Great | |
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Directed by | Bob Godfrey |
Written by | Colin Pearson (un-credited), Bob Godfrey, Richard Taylor, Joe McGrath, Robin Smyth, Paul Weisser |
Produced by | Ron Inkpen (un-credited) Bob Godfrey [1] |
Starring |
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Narrated by | Harry Fowler |
Edited by | Tony Fish, Peter Hearn |
Music by | Jonathan P. Hodge |
Production company | Grantstern Films |
Distributed by | British Lion Films [2] |
Release date |
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Running time | 28 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Great is a British 28-minute animated short film released in 1975, telling a humorous version of the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It was directed by Bob Godfrey, produced by Grantstern Films and distributed by British Lion.
Great won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 48th Academy Awards in March 1976, making it the first British animated film to do so. [3] [4] Great also won the BAFTA award for Best Animated Film in that same year. [5] [6]
The film recounts the life and works of the 19th century British civil engineer and architect Isambard Kingdom Brunel in a way that is affectionate while often tongue-in-cheek. The narrator, voiced by Harry Fowler, explains the triumphs and setbacks of Brunel's career, comparing him to Archimedes, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Richard Briers provides the voice of Brunel. There are numerous songs in the film, including "Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead".
Great is primarily an animated film, although it is mixed media, combining some live action sequences with the animation. [7]
In an interview with The Guardian in April 2001, Bob Godfrey explained how the film came about:
I'd been reading a book about Brunel so I asked British Lion, who backed Kama Sutra [Rides Again], if I could have some money to make a half-hour cartoon about a Victorian engineer. Yes, they said, here's £20,000. They thought the sun shone out of my arse at the time. They'd have given me money to animate a toilet if I'd asked them. [8]
Great has not been released on home video formats such as VHS or DVD with the official website of The Bob Godfrey Collection stating that this was due to the film's copyright status. [9] The film was made available as a digital download in January 2017. [10]
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931–32, to the present.
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engineering giants", and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions". Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering.
Roland Frederick Godfrey MBE, known as Bob Godfrey, was an English animator whose career spanned more than fifty years. He is probably best known for the children's cartoon series Roobarb (1974), Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1976–77) and Henry's Cat (1983–93) and for the Trio chocolate biscuit advertisements shown in the UK during the early 1980s. However, he also produced a BAFTA and Academy award-winning short film, Great (1975), a humorous biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Further Academy Awards nominations received were for Kama Sutra Rides Again (1971), Dream Doll (1979), with Zlatko Grgic, and Small Talk (1994) with animator Kevin Baldwin.
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