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Nick Park

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Nick Park
Park at the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
Park at the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
BornNicholas Wulstan Park
(1958-12-06) 6 December 1958 (age 65)[1]
Preston, Lancashire, England
OccupationDirector, animator, writer
NationalityBritish
GenreAnimation
Notable works
Notable awards
Nick Park's voice
from the BBC programme Desert Island Discs, 19 December 2010.[2]

Nicholas Wulstan "Nick" Park, CBE[3][4] (born 6 December 1958)[1] is an English director, writer, and animator best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.[5] Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times, and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).[6]

Early life

Park was born in Brookfield Park in Preston, Lancashire in the north-west of England to Mary Cecilia Ashton (born 1930), a seamstress, and Roger Wulstan Park (1925-2004), an architectural photographer.[7] The middle child of five siblings, Park grew up on Greenlands Estate; the family later moved to Walmer Bridge, where his mother still resides. His sister Janet lives in Longton.[8] He attended Cuthbert Mayne High School (now Our Lady's Catholic High School).

He grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons, and as a 13-year-old made films with the help of his mother and her home movie camera and cotton bobbins. He also took after his father, an amateur inventor, and would send homemade items like a bottle that squeezed out different coloured wools in to Blue Peter.[9]

He studied Communication Arts at Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) and then went to the National Film and Television School, where he started making the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out.

Career

In 1985, he joined the staff of Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products (including the video for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", where he worked on the dance scene involving oven-ready chickens). He also had a part in animating the Pee-wee's Playhouse which featured Paul Reubens. Along with all this, he had finally completed A Grand Day Out, and with that in post-production, he made Creature Comforts as his contribution to a series of shorts called "Lip Synch". Creature Comforts matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about their homes. The two films were nominated for a host of awards. A Grand Day Out beat Creature Comforts for the BAFTA award, but it was Creature Comforts that won Park his first Oscar.

In 1990 Park worked alongside advertising agency GGK to develop a series of highly acclaimed television advertisements for the "Heat Electric" campaign. The Creature Comforts advertisements are now regarded as among the best advertisements ever shown on British television, as voted (independently) by viewers of the UK's main commercial channels ITV[10] and Channel 4.[11]

Two more Wallace and Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), followed, both winning Oscars. He then made his first feature-length film, Chicken Run (2000), co-directed with Aardman founder Peter Lord. He also supervised a new series of "Creature Comforts" films for British television in 2003.

Park promoting in 2005 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

His second theatrical feature-length film and first Wallace and Gromit feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released on 5 October 2005, and won Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards, 6 March 2006.

On 10 October 2005, a fire gutted Aardman Animations' archive warehouse.[12] The fire resulted in the loss of most of Park's creations, including the models and sets used in the movie Chicken Run. Some of the original Wallace & Gromit models and sets, as well as the master prints of the finished films, were elsewhere and survived.

Park's most recent work includes a U.S. version of Creature Comforts, a weekly television series that was on CBS every Monday evening at 8 pm ET. In the series, Americans were interviewed about a range of subjects. The interviews were lip synced to Aardman animal characters.

In September 2007, it was announced that Nick Park had been commissioned to design a bronze statue of Wallace and Gromit, which will be placed in his home town of Preston.[13] In October 2007 it was announced that the BBC had commissioned another Wallace & Gromit short film to be entitled Trouble at Mill[14] (retitled later to A Matter of Loaf and Death).

Nick Park studied at Preston College,[15] which has since named its library for the art and design department after him: the Nick Park Library Learning Centre. He is the recipient of a gold Blue Peter badge.[9]

By the beginning of 2010, Park had won 4 Academy Awards and had the distinction of having won an Oscar every time he had been nominated (his only loss being when he was nominated twice in the same category). This streak ended in the 2010 Oscars when Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death failed to win the best animated short Oscar.

Park had his first acting role in February 2011, voicing himself in a cameo on The Simpsons episode "Angry Dad: The Movie". The fictional Park's new Willis and Crumble short, Better Gnomes and Gardens, is a send-up of Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, with animations produced by the Chiodo Bros. Lisa Simpson has the following short exchange with Park:

Lisa: Good luck, Mr. Park. There'd be no shame in losing to you.
Park: Oh, that's very sweet of you. Thank you for saying so. [after shaking hands, Park's fingers come off]
Lisa: Agh!
Park: No worries. I'll just stick 'em back on. I'm more clay than man now.

In late 2011, Park directed a music video for 'Plain Song'- a song by Native and the Name, a Sheffield band led by Joe Rose, the son of an old university friend. The video was filmed at Birkdale School, Sheffield, and Park also selected the track as one of his Desert Island Discs when he went on the show in 2011, which led to suggestions that Park was using his fame to give a friend a leg-up in his career. Park denied these claims insisting it had become one of his favourite songs. The song and video can be found on YouTube.

In 2013, Park was involved in the British stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's animated film, Princess Mononoke.[16]

He was the executive producer of Shaun the Sheep Movie and he also voiced himself in a cameo.

For 2018, he is directing another Aardman Animation's stop-motion film, titled Early Man. Set in the time of dinosaurs and mammoths, it will tell a story of a caveman who unites his tribesmen against a mighty enemy, while unintentionally inventing football.[17][18]

Personal life

Park has never married nor has children. The Daily Telegraph remarked Park has taken on some attributes of Wallace, just "as dog-owners come to look like their pets", overexpressing himself, possibly as a result of having to show animators how he wants his characters to behave.[9]

He is a fan of The Beano comic, and guest-edited the 70th anniversary issue dated 2 August 2008. He also contributed to Classics from the Comics at the same time, picking his favourite classic stories for the comic reprint magazine's new Classic Choice feature.

His film-making ideas were encouraged by his old English teacher; however Park has denied that the character of Wallace was based on him.[19]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Director Producer Writer Animator Notes
1989 Creature Comforts Yes No Yes Yes Short film
1989 Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out Yes No Yes Yes
1993 Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers Yes No Yes Yes
1995 Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave Yes No Yes Yes
2000 Chicken Run Yes Yes Yes No Co-directed with Peter Lord
2005 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Yes Yes Yes No Co-directed with Steve Box
2008 Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death Yes Yes Yes No Short film
2015 Shaun the Sheep Movie No Yes No No Executive producer, creator and voice of himself
2018 Early Man Yes TBA TBA TBA

Television

Year Title Notes
2003-2006 Creature Comforts Creator
Executive producer
2007–present Shaun the Sheep
2009-2012 Timmy Time Executive producer
2010 Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention
2011 The Simpsons Cameo voice role as himself in episode Angry Dad: The Movie

Awards and nominations

Year Nominated For Award Category Result[5]
1990 Creature Comforts BAFTA Best Animated Film Nominated
Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out BAFTA Best Animated Film Won
1991 Creature Comforts Oscar Best Animated Short Film Won
Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out Oscar Best Animated Short Film Nominated
1994 Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers BAFTA Best Animated Film Won
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers Oscar Best Animated Short Film Won
1996 Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave BAFTA Best Animated Film Won
Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave Oscar Best Animated Short Film Won
2001 Chicken Run BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film Nominated
2004 Creature Comforts BAFTA Comedy Programme or Series Award Nominated
2005 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Oscar Best Animated Feature Won
2006 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film Won
2008 Creature Comforts Emmy Award Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) Nominated
2009 Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death BAFTA Best Short Animation Won
2010 Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death Oscar Best Animated Short Film Nominated

References

  1. ^ a b PARK. "PARK, Nicholas Wulstan". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |othernames= ignored (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "Nick Park". Desert Island Discs. 19 December 2010. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  3. ^ Staff (September 2006). "Nick Park 1958–". Biography Today. 15 (3): 84–101. ISSN 1058-2347. OCLC 24242423.
  4. ^ "BBC Politics 1997: Courage rewarded in honours list". BBC Television News. 1997. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
  5. ^ a b Nick Park at IMDb
  6. ^ "Aaardman – Company History". Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  7. ^ "Nick Park". Biography.com. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  8. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/98/Nick-Park.html
  9. ^ a b c Nigel Farndale (18 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit: one man and his dog". The Daily Telegraph. UK. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
  10. ^ ITV’s Best Ever Adverts. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  11. ^ 100 Greatest TV Ads. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  12. ^ "Animation archive up in smoke". BBC News. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  13. ^ "Wallace and Gromit statue planned". BBC News. 6 September 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  14. ^ "Wallace and Gromit return to TV". BBC News. 3 October 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  15. ^ "Hall of fame 2005". Association of Colleges. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
  16. ^ http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2013-04-19/nick-park-involvement-in-princess-mononoke-play-revealed
  17. ^ Jaafar, Ali (6 May 2015). "Studiocanal Doubles Down On Family Fare: Reteams With Nick Park And Gilles De Maistre For New Pics – Cannes". Deadline. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  18. ^ Jaafar, Ali (19 May 2015). "Nick Park's 'Early Man' A Prehistoric Blockbuster For StudioCanal; First Look Poster – Cannes". Deadline. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
  19. ^ Young, Susan (12 May 2008). "Nick Park". Times Educational Supplement. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
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