DAVID SPROXTON is the co-founder and Managing Director of Aardman. Together with co-founder Peter Lord, he has overseen the company's growth from a two-man partnership into one of the pre-eminent animation houses in the industry. Over the years, Sproxton has served as a producer, director or cinematographer on a number of animated films at Aardman.
Sproxton and Lord met in grammar school, and, in 1970, made their first animated film using Sproxton's Bolex camera. A crude piece using cutouts and chalk drawings, it nevertheless showed enough talent for a BBC Children's Television producer to offer the pair a chance to make short animated films for his program "Vision On."
Following graduation from Durham University, Sproxton decided to pursue filmmaking full-time. In 1972, Sproxton and Lord formed Aardman, and, in 1976, moved to their permanent home in Bristol, England. Their first professional creation was the character Morph, who went on to star in the BBC series "The Amazing Adventures of Morph."
During this period, the duo made two short animated films, "Down and Out" and "Confessions of a Foyer Girl," applying the groundbreaking technique of using recorded conversations of real people as the basis for the script. Later, five more films called "Conversation Pieces," using the same "vox pop" technique, were commissioned by Channel 4. "Vox pop" was also utilized in Aardman's "Lip Synch" series for Channel 4, which included Nick Park's Oscar®-winning "Creature Comforts."
In addition to Park, the studio is known for discovering and nurturing new filmmakers, including triple Oscar® winner Nick Park; Steve Box, who won a BAFTA Award for his direction of "Stage Fright"; the Oscar®-nominated and BAFTA-winning Peter Peake, the director of "HumDrum"; and Richard Goleszowski, who directs the "Rex the Runt" series for BBC 2. Aardman's most recent short film projects include Darren Walsh's "Angry Kid" series, which is being released directly onto the Internet.
