Peter Lord

Life and career

Lord was born in Bristol, England. In collaboration with David Sproxton, a friend of his youth at school together in Woking in the 1960s, he realized his dream of "making and taking an animated movie". He graduated in English from the University of York in 1976. He and Sproxton founded Aardman as a low-budget backyard studio, producing shorts and trailers for publicity. Their work was first shown as part of the BBC TV series Vision On. In 1977, they created Morph, a stop-motion animated character made of Plasticine, who was usually a comic foil to the TV presenter Tony Hart. With his amoral friend Chas, he appeared in a series of children's art programmes including Take Hart, Hartbeat and Smart. From 1980 to 1981, Morph appeared in his own TV series The Amazing Adventures of Morph.

Experiments with animated clay characters synchronized with 'live' recorded soundtracks led to a series of films in the style of animated documentary. The first two were part of the BBC TV series Animated Conversations and were called "Down and Out" (1977) and "Confessions of a Foyer Girl" (1978). These were followed in 1983 by Conversation Pieces, a series of five-minute-long films produced for Channel 4. They were called "On Probation", Sales Pitch, "Palmy Days", "Late Edition" and "Early Bird".

In 1985, Nick Park joined the group.

Lord, Park and Sproxton developed and finalized their style of detailed and lovingly designed clay animation characters from stop-motion techniques (though directed by Stephen R. Johnson their claymation is shown in the music video "Sledgehammer" (1986) by Peter Gabriel). In 1991, Lord animated Adam, a 6-minute clay animation that was nominated for an Academy Award. Park created the "odd-couple" Wallace & Gromit-shorts in collaboration with Lord and Sproxton. All three together worked as producers, editors and directors. Other awarded productions by Peter Lord are Chicken Run (2000), the first feature film from Aardman and the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

In 2006, Lord, Sproxton and Park were all given "the Freedom of the City of Bristol". In that same year, Lord (along with Sproxton) visited the "Aardman Exhibit" at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan, where he met Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki has long been a fan of the Aardman Animation works. In 2013, Lord was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards for The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012).

Lord was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006.

On 9 July 2015, Lord received a Gold Blue Peter badge.

In August 2016, Lord was appointed a visiting professorship at Volda University College.

Three of Lord's films–War Story, Adam, and Wat's Pig–have been preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

In 2021, he was featured in the film Cartoon Carnival, a documentary about the origins of animation.

Filmography

Feature films

TV series

Shorts

Video games

Books

• Peter Lord & Brian Sibley: Cracking Animation (1998) Thames & Hudson;

References

References

1. "Peter Duncan Fraser Lord personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
2. "University of York press release". york.ac.uk.
3. (27 November 2009). "INTERVIEW – In Conversation With Merlin Crossingham, Lead Animator at Aardman Animation". Alternative Magazine.
4. (24 November 2006). "Aardman exhibits, new Miyazaki anime on view". The Japan Times.
5. {{London Gazette. (17 June 2006)
6. (10 July 2015). "Peter Lord Earns Blue Peter Badge".
7. Brandal, Per Arne. "– Mr. Aardman, Peter Lord, appointed professor in Volda".
8. "Preserved Projects".
9. [https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/cartoon-carnival-and-fleischer-tribute-on-tcm-saturday-oct-2nd/ “Cartoon Carnival” and Fleischer Tribute on TCM Saturday Oct. 2nd]