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Photos top: Directors Nick Park and Steve Box with their Oscars and
the winning Aardman line-up with their BAFTAs; inset right: DPs Dave Alex Riddett and Tristan Oliver
18 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture
And the Winne
Wallace & Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit with
I
f there was any doubt that two of British cinema’s biggest stars reside in a Bristol busi- ness park just off the M4, then one LA evening in March would have dispelled it forever. The latest adventure for Wallace
and his faithful dog Gromit, Curse of the Were-Rabbit scooped the Best Animated Feature Academy Award and thereby continued a remarkable run of success for Aardman Animations. Directors Nick
Park and Steve
Box attended
the ceremony,
as did Peter
Sallis who has
been the voice
of Wallace these
past 23 years.
Back in the UK,
DPs Dave Alex
Riddett and
Tristan Oliver
watched events unfold live by satellite in the studios of Sky Television.
“We were studio guests when the Oscar win was announced,” recalls Oliver. “Sadly our ‘pundit’ credentials were cut short by the misplaced arrival of the Best Costume category on which we were considered unfit to speak. Which is ironic as my parents were theatrical costumiers; but they wouldn’t listen.”
“As well as a couple of two-minute live chats with Mariella Frostrup,” Riddett adds, “viewers were treated to an almost live reaction to our Oscar success with Tristan and myself bouncing around on the interview couch, waving our arms around with grins wider than Wallace himself!”
It seems fitting that the Oscar win – over Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle - should come in this the company’s 30th year. It’s the fourth such success for director Nick Park after collecting
prizes for the last two animated shorts – and A Grand Day Out may have missed out on Oscar glory in 1991 but Park picked up the award for Creature Comforts instead.
There has been recognition from BAFTA too, with Curse Of The Were- Rabbit winning, unprecedentedly for animation, The Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, beating out fellow nominees, The Constant Gardener, A Cock & Bull Story, Festival
and Pride & Prejudice.
Along with countless other prizes at festi- vals and cere- monies around the world, they have been no less feted among their immediate peers having scooped no
fewer than 10 awards at 33rd Annies, the industry’s pre-eminent annual ani- mation awards, also in Hollywood.
As Nick Park has said: “It’s quite a challenge when most animated movies have fast-paced, wall-to-wall dialogue and ours features a silent, plasticine dog. But I think people see Wallace and Gromit as something akin to an elderly couple. These two know each other so well. Nothing can split them apart.”
At the Oscars, Park and Steve Box were quick to thank the team of 200 or so staff in Bristol who contributed so much to the success of Wallace & Gromit’s feature debut. Their happy mood offered a satisfying counter- point to the fire that wreaked havoc on the studios last year. It struck a storage unit where many irreplaceable props, sets, awards and artefacts, destroying a significant slice of items from Aardman Animations’ history.
But the thing with history is that it’s always being made anew, and the future
r