11/10/2005

30 years of British animation history was destroyed yesterday as a fire that lasted several hours broke out at Bristol-based Aardman studios warehouse where many memorabilia items from Wallace & Gromit films and Chicken Run were stored.

"The facility used to store sets, awards and historical artefacts is not part of the Aardman studio, and we are glad to report that no Aardman staff has been affected," said an official statement from the animation studios. "However, we have lost a number of irreplaceable storyboards, awards, props and pieces of film memorabilia from our 30 year history. None of the material from the new Wallace & Gromit film The Curse Of The Were Rabbit [+see also:
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However not to sound too pessimistic, Aardman studios added that the fire «will not in any way affect existing or future Aardman productions as 100% of sets and props are purpose built for each production».
Interviewed by BBC television as he came back from the US launch of Wallace & Gromit’s first feature film version The Curse Of The Were Rabbit, the characters creator Nick Park said: "Even though it’s precious stuff and nostalgic, and also dreadful news for the company, in the light of other tragedies in the world it’s not a big deal."
The cause of the fire has not been determined yet, but the studios had apparently already been the victim of small arsenal attacks in the past.

Aardman Animations was set up in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton who created their legendary claymation character Morph in 1977. Nick Park joined the duo in 1985 and went on winning two Oscars for Wallace & Gromit’s short films The Wrong Trousers in 1993 and A Close Shave in 1995.
The irony is that the tragedy happened at a time when Aardman is celebrating the hugely successful international launch last weekend of Wallace & Gromit’s The Curse Of The Were Rabbit co-produced with Dreamworks in the US. The film scored over $16m (€ 13m) from 3,645 screens across the US, took another $5m (€ 4.06) in the UK from UIP preview screenings (ahead of its October 14 official release date) and over $9.2m (€ 7.7m) from 1,800 sites elsewhere including $900,000 (€ 750,000) from 225 screens in Spain according to Screen daily. A bright future ahead for Aardman in spite of a past now in ashes.