Aardman Animations, Ltd. is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $134.7 million per film. Aardman's films have been consistently very well received, and their stop-motion films are among the highest-grossing produced, with their debut, Chicken Run (2000), being their top-grossing film as well as the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time.
William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
Bob the Builder is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series follows the adventures of Bob, a building contractor, specialising in masonry, along with his colleague Wendy, various neighbours, and friends, and their gang of anthropomorphised work-vehicles and equipment. The show is broadcast in many countries but originated from the United Kingdom where Bob was voiced by English actor Neil Morrissey. The series originally used stop-motion from 1999 to 2009, but later used CGI animation starting with the spin-off series Ready, Steady, Build!. British proprietors of Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine sold the enterprise in 2011 to US toy-maker Mattel for $680 million.
Cosgrove Hall Films was an English animation studio founded by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall; its headquarters was in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Cosgrove Hall was once a major producer of children's television and animated programmes/films; Cosgrove Hall's programmes are still seen in over eighty countries. The company was wound down by its then owner, ITV plc, on 26 October 2009. It was mainly known for its series Danger Mouse, The Wind in the Willows and Count Duckula.
HIT Entertainment Limited was a British-American entertainment company and a label of Mattel Television. The company was founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, but later sold to Peter Orton in 1989. It was co-founded by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sophie Turner Laing. HIT owned and distributed children's television series such as Thomas & Friends, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Pingu, Barney & Friends, and Angelina Ballerina. In February 2012, the company was acquired by Mattel; since 2018, the company serves as a subsidiary of Mattel Television, managing its home media library.
Pingu is a stop-motion children's series co-created by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann. It was originally produced from 1990 to 2000 for Swiss television by Trickfilmstudio for the SF DRS channel in Switzerland. It was later revived from 2003 to 2006 for British television by HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series focuses on a family of anthropomorphic emperor penguins who live in the South Pole; the main character is the family's son and title character, Pingu.
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Mainframe Studios, originally known as Mainframe Entertainment Inc., is a Canadian computer animation and design company founded in 1991. They are currently owned by Wow Unlimited Media and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company previously operated as Rainmaker Entertainment from 2007 to 2016, after it was acquired by Rainmaker Income Fund ; and Rainmaker Studios from 2016 to 2020, with the "Mainframe" name eventually repurposed for Rainmaker's television production division from 2013 to 2020.
Nicktoons is a collective name used by Nickelodeon for their original animated series. All Nicktoons are produced partly at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and list Nickelodeon's parent company in their copyright bylines.
Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio owned by Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on May 9, 2002. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while all direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Toon City is a Filipino animation studio located in Manila. Its primary contractor is The Walt Disney Company and its DisneyToon Studios division, which produces animated TV series and direct-to-video films. They have also done a few commercials and several direct-to-video work for Nickelodeon, Universal, Warner Bros., HBO and Cinegroupe.
Brambly Hedge is a series of illustrated children's books by Jill Barklem, recounting the adventures of a community of mice who live together in the tranquil surroundings of the English countryside. The writer described Brambly Hedge as a loving and caring society. The tales involve conflict resolution within nature or exploration, and/or the adventures of working together to achieve a common goal. There are no unkind characters or predators.
Cuppa Coffee Studios is a Canadian production company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Cuppa Coffee was founded by Adam Shaheen in 1992. It specializes in both stop-motion animation and 2D animation, winning over 150 international awards. Cuppa Coffee is currently developing live-action content through Cuppa Coffee USA.
Keith Hopwood is an English pop and rock musician, singer-songwriter, composer, businessman and record producer, who served as the rhythm guitarist and backing vocals for the 1960s pop band, Herman's Hermits. Hopwood also served as a keyboardist, singer and guitarist for the post-Peter Noone outfit, Sour Mash, which recorded an unreleased album, A Whale of a Tale for RCA.
S4 Studios, LLC is a multidisciplinary broadcast design, animation and visual effects studio, founded in 1999 by Geoffrey Kater and Dale Hendrickson, augmented two years later by Larry Le Francis. The company is named after a highly sensitive and purportedly extraterrestrial alien research complex located within the super-secret U.S. government base Area 51. Kater, a futurist designer, came from Saban Entertainment. Le Francis was an animation series producer at Klasky Csupo, Inc. and Nickelodeon. Hendrickson designed some 2,000 characters for Fox TV’s The Simpsons during his seven years as the series’ Character Design Supervisor. He left S4 Studios in 2006. Originally located in Van Nuys, California, the company relocated to Hollywood, California in 2004.
Jackie Cockle is a British stop frame animation specialist. She is the creator and creative producer of the pre-school animation Timmy Time, creative producer of Bob the Builder and Brambly Hedge, director of The Wind in the Willows and more. Cockle, a graduate of the Manchester College of Art and Design, has won 3 Bafta awards: one in the best animation category for Bob the Builder 30 minute special (2002) and two in the pre-school animation for Timmy Time - a production of the Bristol-based Aardman Animations.
Pingu in the City is a Japanese computer-animated television series produced by Sony Creative Products, Polygon Pictures and Dandelion Animation Studios in collaboration with Mattel Television. It is a reboot based on the stop-motion television series Pingu by HIT Entertainment and The Pygos Group. The series first aired on all NHK stations in Japan from October 7, 2017 to March 30, 2019.
Chapman Television Channel was a United Kingdom television production company founded by Keith Chapman and Greg Lynn.
