Nicholas Wulstan Park (born 6 December 1958) is an English filmmaker and animator who created '' Wallace & Gromit'', '' Creature Comforts'', '' Chicken Run'', '' Shaun the Sheep'', and '' Early Man''. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award seven 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). He has also received seven BAFTA Awards, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation for '' A Matter of Loaf and Death'', which was believed to be the most-watched television programme in the United Kingdom in 2008. His 2000 film '' Chicken Run'' is the highest-grossing stop motion animated film. In 1985 Park joined Aardman Animations, based in

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, and for his work in animation he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a 2012 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. Park was appointed a CBE by Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

in the 1997 Birthday Honours for "services to the animated film industry".

Early life

Nicholas Wulstan Park was born on 6 December 1958 in Preston, Lancashire, to seamstress Mary Cecilia ('' née'' Ashton; born 1930) and Roger Wulstan Park (1925–2004), an architectural photographer. The middle child of five siblings, he grew up in Penwortham; the family later moved to Walmer Bridge. His sister Janet lives in Longton, Lancashire. He attended Cuthbert Mayne High School (now Our Lady's Catholic High School). Park grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons, and as a 13-year-old, he made films with the help of his mother, her home film camera and cotton bobbins. He also took after his father, an amateur inventor, and would submit to '' Blue Peter'' homemade items such as a bottle that squeezed out different coloured wools. 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, Park joined the staff of Aardman Animations in

, where he worked as an animator on commercial products (including the dance scene involving oven-ready chickens for the music video for Peter Gabriel's " Sledgehammer"). 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 and

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

. 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. 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 one of Aardman Animations' archive warehouses. The fire resulted in the loss of some 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. In October 2007, it was announced that the BBC had commissioned another Wallace and Gromit short film to be entitled ''Trouble at Mill'' (retitled later to '' A Matter of Loaf and Death''). Park studied at Preston College, which has since named its library for the art and design department after him: th
Nick Park Library Learning Centre
He is the recipient of a gold ''Blue Peter'' badge. By the beginning of 2010, Park had won four Academy Awards, and had the distinction of having won an Academy Award 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 Academy Award. 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''. 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 The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

while unintentionally inventing football. On 21 May 2019, Park announced that a new Wallace and Gromit project was currently in the works, with no projected release date. In January 2022, Park announced that the project was currently in production as a

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...

for release in 2024 for the BBC and Netflix. The film, '' Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl'', was first shown on BBC One on Christmas Day 2024, and also featured the return of ''Wrong Trousers'' villain Feathers McGraw.

Personal life

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'' 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. Park married Mags Connolly at the Gibbon Bridge Hotel near Chipping on 16 September 2016. 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.

Honours

In 1996, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath. On 25 October 1997, Park was awarded the Honorary Freedom of Preston, his home town (now city), which is the highest award a Council can bestow on an individual. 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 city where it is based. In response, Park sent the university a message to say how honoured he was by it.

Influences

Nick Park has stated that his main influences have been Ray Harryhausen, Oliver Postgate, Peter Firmin, Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki, Yuri Norstein, Richard Williams, Terry Gilliam, and Bob Godfrey. He was inspired by Gilliam's animation in Monty Python "to be a bit wacky and off the wall." He is a fan of Gerry Anderson, known for " Supermarionation" as seen in '' Thunderbirds''. He is a fan of '' The Beano'' comic, and guest-edited the 70th-anniversary issue dated 2 August 2008. He stated, "My dream job was always to work on ''The Beano'' and it's such an honour for me to be Guest Editor." 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.

Filmography

Feature films

Short films

Television and web series

Music videos

Commercials

* ''Burger King'' commercials * ''The Electricity Association''

Video games

* ''Wallace & Gromit Fun Pack'' (1996) * ''Wallace & Gromit Fun Pack 2'' (1999)

Awards and nominations

References

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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Park, Nick 1958 births Living people Aardman Animations people Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University Alumni of the National Film and Television School Animation screenwriters Annie Award winners British animated film directors British animated film producers British comedy film directors British animators English male television writers British television writers Clay animators Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Directors of Best Animated Feature Academy Award winners Directors of Best Animated Short Academy Award winners English animators English film directors English film producers English male screenwriters English screenwriters English television directors English television producers English television writers Mass media people from Preston, Lancashire Royal Designers for Industry Stop motion animators Wallace and Gromit