''Down and Out'' is a 1977 short film created by

Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and clay ani ...

. It is part of the

Animated Conversations Animated Conversations is a series of short animated films by Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio ba ...

series. In this short, creators David Sproxton and Peter Lord "applied the groundbreaking technique of using recorded conversations of real people as the basis for the script".

History

David Sproxton said "That was the first film of five minutes we had ever made and the first we had ever done using found sound, produced by a big producer called Colin Thomas. We sent x-BBC producer Jeremy Isaacsthe small amount of work we had, which was basically Down and Out and some kids' stuff. And he called us up to the London office...and said 'I've seen that film Down and Out. We'd like ten of those for our first week's transmission.'" These were the 5 shorts of

Conversation Pieces Conversation Pieces is a reworking of the Animated Conversations concept. It consists of a series of five shorts which aired on Channel Four between 1982 and 1983. Each of the 5 shorts were five minutes long. As AllAboutAardman explains, "in the ...

, and later the five short of the

Lip Synch Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , the same as the word ''sink'', short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. Audio for lip syncing is generated thr ...

series. According to Aardman Animation,

Production

This was the first film to use the technique developed by Sproxton and Lordan of "animating puppet characters to spontaneous, realistic conversations, rather than prepared scripts...It impressed producer Jeremy Isaacs, who commissioned five five-minute films [entitled

] for the newly established Channel 4 in London. ''Animated Documentary'' explains "Confessions of a Foyer Girl and Down and Out were based on eavesdropped conversations and pair documentary sound with stop motion animation of Plasticine figures.

References

External links

Full movie posted by Aardman's official channel on youtube
{{Aardman Animations 1978 films British animated short films 1970s English-language films 1970s British films