Nick Park

Nicholas Wulstan Park, CBE, RDI[3][4] (born 6 December 1958),[1] is an English animator, director and writer best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, and Shaun the Sheep.[5] 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).[6]

Nick Park CBE RDI
Park at the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
Born	Nicholas Wulstan Park (1958-12-06) 6 December 1958[1] Preston, Lancashire, England
Occupation	Animator, director, writer, producer
Nationality	British
Genre	Animation
Notable works	Wallace and Gromit Creature Comforts Shaun the Sheep Chicken Run
Notable awards	CBE (1997) RDI (2006) Four Academy Awards (1989, 1993, 1995, 2005)
Years active	1985–present
Spouse	Mags Connolly ( m. 2016)

He has also received five BAFTA Awards, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation for A Matter of Loaf and Death, which was also the most watched television programme in the United Kingdom in 2008.[7][8] His 2000 film Chicken Run is the highest-grossing stop motion animated film.[9]

For his work in animation, in 2012, Park was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of Blake's most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life.[10][11]

Early life

Park was born in Brookfield Park in Preston, Lancashire to Mary Cecilia (née Ashton, born 1930), a seamstress, and Roger Wulstan Park (1925–2004), an architectural photographer.[12] The middle child of five siblings, Park grew up on Greenlands Estate; the family later moved to Walmer Bridge, where his mother still resides. His sister Janet lives in Longton.[13] He attended Cuthbert Mayne High School (now Our Lady's Catholic High School).

He grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons, and as a 13-year-old made films with the help of his mother and her home movie camera and cotton bobbins. He also took after his father, an amateur inventor, and would send homemade items like a bottle that squeezed out different coloured wools in to Blue Peter.[14]

He studied Communication Arts at Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) and then went to the National Film and Television School, where he started making the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out.

Career

In 1985, he joined the staff of Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products (including the music video for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", where he worked on the dance scene involving oven-ready chickens). He also had a part in animating the Penny cartoons from the first season of Pee-wee's Playhouse, which featured Paul Reubens as his character Pee-wee Herman.

Along with all this, he had finally completed A Grand Day Out, and with that in post production, he made Creature Comforts as his contribution to a series of shorts called "Lip Synch". Creature Comforts matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about their homes. The two films were nominated for a host of awards. A Grand Day Out beat Creature Comforts for the BAFTA Award, but it was Creature Comforts that won Park his first Oscar.

In 1990, Park worked alongside advertising agency GGK to develop a series of highly acclaimed television advertisements for the "Heat Electric" campaign. The Creature Comforts advertisements are now regarded as among the best advertisements ever shown on British television, as voted (independently) by viewers of the United Kingdom's main commercial channels ITV[15] and Channel 4.[16]

Two more Wallace and Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), followed, both winning Oscars. He then made his first feature-length film, Chicken Run (2000), co-directed with Aardman founder Peter Lord. He also supervised a new series of Creature Comforts films for British television in 2003.

Park promoting in 2005 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

His second theatrical feature-length film and first Wallace and Gromit feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released on 5 October 2005, and won Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards, 6 March 2006.

On 10 October 2005, a fire gutted Aardman Animations' archive warehouse.[17] The fire resulted in the loss of most of Park's creations, including the models and sets used in the movie Chicken Run. Some of the original Wallace and Gromit models and sets, as well as the master prints of the finished films, were elsewhere and survived.

In 2007 and 2008 Park's work included a United States version of Creature Comforts, a weekly television series that was on CBS every Monday evening at 8 pm ET. In the series, Americans were interviewed about a range of subjects. The interviews were lip-synced to Aardman animal characters.

In September 2007, it was announced that Park had been commissioned to design a bronze statue of Wallace and Gromit, which will be placed in his home town of Preston.[18] In October 2007, it was announced that the BBC had commissioned another Wallace and Gromit short film to be entitled Trouble at Mill[19] (retitled later to A Matter of Loaf and Death).

Park studied at Preston College,[20] which has since named its library for the art and design department after him: the Nick Park Library Learning Centre. He is the recipient of a gold Blue Peter badge.[14]

By the beginning of 2010, Park had won four Academy Awards, and had the distinction of having won an Oscar every time he had been nominated (his only loss being when he was nominated twice in the same category). This streak ended in the 2010 Oscars when A Matter of Loaf and Death failed to win the best animated short Oscar.

Park had his first acting role in February 2011, voicing himself in a cameo on The Simpsons episode "Angry Dad: The Movie". In the episode, the fictional Park's new Willis and Crumble short, Better Gnomes and Gardens, is a parody of Wallace and Gromit.

In the end of 2011, Park directed a music video for "Plain Song"—a song by Native and the Name, a Sheffield band led by Joe Rose, the son of an old university friend. The video was filmed at Birkdale School, Sheffield, and Park also selected the track as one of his Desert Island Discs when he went on the show in 2011, which led to suggestions that Park was using his fame to give a friend a leg up in his career. Park denied these claims, insisting it had become one of his favourite songs. The song and video can be found on YouTube.

In April 2013, Park was involved in the British stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's animated film, Princess Mononoke.[21] He was the executive producer of Shaun the Sheep Movie and he also voiced himself in a cameo.

For 2018, he directed another Aardman Animations stop-motion film, titled Early Man, which tells a story of a caveman who unites his tribe against the Bronze Age while unintentionally inventing football.[22][23]

On 21 May 2019, Park announced that a new Wallace and Gromit project is currently in the works, with an unknown release date.[24][25]

Personal life

The Daily Telegraph remarked Park has taken on some attributes of Wallace, just "as dog owners come to look like their pets", overexpressing himself, possibly as a result of having to show animators how he wants his characters to behave.[14] He is a fan of The Beano comic, and guest-edited the 70th-anniversary issue dated 2 August 2008. He also contributed to Classics from the Comics at the same time, picking his favourite classic stories for the comic reprint magazine's new Classic Choice feature.

His film-making ideas were encouraged by his old English teacher; however, Park has denied that the character of Wallace was based on him.[26] Park married Mags Connolly at the Gibbon Bridge Hotel near Chipping on 16 September 2016.[27] Although by his own admission, he was not especially interested in football growing up, he has always nominally supported his hometown's local team, Preston North End.[28]

Awards and nominations

Year	Nominated For	Award	Category	Result[5]
1990	Creature Comforts	BAFTA	Best Animated Film	Nominated
	Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out	BAFTA	Best Animated Film	Won
1991	Creature Comforts	Oscar	Best Animated Short Film	Won
	Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out	Oscar	Best Animated Short Film	Nominated
1994	Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers	BAFTA	Best Animated Film	Won
	Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers	Oscar	Best Animated Short Film	Won
	Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers	Animafest	Best Animated Short Film	Won
1996	Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave	BAFTA	Best Animated Film	Won
	Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave	Oscar	Best Animated Short Film	Won
2001	Chicken Run	BAFTA	Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film	Nominated
2004	Creature Comforts	BAFTA	Comedy Programme or Series Award	Nominated
2005	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Oscar	Best Animated Feature	Won
2006	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	BAFTA	Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film	Won
2008	Creature Comforts	Emmy Award	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)	Nominated
2009	Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death	BAFTA	Best Short Animation	Won
2010	Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death	Oscar	Best Animated Short Film	Nominated

'Preston Legend'

In 2016, and following a vote by students on a number of nominated 'Preston Legends', the University of Central Lancashire named one of three new meeting rooms in the students' union after Park, who was born in the town where it is based. In response, Park sent the university a message to say how honoured he was by it.[29]

Influences

Nick Park has stated his main influences have been Ray Harryhausen, Alfred Hitchcock, Oliver Postgate, Hayao Miyazaki, Peter Firmin, Chuck Jones, Yuri Norstein, Richard Williams, Terry Gilliam, Herge, and Bob Godfrey.[30] He is a Gerry Anderson fan.[31]

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Director	Producer	Writer	Voice Actor	Notes
2000	Chicken Run	Yes	Yes	Story	No	Co-directed with Peter Lord
2005	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Co-directed with Steve Box
2015	Shaun the Sheep Movie	No	Executive	No	Yes	Voice cameo appearance; characters
2017	Too Funny to Fail	No	No	Additional	No	Documentary
2018	Early Man	Yes	Yes	Story	Yes	As role Hognob
2019	A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon	No	Executive	No	No	Characters
2021	Chicken Run 2	No	Yes	No	No	Characters

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Animator	Executive Producer	Notes
1985	Second Class Mail	No	No	Color	No
1986	Babylon	No	No	Yes	No
1989	War Story	No	No	Yes	No	Documentary
	Creature Comforts	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
	Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Also cinematographer
1993	Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1995	Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave	Yes	Yes	Character	No
1997	Stage Fright	No	No	No	Yes
2008	Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death	Yes	Yes	No	No
2012	Wallace & Gromit: Jubilee Bunt-a-thon	Yes	Yes	No	No

Television and web

Year	Title	Producer	Creator	Writer	Animator	Voice Actor	Notes
1986	Pee-wee's Playhouse	No	No	No	Yes	No	Animator for Penny cartoons
2002	Wallace and Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions	Yes	Developer	No	No	No
2003–2006	Creature Comforts	Executive	Yes	No	No	No
2007–2015	Shaun the Sheep	Executive	Idea	Yes	No	No	Including 3D, Championsheeps & The Farmer's Llamas
2009–2012	Timmy Time	Executive	No	No	No	No
2010	Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention	Executive	Yes	No	No	No
2011	The Simpsons	No	No	No	No	Yes	Voice cameo in "Angry Dad: The Movie"
2012	The BBC Proms	No	No	Yes	No	No	''Prom 20: Wallace & Gromit's Musical Marvels''
2017	Welcome to the Basement	No	No	No	Yes	No	''Wallace and Gromit''

Music videos

Year	Performer	Song	Animator
1986	Peter Gabriel	Sledgehammer	Yes
1996	Tina Turner & Barry White	In Your Wildest Dreams	Yes

Commercials

• Burger King commercials
• The Electricity Association

Video games

• Wallace & Gromit Fun Pack (1996, creator)

References

1. "PARK, Nicholas Wulstan". Who's Who. ukwhoswho.com. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. (subscription or UK public library membership required) (subscription required)
2. "Nick Park". Desert Island Discs. 19 December 2010. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
3. Staff (September 2006). "Nick Park 1958–". Biography Today. 15 (3): 84–101. ISSN 1058-2347. OCLC 24242423.
4. "BBC Politics 1997: Courage rewarded in honours list". BBC Television News. 1997. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
5. Nick Park on IMDb
6. "Aaardman – Company History". Retrieved 12 October 2011.
7. Robinson, James (26 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit lead BBC to Christmas ratings victory". Guardian.co.uk. London. Archived from the original on 6 January 2009. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
8. "Film Winners in 2009". BAFTA. Archived from the original on 11 February 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
9. "The Longer View: British animation". BBC. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
10. "Close-up: Sir Peter Blake's new Sgt Pepper collage". BBC News. BBC. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
11. "New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake's 80th birthday". The Guardian. 5 October 2016.
12. "Nick Park". Biography.com. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
13. "Nick Park Biography (1958-)". www.filmreference.com.
14. Nigel Farndale (18 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit: one man and his dog". The Daily Telegraph. UK. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
15. ITV’s Best Ever Adverts Archived 5 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
16. 100 Greatest TV Ads. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
17. "Animation archive up in smoke". BBC News. 10 October 2005. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
18. "Wallace and Gromit statue planned". BBC News. 6 September 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
19. "Wallace and Gromit return to TV". BBC News. 3 October 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
20. "Hall of fame 2005". Association of Colleges. 10 October 2005. Archived from the original on 7 April 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
21. "Nick Park's Involvement in Princess Mononoke Play Revealed".
22. Jaafar, Ali (6 May 2015). "Studiocanal Doubles Down On Family Fare: Reteams With Nick Park And Gilles De Maistre For New Pics – Cannes". Deadline. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
23. Jaafar, Ali (19 May 2015). "Nick Park's 'Early Man' A Prehistoric Blockbuster For StudioCanal; First Look Poster – Cannes". Deadline. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
24. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/nick-park-new-wallace-gromit-project-works-1212493
25. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/05/new-wallace-gromit-project-nick-park.html
26. Young, Susan (12 May 2008). "Nick Park". Times Educational Supplement. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
27. "Wallace and Gromit creator ties the knot in Lancashire". Lancashire Evening Post. 17 September 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
28. "'Wallace And Gromit' Creator Nick Park Goes Prehistoric For 'Early Man'". wvxu.org.
29. "UCLan Through The Ages". University of Central Lancashire. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
30. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/nick-park-favourite-animators-influences-early-man
31. "Famous Gerry Anderson Fans - Gerry Anderson News". Gerry Anderson. 25 March 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2019.

External links

• "Making His Mark in Clay: An Interview with Nick Park"—Nick Park speaks about his influences, on how he uses drawing to tell a story and tells what it was like to bring Wallace and Gromit to the big screen

Preceded by David Lean	NFTS Honorary Fellowship	Succeeded by Alan Parker