Peter Lord


Peter Lord, CBE is an English animator, film producer, director and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace and Gromit. He also directed The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
Lord is the executive producer of every Aardman work, including Chicken Run, Arthur Christmas and Flushed Away.

Life and career

Lord was born in Bristol, England. In co-operation with David Sproxton, a friend of his youth, he realised 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 1980-1981, Morph appeared in his own TV series The Amazing Adventures of Morph.
Experiments with animated clay characters synchronised 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" and "Confessions of a Foyer Girl" . 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 finalised their style of detailed and lovingly designed clay animation characters from stop motion techniques. In 1991 Lord animated Adam, a 6-minute clay animation that was nominated for an Academy Award. Park created the "odd-couple" Wallace and Gromit-shorts in co-operation with Lord and Sproxton. All three together worked as producers, editors and directors. Other awarded productions by Peter Lord are Chicken Run, the first feature film from Aardman and the Academy Award-winning .
In 2006, Lord, Sproxton and Park were all given "the Freedom of the City of Bristol". In that same year, Lord 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 Pirates! Band of Misfits.
Lord was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire 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.

Filmography

Feature films

YearFilmDirectorProducerWriterOtherNotes
2000Chicken Run
Story
2005
2006Flushed Away
Story
2011Arthur Christmas
2012The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
Actor: "Additional voices"
2013The Croods
Special thanks
2015Shaun the Sheep Movie
Executive producer
2018Early Man

TV series

YearTitleNotes
1977Take HartAnimator
1977-1978Animated ConversationsDirector; animator
1986Pee-wee's PlayhouseAnimation director
1986No. 73Himself
1995The Morph FilesDirector; executive producer
1998Rex the RuntExecutive producer
2000OmnibusHimself
2000The PanelHimself
2002Wallace and Gromit's Cracking ContraptionsExecutive producer
2003-2006Creature ComfortsExecutive producer
2006Planet EarthThanks
2006Purple and BrownExecutive producer
2007The Peculiar Adventures of HectorExecutive producer
2007-presentShaun the SheepExecutive producer
2008Chop Socky ChooksExecutive producer
2009-2012Timmy TimeExecutive producer
2010Wallace and Gromit's World of InventionExecutive producer
2014-presentMorphExecutive producer; script writer

Shorts

YearTitleNotes
1983Sales PitchDirector; animator
1983On ProbationDirector; producer; animator
1983Palmy DaysDirector; animator
1983Late EditionDirector; animator
1983Early BirdDirector; animator
1986SledgehammerAnimator
1986BabylonDirector; animator
1987My Baby Just Cares for MeDirector
1989War StoryDirector; animator
1989A Grand Day OutSpecial thanks
1990Going EquippedDirector; animator
1992AdamDirector; writer; executive producer; art director; animator; model maker
1992Never Say Pink Furry DieExecutive producer
1993Loves Me, Loves Me NotExecutive producer
1993The Wrong TrousersExecutive producer; additional animator
1993Not Without My HandbagExecutive producer
1995Pib and PogExecutive producer
1995A Close ShaveExecutive producer
1996Wat's PigDirector; writer; executive producer; animator
1997Stage FrightExecutive producer
1997OwzatExecutive producer
1999HumdrumExecutive producer
1999Minotaur and Little NerkinThanks
2001Chunga Chui Leopard BewareExecutive producer
2001ErnestExecutive producer
2005Tales for the Rest of UsExecutive producer
2005Ramble OnExecutive producer
2006Off BeatExecutive producer
2007The Pearce SistersExecutive producer
2008A Matter of Loaf and DeathExecutive producer
2011The Itch of the Golden NitExecutive producer
2011PythagasaurusExecutive producer
2012So You Want to Be a Pirate!Executive producer
2015Heroes of ChristmasInspiration
2015Special DeliveryStory; creative director; voice of "Santa"
2015Executive producer

Books