Lee Hardcastle is a British clay animator.

Life and career

Hardcastle studied at the Northern Film School of

Leeds Beckett University Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The univ ...

and started to release clay animations on YouTube in the mid-2000s. Hardcastle was selected as the 26th director of the 2011 film ''

The ABCs of Death ''The ABCs of Death'' is a 2012 American comedy horror anthology film produced by international producers and directed by filmmakers from around the world. The film contains 26 shorts, each by different directors spanning fifteen countries, incl ...

'', to which he contributed the animated short ''T is for Toilet''. He directed and animated the music video for the Kill the Noise song "Blvck Mvgic (Kill the Noise Pt. 2)". In 2012, Hardcastle released the animated short ''Pingu's The Thing'' to YouTube, a mashup of animation series ''

Pingu ''Pingu'' is a stop-motion children's television series co-created by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann. It was originally produced from 1990 to 2000 by Swiss company The Pygos Group (originally called Trickfilmstudio) for SF DRS in Switzerl ...

'' and horror movie '' The Thing'' that quickly became viral on the platform and for which he was praised by ''The Thing'' director

John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...

. The video was subsequently removed from Hardcastle's YouTube channel at the request of ''Pingu'' owners

HIT Entertainment HIT Entertainment Limited (commonly written as HiT) was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Soph ...

, to which Hardcastle reacted by uploading a shot-by-shot recreation of the video entitled ''Claycat's The Thing'', featuring cats instead of penguins. Hardcastle lists the works of filmmakers

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...

Robert Rodriguez Robert Anthony Rodriguez (; born June 20, 1968) is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor. He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas. Rodriguez directed the 1992 ac ...

, and

Sam Raimi Samuel M. Raimi ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the Spider-Man (2002 film series), ''Spider-Man'' trilogy (2002–2007) and the ''Evil Dead'' franchise (1981–present). He also directed the 1 ...

, as well as animated series ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

'' and ''

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...

'' as major influences.

References

External links

* * * 1985 births English animators British animated film directors Horror film directors People from Leeds Living people Clay animators Horror animation Stop motion animators Animation controversies English YouTubers YouTube channels launched in 2006 YouTube animators Online obscenity controversies Obscenity controversies in animation Internet-related controversies Obscenity controversies {{animator-stub