Dave Alex Riddett

Last updated

Dave Alex Riddett

BSC
Born (1954-11-25) 25 November 1954 (age 67)
NationalityBritish
OccupationCinematographer
Years active1991–present
Children2

David Alexander Riddett BSC (born 25 November 1954) [1] is a prominent English cinematographer mostly known for his work at Aardman Animations.

Contents

Early life and education

Riddett was born in Harborough, England. [2] He was brought up in village of Great Bowden. [2] His father, Alec Riddett, was a photographer and artistic manager at Harborough Theatre, hence was Riddett's love for art and cinema. [2] Riddett studied Art in Loughborough College, Communication Design (Film) at Leeds College of Art (Bachelor's Degree) and received Certificate in Radio, Film and Television at University of Bristol.

Career

After finishing University of Bristol Riddett directed some student projects there. Then, in 1983 he and Dave Borthwick opened studio bolexbrothers, producing short films, music promos and TV title sequences. In 1985, still being employed by bolexbrothers, Riddett's talent was noted by Aardman Animations and he joined them as freelance member. Here he notably worked, as Cinematographer, with Nick Park on his acclaimed Creature Comforts short and legendary Wallace & Gromit series, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. Notably, Riddett quit bolexbrothers after 6 years of working here during production of Creature Comforts. During his early years at Aardman Dave also supplied his camera skills for "Sledgehammer" music video. [3]

In 2000, Riddett was Senior Director of photography on much-acclaimed Chicken Run, Aardman's first feature production then, and was nominated on BAFTA Awards for his work in special visual effects. [4] In 2005 and 2008 Riddett was Director of Photography for Wallace & Gromit's first feature film and for the short Wallace and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf & Death respectively. DoP on Wallace and Gromit World of Inventions and Wallace and Gromit at the Proms. In 2015 he was Director of Photography on Shaun the Sheep the Movie. Recent Films include Nick Parks feature 'Early Man' (2018) and Academy Nominated Robin Robin ( 2021 ) . Dave Alex was made a full member of the British Society of Cinematographers in 2020.

Personal

Riddett and his wife are living in Bristol, city of Aardman's HQ. They have 2 children, a daughter, Charly and a son, Max.

Related Research Articles

<i>Wallace and Gromit</i> British clay animation comedy series

Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion comedy franchise created by Nick Park of Aardman Animations. The series consists of four short films and one feature-length film, and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his silent yet loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and made public in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actors Peter Sallis and Ben Whitehead. Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.

Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Park</span> British animator and filmmaker

Nicholas Wulstan Park is a British animator who created Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

<i>The Wrong Trousers</i> 1993 stop-motion animated short film directed by Nick Park

The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 British stop-motion animated short film co-written and directed by Nick Park, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit, and was produced by Aardman Animations in association with Wallace and Gromit Ltd., BBC Bristol, Lionheart Television and BBC Children's International. It is the second film featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit, following A Grand Day Out (1989). In the film, a villainous penguin named Feathers McGraw uses Wallace and Gromit's robot "Techno-Trousers" to steal a diamond from the city museum. This was the last Wallace and Gromit film to have Wallace as the only spoken character.

<i>A Grand Day Out</i> 1989 short film directed by Nick Park

A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit, later marketed as A Grand Day Out, is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace and Gromit. It was directed, co-written, and animated by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and Aardman Animations in Bristol.

<i>Morph</i> (TV series) Claymation series on UK TV

Morph is a British series of clay stop-motion comedy animations, named after the main character, who is a small plasticine man, who speaks an unintelligible language and lives on a tabletop, his bedroom being a small wooden box. This fictional character was initially seen interacting with Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his UKTV programmes, notably Take Hart and Hartbeat.

<i>Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit</i> 2005 film by Nick Park and Steve Box

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a 2005 stop-motion animated supernatural comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations. It was directed by Nick Park and Steve Box as the second feature-length film by Aardman, after Chicken Run (2000). It was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by DreamWorks Pictures, as the studio spun off as an independent studio in 2004 until being acquired by Universal Pictures in 2016. The film premiered in Sydney, Australia on September 4, 2005, before being released in cinemas in the United States on 7 October 2005 and in the United Kingdom a week later on October 14, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Sproxton</span> Co-founder of Aardman Animations studio

David Sproxton, is a British entrepreneur, best known as one of the co-founders, with Peter Lord, of the Aardman Animations studio. Sproxton was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Lord</span> British animator

Peter Lord CBE is an English animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace and Gromit. He also directed The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.

Steven "Steve" Royston Box is an English animator and director who works for Aardman Animations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Starzak</span> English animator, screenwriter, and film director

Richard Starzak, previously known as Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, is an English animator, screenwriter, and film director.

<i>Purple and Brown</i> 2006 British animated television series

Purple and Brown is a British stop-motion animated short television series made in collaboration with Nickelodeon and Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Creature Comforts, Angry Kid, Morph and Shaun the Sheep. The series was devised and directed by Rich Webber and edited by Mike Percival, who also offered the voices of the characters, and first aired in February 2006, on Nickelodeon's UK and Ireland channel, and then later became a staple on the US Nickelodeon network as part of its former Nick Extra short program.

<i>Grass Roots</i> (film) Clay animated film

Grass Roots is a proposed British-American adult clay film based on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers underground comic strip created by Gilbert Shelton.

bolexbrothers was an independent British animation studio founded by Dave Borthwick and Dave Alex Riddett in Bristol, UK. The studio specialised in stop motion and pixilation animation, producing numerous short films and commercials, as well as two feature films, The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993) and The Magic Roundabout, (2005). The studio was named after the Bolex brand of 16mm cameras once popular with animators and was first established as a collective of artists in the 1980s before becoming a company in 1991 and running to roughly 2008.

<i>A Matter of Loaf and Death</i> 2008 animated short film directed by Nick Park

A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations, created by Nick Park, and is the fourth short to star his characters Wallace and Gromit, the first one since A Close Shave in 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Bowers (director)</span> English animator, film director, screenwriter and voice actor

David Bowers is an English animator, film director, screenwriter and voice actor.

Christopher Sadler is a British animator, director and writer. He is primarily known for his work on Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Rex the Runt, Cracking Contraptions, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep.

<i>Adam</i> (1992 film) 1992 British film

Adam is a 1992 British 6-minute stop motion clay animated short film written, animated and directed by Peter Lord of Aardman Animations. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short and the equivalent award at BAFTA in 1992, and won two awards at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 1993. It is based on the beginning of the Book of Genesis. It was distributed by Aardman Animations.

Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.

<i>Robin Robin</i> Holiday special on Netflix

Robin Robin is a 2021 British stop-motion animated musical streaming television special produced by Aardman Animations and created and directed by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please with a script they wrote with Sam Morrison.

References

  1. Dave Alex Riddett's page at Freebase
  2. 1 2 3 Talk on Wallace & Gromit by Harborough Mail, 7 March 2011.
  3. Full credits of "Sledgehammer" at Turner Classic Movies Database.
  4. BAFTA Film Nominations 2000.