Bura and Hardwick | |
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Born | Barnett “Bob” Bura 25 September 1924 |
Died | 7 April 2018 93) | (aged
Occupations |
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Years active | 1955–1990 [1] |
Known for |
Company type | Private limited company [2] |
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Industry | Animation |
Founded | 21 July 1971 [2] |
Founders |
|
Defunct | 5 December 2023 [2] |
Headquarters | Purley Way, , England |
Bura and Hardwick was the name credited to represent the duo of Bob Bura and John Hardwick, who worked variably as puppeteers and animators in the United Kingdom. From the mid-1950s to the 1980s they contributed to a number of children's television series. [3]
They are best remembered for their stop motion animations, most notably the Trumptonshire trilogy: Camberwick Green , Trumpton , and Chigley . [4] The term “stop motion” was in fact the registered trademark of their company. [5]
Barnett “Bob” Bura and John Hardwick first met in 1955. While the former and the latter's sister were touring seasides with Punch and Judy shows, she became unavailable due to getting married, and recommended her younger brother to take over. [6] [7] [4] The two created marionettes for the theatre, that performed at the Soho Fair. It was here where they viewed the original 1933 King Kong , inspiring them to want to create stop motion films. Their initial experiments took the form of animating pop music. [7]
Later that year, they were asked to work at Lime Grove Studios, [8] [9] [7] and began working for the Television Puppet Theatre under producer Gordon Murray. [7] [3] Usually working with marionettes, the two also operated rod puppets for eighteen adaptations of the Toytown stories by S.G. Hulme Beaman. [10] [11] In 1962 [12] Bura and Hardwick began their long association with BBC Schools, [9] providing animations for them as well as for other BBC productions. [8] [7] The Puppet Theatre was closed in 1963 alongside the Children's Department [13] by Sydney Newman, [14] who used the Theatre's former studio space to film special effects for his creation Doctor Who . [15] [16] [17] [18] However, the two soon found themselves once again working under Murray, creating the animation for Camberwick Green , the inaugural instalment of the Trumptonshire trilogy. [9] [4] The trilogy was all animated in their recently acquired homemade studio in Womersley Road, Crouch End. [19]
During the 1970s and 1980s, the studio's work was said to have been credited frequently within a single week's edition of the Radio Times. [19] According to Bob Bura, the BBC ensured that they would remain in work; [15] most of their filmography was produced for the corporation. [20] [9] In the early 1980s, Bura and Hardwick moved from Womersley Road to what would become the Church Studios, [9] [21] [15] but due to pressure from the local council (owing to the way it was then operated), [15] [22] they had to sell part of it, which ended up going to Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox of pop group Eurythmics. [15] [9] [23] Here they were able to complete their album Sweet Dreams , [4] which propelled them to international success. [24] [25] [26] In 1984 they purchased the studio from the animators. [23] [21]
A while later, the BBC decided to cut their ties with Bura and Hardwick, owing to the desire for a substantial increase in outsourced productions. [15] This was done as a result of the Broadcasting Act 1990's requirements for at least 25% of its output to be sourced from independent companies, [27] [28] which would have doomed Bura and Hardwick's future careers; nonetheless they were hopeful that they would find a good sponsor to continue. [15] Hardwick died in 2004, [8] Bura in 2018. [9] [4]
Bura and Hardwick utilised many innovative filming techniques, which developed throughout their stop motion work.
The film cameras initially used exposed at twenty-four frames a second, [9] [4] so Bura modified them to operate at only a single frame. [9] [4] [19] This allowed for smoother movement compared to other stop motion productions of the time, [9] [4] which was partially due to their desire to film one frame per movement, compared to two as other studios may have done. [9] Each frame took an hour to shoot, [8] and by the end of a given week Bura, Hardwick, and their team of assistants may have completed at least two minutes and 30 seconds of footage. [5] [9]
The puppets were fixed to a soft base with pins in between shots, which saved time as opposed to being screwed onto the animation table. [5] [4] In order to make sure that they would not be effected by the heat of the studio lights (as had happened during filming of Camberwick Green ), [29] later productions had further modifications made to the camera. [19] As was utilised during the year-long production, certain props would be marked in ways that ensured they would be moved at a consistent level each shot. [5] The episode PC McGarry features a smoke effect filmed in real-time, notable for the lack of motion for anything else in the sequence. [30] [31] This technique was further used in the first thirteen episodes of the 1972 stop motion version of the Toytown series. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36]
Beginning in the mid-1970s, the studio devised a new technique: animating the background. A film would be reflected behind the puppets by a transit screen at a narrow angle, which necessitated another modification to the front camera. [9] [19] This was seen in various BBC Schools projects, including Bura and Hardwick's work for Words and Pictures . [9] The term “stop motion” was originally the trademark of their company, [5] Stop Motion Limited, [2] [9] [19] [4] [8] referring to their productions. [5] However, it became used to refer to all animation made using puppets moved by small increments, becoming perhaps better well known than the animators who coined it; [5] a generic trademark. [37] [38]
At the request of Hardwick, Camberwick and the rest of the Trumptonshire trilogy was filmed in colour as opposed to black-and-white, requiring the first episode (Peter the Postman) to be reshot. [29] This ensured a long period of repeats for the trilogy, [5] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [4] in keeping with Bura's philosophy regarding their work together:
Everything we do, we do in a position that we think people will want to see it forever. That sounds terribly big-headed, but we thought that whatever it is we’re going to do is going to be seen. We knew that. [29]
Bura and Hardwick's 1968 animation of Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka was well received, praised by the BBC as a highlight of that year, [44] and by The Guardian as “by far the most imaginative British use of puppets one has seen on Television”. [45] Their 1978 production of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King won the BAFTA for Flame of Knowledge in 1979. [9] [46]
The animation style created by the studio for the Trumptonshire trilogy has been recreated and parodied numerous times: commercials for Windmill Bakery [47] and Quaker Oats, [48] appearances in the BBC's Future Generations , [48] and pastiches in Life on Mars [49] and the music video for Radiohead's 2016 single Burn the Witch . [50]
Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
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1955-1964 | A Rubovian Legend | 29 episodes | [51] |
1956-1958 | Toytown | 18 episodes | [52] |
1956 | The Bird of Truth | TV movie | [53] |
The Holy Mice | [54] | ||
1957 | The Emperor's Nightingale | [55] | |
Beauty and the Beast | [56] | ||
1958 | The Emperor's New Clothes | [57] | |
1959 | The Petrified Princess | [58] | |
The King of the Golden River | [59] | ||
1960 | The Crumpot Candles | [60] | |
The Magic Tree | [61] | ||
The Balloon and the Baron | TV movie, special effects | [62] | |
1961 | Beauty and the Beast | Unrelated to 1957 production, 2 episodes, special effects | [63] |
Great Captains | 2 episodes, special effects | [64] [65] | |
1962 | They Hanged My Saintly Billy | TV movie | [66] |
The Dancing Princess | [67] | ||
1962-1963 | Pops and Lenny | 10 episodes | [68] |
1965-1966 | Hey Presto! It's Rolf | 9 episodes | [69] |
Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
1962 | Air, Land, and Water | First project for BBC Schools, 3 episodes | [70] |
1963 | Blue Peter | 3 episodes | [71] [72] [73] |
1965-1966 | Merry-Go-Round | 4 episodes | [74] [75] [76] [77] |
1966 | Camberwick Green | 13 episodes | [9] |
1967 | Pinky and Perky's Island | Animators for first 4 episodes, puppeteers for next 9 (13 total) | [78] |
Trumpton | 13 episodes | [9] | |
The Furry Folk on Holiday | Short film | [79] | |
1968 | Petrushka | Short film for BBC Schools | [9] |
1969 | Chigley | 13 episodes | |
Mary, Mungo and Midge | Camera operators, 13 episodes | ||
1972 | The Adventures of Sir Prancelot | Camera operators, 31 episodes | |
Larry the Lamb | 13 episodes | [8] [80] | |
1973-1975 | Doctor Who | Studio for model sequences, 7 episodes | [81] [82] |
1974-1975 | Captain Pugwash | Camera operators, 30 episodes | [9] |
1975-1990 | Words and Pictures | 58 episodes | |
1978 | Coppélia | Short film for Music Time | |
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King | |||
1979 | Lieutenant Kijé | [83] | |
1984 | Sleeping Beauty | [9] | |
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints or plasticine figures are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
Camberwick Green is a British children's television series that ran from January to March 1966 on BBC1, featuring stop motion puppets. Camberwick Green is the first in the Trumptonshire trilogy, which also includes Trumpton and Chigley.
Trumpton is a British stop-motion children's television series from the producers of Camberwick Green. First shown on the BBC from January to March 1967, it was the second series in the Trumptonshire trilogy, which comprised Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley. Like the other two series, Trumpton continued to be repeated well into the 1980s as a part of the BBC's children's schedules.
Chigley (1969) is the third and final stop-motion children's television series in Gordon Murray's Trumptonshire trilogy. Production details are identical to Camberwick Green and Trumpton.
Sister shows, also known as companion series, are two or more television series which exist in the same fictional universe and which may have crossovers. They differ to a degree from spin-offs, in that they are established independently from one another. The popularity of most series is limited to a few seasons, and sister shows allow expanding the immediate audience and ratings share. This is accomplished by using mostly different actors and production facilities. Sister shows often shift styles or target audience slightly, for a larger overall market. Thus The Beverly Hillbillies emphasizes slapstick, while Green Acres emphasizes surreal humor.
Brian Cant was an English actor of stage, television and film, television presenter, voice artist and writer. He was known for his work in BBC television programmes for children from 1964 onward, most notably Play School, and in later years, Dappledown Farm.
Watch with Mother was a cycle of children's programmes created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Broadcast by BBC Television from 1952 until 1975, it was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at pre-school children, a development of BBC radio's equivalent Listen with Mother, which had begun two years earlier. In accordance with its intended target audience of pre-school children viewing with their mothers, Watch with Mother was initially broadcast between 3:45 pm and 4:00 pm, post-afternoon nap and before the older children came home from school.
Peter John Hawkins was a British actor. From the 1950s to 1980s, he was one of the most sought-after voice artists for television.
The Gublins is a stop-motion children's television show broadcast between 1977 and 1979. It was the final animated series made by British animator Gordon Murray, the creator of Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley and was shown as part of the Saturday morning children's TV show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on BBC One. Each episode was 5 minutes long with Murray introducing each one directly to camera.
Gordon Murray was a British television producer and puppeteer. He created and wrote some of the most repeated children's television programmes ever seen in Britain. Camberwick Green, Trumpton, and Chigley, collectively known as the Trumptonshire Trilogy, were all produced by the company he founded.
Trumptonshire is a fictional county created by Gordon Murray, in which the Trumptonshire Trilogy of Camberwick Green (1966), Trumpton (1967), and Chigley (1969) are located. Trumptonshire is populated by characters portrayed by 8-inch (20 cm) tall stop-motion puppets. Trumpton is a market town with an impressive town hall and clock tower and concluded by the fire brigade band concert; Camberwick Green and Chigley are two nearby villages with one of them featuring a musical box introducing and concluding the character and the other (Chigley) featuring a narrowboat, a crane, a beam engine a steam train and a factory whistle concluded by the Dutch organ.
United Kingdom Animation began at the very origins of the art form in the late 19th century. British animation has been strengthened by an influx of émigrés to the UK; renowned animators such as Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers. Notable full-length animated features to be produced in the UK include Animal Farm (1954), Yellow Submarine (1968), Watership Down (1978), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
A Rubovian Legend is a British children's television series created by Gordon Murray. It centers around a fictional kingdom ruled by King Rufus XIV and Queen Caroline, assisted by Albert Weatherspoon and the Lord Chamberlain.
Freddie Phillips was a British musician and composer, best known for his work on television theme music, particularly the children's programmes, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley.
This is a list of British television related events from 1969.
"The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" is a single by Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band. It is the official Children in Need Single for 2009, and was released on 21 November 2009. The song was shown for the first time on Children in Need 2009. The cover art is a parody of the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles. The single has sold over 452,000 copies in the UK, earning it gold status from the BPI.
Future Generations: Small People was a three-minute promotional trailer for Children in Need, put together by the BBC and Gorgeous Productions in 1998 as a sequel of sorts to the great success of the previous year's Perfect Day charity single.
The Church Studios is a recording studio located in a former church in Crouch End, North London, England. It was rented and then owned by Dave Stewart in the 1980s and 1990s, and was used to record Eurythmics' second album Sweet Dreams (1983). David Gray acquired ownership in 2004 before British record producer Paul Epworth bought and refurbished the studio in 2013. It has since been used by notable artists such as Adele, Beyoncé, Mumford & Sons, Coldplay and Madonna.
Events in 1921 in animation.