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The Best of British
QUICKON ITHEDRAW
t’s rather refreshing that in the fast moving world of animation, some people still hold dear the virtues of the hand-drawn image. Ginger Gibbons has spent his
career doing just that, having worked on episodes of the animated Beatrix Potter stories, and the BAFTA winning childrens’ series Kipper, as well as other favourites, Sheeep and Percy The Park Keeper.
The latest production from Gibbons and his team at GSCF is Angelina Ballerina, adapted from the books writ- ten by Katharine Holabird and illustrat- ed by Helen Craig. This, like all Gibbons’ work, is a world away from the ersatz cartoons that increasingly fill tea time TV schedules.
“It’s very important to me that these stories stand on their own,” he says, “and also that children might want to watch them in 10 years time. I
don’t think we make any- thing that is just fired through to be shown once at three in the afternoon
and then never seen again.” Angelina Ballerina, to be screened
on ITV this
autumn, is the
tale of a head-
strong mouse
who harbours
the unlikely
ambition of
being a prima
ballerina. Finty
Williams pro-
vides the voice
for Angelina,
while her real
life mum, Dame
Judi Dench,
plays her dance teacher, Miss Lily.
Completely hand drawn, the char- acter images are scanned and coloured digitally while the backgrounds are hand coloured before both elements are put together. Attention to detail is, understandably, intense.
“The whole point is for it not to look different,” says Gibbons. “We very often put back the texture of paper into
the pictures, or we soften the image slightly to fit the background. We do whatever we need to do to combine all the elements and make it into a com- plete picture.”
In portraying a mouse dancing bal- let there are, inevitably, a few artistic compromises... the anatomy of the mouse for example, whose legs are drawn back to front in order to change
CHILDREN
MOVEDBY
MAGIC
he big news with this year’s Children’s Film & Television Awards is a change of date. BAFTA has moved the Awards
from their original date of
November 4 to accommodate the worldwide film premiere of Har r y Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone. This year’s Awards will now be held on Sunday, December 2 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.
We enter the second year of a very happy association with our sponsor – LEGO Media. In particular, there has been a real enthusiasm to turn the LEGO/BAFTA Kids’ Vote into a national audience award. It gets an online pres- ence with its very own website – www.LEGObaftakidsvote.com.
Broadcasters will directly link to the site from their own websites, gen- erating significant awareness with the younger audience not so familiar with the BAFTA brand. LEGOLAND in Windsor are dedicating the weekend of October 20-21 to the Kids’ Vote and will run a big promotion with polling sta- tions throughout the park.
There is very strong competition in the newly introduced Presenter catego- ry. The juries will have to consider the likes of SMTV’s Ant, Dec and Cat bat- tling it out with Art Attack’s family favourite, Neil Buchanan and last year’s awards host, Ortis. Nominations will be announced on October 15 and logging on to www.bafta.org will be the quickest way to check out the results.
We are delighted that CiTV has commissioned a 30-minute special from BAFTA award winning producer Mick Robertson and his Wised Up Productions team. Fourteen year old Misha Badr-Saafdari, a veteran reporter for Nick News, will front the pro-
gramme, getting a backstage perspec- tive of the ceremony and no doubt giving her verdict on the night’s winners!
We anticipate another sell-out event at the London Hilton so please call Kelly Smith for tick- et information on 020 7292 5821. ■
ALLSETFORBAFTA’SINTERACTIVE
ALLSETFORBAFTA’SINTERACTIVE
ENTERTAINMENTAWARDS2001
ENTERTAINMENTAWARDS2001
the position of the knee. But where possible every care is taken that the story is played as straight and as true as possible. This even extends to the ballet moves themselves.
“That’s very important,” adds Gibbons. “So when they do a pas-de- deux every child who watches it throughout the world can see that it’s right.” ■ Anwar Brett
T
2001 is proving to be a year of firsts for the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards. For the first time, we offered appli- cants the ability to enter online, which, not surprisingly for the industry we are dealing with, was a huge success. Due to the overwhelming demand for tickets last year, we are also making the big move to Grosvenor House on October 25.
We are also offering our inaugural Audience Award, sponsored by leading online retailer Amazon.co.uk. The pub- lic can vote for the winner of the award, drawn from a shortlist of Amazon.co.uk’s ten best-selling PC & Video games.
The voting ballot is now online at www.amazon.co.uk until October 22 and
the winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony. By voting, you are also eligible to win great prizes (includ- ing the nominated games) and the grand prize two tickets (including travel and lodging) to the Awards Ceremony.
Channel 4 have also come on board as our official media sponsor and will be webcasting the awards live on their website as well as providing promotion through C4 programs, and goody bags for the awards night.
The nominations have now been announced and are available at www.bafta.org. Special celebrity jurors included Dave Stewart (Music), Gail Porter (Entertainment Website), Tim Booth from James (Sound), Simon Pegg from Spaced (Console Games), Sarah Cawood from Live & Kicking (Online
Learning) and Edith Bowman from MTV (Mobile Games).
Phill Jupitus proved to be such a success as host last year that we have brought him on board again for this year’s awards and Goldie will be Dj-ing at the party.
With all these developments, there’s no doubt that this year will be the biggest and best yet. Book your tickets to the event online at www.bafta.org. For more informa- tion, please con- tact: Joy Barrett at Joyb@bafta.org ■
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