Supermarionation is a style of television and film production employed by British company AP Films in its puppet TV series and feature films of the 1960s. These productions were created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at APF's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. The characters were played by electronic marionettes with a moveable lower lip, which opened and closed in time with pre-recorded dialogue by means of a solenoid in the puppet's head or chest. The productions were mostly science fiction with the puppetry supervised by Christine Glanville, art direction by either Bob Bell or Keith Wilson, and music composed by Barry Gray. They also made extensive use of scale model special effects, directed by Derek Meddings.
Gerald Alexander Anderson was an English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist, who is known for his futuristic television programmes, especially his 1960s productions filmed with "Supermarionation".
Stingray is a British children's science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Filmed in 1963 using a combination of electronic marionette puppetry and scale model special effects, it was APF's sixth puppet series and the third to be produced under the banner of "Supermarionation". It premiered in October 1964 and ran for 39 half-hour episodes.
Joe 90 is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company, Century 21, for ITC Entertainment. It follows the exploits of nine-year-old schoolboy Joe McClaine, who becomes a spy after his adoptive father invents a device capable of recording expert knowledge and experience and transferring it to another human brain. Armed with the skills of the world's top academic and military minds, Joe is recruited by the World Intelligence Network (WIN) as its "Most Special Agent".
Supercar is a British children's science fiction television series produced by Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis' AP Films (APF) for Associated Television and ITC Entertainment. Two series totalling 39 episodes were filmed between September 1960 and January 1962. Budgeted at £2,000 per episode, it was Anderson's first half-hour series, as well as his first science fiction production.
Fireball XL5 is a 1960s British children's science-fiction puppet television series about the missions of Fireball XL5, a vessel of the World Space Patrol that polices the cosmos in the year 2062. Commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac, XL5 defends Earth from interstellar threats while encountering a wide variety of alien civilisations.
AP Films or APF was a British independent film production company of the 1950s until the early 1970s. The company became internationally known for its imaginative children's action-adventure marionette television series – most significantly Thunderbirds – produced for British ITV network companies Associated-Rediffusion, Granada, ABC and ATV. At its height, the company employed more than 200 staff.
Zero-X is a fictional Earth spacecraft that first appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions, the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go and the 1967 television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Although publicity material for the various Supermarionation series, and the TV Century 21 comic, made references to connections between the Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet canons, Zero-X is the only official link between the two series.
The Secret Service is a 1969 British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company, Century 21, for ITC Entertainment. It follows the exploits of Father Stanley Unwin, a puppet character voiced by, and modelled on, the comedian of the same name. Outwardly an eccentric vicar, Unwin is secretly an agent of BISHOP, a division of British Intelligence that counters criminal and terrorist threats. Assisted by fellow agent Matthew Harding, Unwin's missions involve frequent use of the Minimiser, a device capable of shrinking people and objects to facilitate covert operations. In hostile situations, Unwin spouts a form of gibberish to distract the enemy.
Thunderbirds Are Go is a 1966 British science-fiction puppet film based on Thunderbirds, a Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by their company Century 21 Productions. Written by the Andersons and directed by David Lane, Thunderbirds Are Go concerns spacecraft Zero-X and its human mission to Mars. When Zero-X suffers a malfunction during re-entry, it is up to life-saving organisation International Rescue, supported by its technologically-advanced Thunderbird machines, to activate the trapped crew's escape pod before the spacecraft hits the ground.
David Nelson Godfrey Mitton was a British director, producer, writer, model maker and special effects technician. He was best known for producing and directing the children's television programmes Thomas & Friends and TUGS. During the 1960s, he worked with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson as a special effects technician on series such as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, The Secret Service and UFO.
Mike Trim is a British artist and miniature model-maker known for his design work on the TV and film productions of AP Films in the 1960s. He is also remembered for illustrating the cover of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978), which depicts a Martian tripod striking down HMS Thunder Child. A book of Trim's illustrations, titled The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim, was released in 2006.
Moonraker is a 1979 spy-fi film, the eleventh in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry, and Richard Kiel. In the film, Bond investigates the vanishing of a Space Shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with astronaut Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the mystery from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and repopulate humanity with a master race.
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company Century 21 Productions. Written by the Andersons and directed by Desmond Saunders, it was first officially broadcast on 29 September 1967 on ATV Midlands, although it had received an unscheduled test screening in the London area five months earlier.
"Sun Probe" is an episode of Thunderbirds, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by Alan Fennell and directed by David Lane, it was first broadcast on 9 December 1965 on ATV Midlands as the 11th episode of Series One. It is the fourth episode in the official running order.
"Attack of the Alligators!" is an episode of Thunderbirds, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by Alan Pattillo and directed by David Lane, it was first broadcast on 10 March 1966 on ATV Midlands as the 23rd episode of Series One. It is the 24th episode in the official running order.
"Path of Destruction" is the 28th episode of Thunderbirds, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by Donald Robertson and directed by David Elliott, it was first broadcast on 9 October 1966 on ATV London and Anglia Television as the second episode of Series Two. It had its first UK-wide network broadcast on 24 April 1992 on BBC2.
Thunderbirds is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It was filmed between 1964 and 1966 using a form of electronic marionette puppetry called "Supermarionation" combined with scale model special effects sequences. Two series, totalling 32 fifty-minute episodes, were made; production ended with the sixth episode of the second series after Lew Grade, APF's financial backer, failed in his efforts to sell the programme to US network television.
Filmed in Supermarionation is a 2014 documentary film about Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson and the struggling group of filmmakers who found success producing space-age puppet television series such as Supercar, Joe 90, Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Thunderbirds. Directed by Stephen La Rivière, and based on his book of the same name, the film was favourably received by critics. It was released theatrically in the UK on 11 October 2014, having been premiered at the British Film Institute on 30 September 2014. It was subsequently released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Roy Field was a British special effects artist in the film industry. He worked on the first seven James Bond films before joining the team of 1978's Superman. He experimented with using animation to depict the flight of Superman and also used optical printing techniques to depict bullets bouncing off his body. The team shared the 1978 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the 1978 Michael Balcon award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Field received two BAFTA nominations for visual effects on the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986).
