boy may elevate a hero and generate a real life fairytale.