 | This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(January 2020) |
Chris Grace | |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 December 1946 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Broadcaster |
Chris Grace (1946), MBE, is a British broadcaster, film director and founder and former CEO of The Shakespeare Schools Festival. [1] In 2000, he was awarded an MBE and a BAFTA special for services to screen animation. [2]
Grace joined Harlech / HTV in 1969 and helped co-found S4C/ Channel Four Wales in 1981, with responsibility for scheduling the bi-lingual channel. [3] He was made a Bard at the 1983 National Eisteddfod in recognition of his contribution to S4C and the Welsh language. He kickstarted the Welsh animation industry with commissions of SuperTed, Wil Cwac Cwac, Sam Tan/Fireman Sam and The Legend of Lochnagar which featured the Prince of Wales. These sold through S4C International of which Grace was CEO. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he promoted Russian – Welsh co-productions, featuring abridged works of Shakespeare, Opera, Chaucer and the Bible. Over the ’90s this relationship was broadened to 20 other countries, with films going on to win several BAFTA and Emmy awards as well as two Academy Award nominations. The Russian – Welsh animated feature film The Miracle Maker, on the life of Jesus, was shown in the US on ABC television over successive Easters. [4]
After his resignation, [5] he has been involved with the third sector. In 2000, Grace founded The Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) evolving from his 12 part Animated Shakespeare series. [1] SSF schools have performed many times in Nos 10 & 11 Downing St as well as in both Houses of Parliament and many West End theatres. [6] He stepped aside from being founding CEO in 2016.
Grace currently advises Eastside, an ACE-backed arts-education charity, [7] is a Business Advisor for Young Enterprise, [8] and a Governor of Woolmore Primary School in Tower Hamlets.
With Penelope Middleboe and Donald Fry, he co-wrote We Shall Never Surrender, a compendium of diaries from World War 2 published by Macmillan [9]
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The Miracle Maker sometimes subtitled The Story of Jesus, is a 1999 Welsh-Russian stop motion-animated film directed by Derek Hayes and Stanislav Sokolov of the life of Jesus Christ, voiced by Ralph Fiennes. Hand-drawn animated cartoons are used to distinguish flashbacks, parables, stories, spiritual encounters and visions from the main plot, which is all in stop motion.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales is a series of twelve half-hour animated television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, originally broadcast on BBC2 and S4C between 1992 and 1994.
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Testament: The Bible in Animation is a 1996 Welsh-Russian Christian animated series that was produced by and shown on Sianel 4 Cymru (S4C). It was also shown on the BBC. It featured animated versions of stories from the Bible, each story using its own unique style of animation, including stop-motion animation. It ran for one series of nine episodes in the United Kingdom and won one Emmy, with three nominations, in the United States. It includes the song "Adiemus" as its intro.
The cinema of Wales comprises the art of film and creative movies made in Wales or by Welsh filmmakers either locally or abroad. Welsh cinema began in the late-19th century, led by Welsh-based director William Haggar. Wales continued to produce film of varying quality throughout the 20th century, in both the Welsh and English languages, though indigenous production was curtailed through a lack of infrastructure and finance, which prevented the growth of the industry nationally. Despite this, Wales has been represented in all fields of the film making process, producing actors and directors of note.
Wil Cwac Cwac is a Welsh-language children's animated television series produced by Siriol Animation for S4C in 1982. It is based on a series of children's books written in the early 1930s by Jennie Thomas and J. O. Williams, including the famous Welsh-language book Llyfr Mawr y Plant. Both book and television series take place in rural Wales. An English-language version of the show was produced for the wider English-speaking market. The first 20 episodes were dubbed in UK English and aired on Children's ITV in 1984, with the remaining 10 following in 1986. In both versions, all narration and characters were voiced by Myfanwy Talog. A US English dub was also made, with Liza Ross narrating, and aired in the United States on The Disney Channel as a segment on the program Lunch Box.
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Please note: Shakespeare Schools Festival became Shakespeare Schools Foundation in 2016. The Festival is the charity's flagship project.
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Calon is the trading name of Mount Stuart Media Ltd., a British animation television production company based in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, which primarily produced animation series in Welsh for S4C. The company was formerly known as Siriol Animation and Siriol Productions.
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