Barry Purves
Encyclopedia
Barry J.C. Purves is an English
animator
, director
and writer
of puppet animation
and also a designer
and director of stage plays
, primarily for the Altrincham Garrick
Playhouse
in Manchester
. Known as one of Britain's most celebrated animators on account of his six short films
(see filmography below), each of which has been nominated for numerous international awards (including Academy Award and British Academy Film Awards
nominations), he has also directed and animated for several television program
s and over seventy advertisements
, title sequence
s and animated insert sequences for feature films. His film credits include being head animator for Tim Burton
's Mars Attacks!
(before the decision was made to use computer animation
in place of stop motion), previsualization
animation director
for Peter Jackson
's King Kong
and being "casually involved," simultaneous to this, with animation for the same director's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
during the 2003 film's post-production
.
Purves has taught animation, made documentaries, written articles for magazines and books and his own book Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance was released through Focal Press
in 2007. He has held workshops about animation in several colleges in Europe
and beyond as well as major North America
n studios such as Dreamworks
, Pacific Data Images
, Pixar
and Will Vinton
Studios (now Laika Entertainment House
). Around 1996 he made plans to shoot a full-length film of Noye's Fludde
, Benjamin Britten
's opera version of a mystery play
about the Deluge; one of his strangest credits was co-presenting, in Mandarin, the live final of the Chinese
talent search show Super Girl in 2006.
A selection of his films, and those with animation by Ray Harryhausen
, the bolexbrothers
, Suzie Templeton
and others, were included alongside those of Kihachirō Kawamoto
himself in the Watershed Media Centre
season Kawamoto: The Puppet Master in 2008. The first DVD-Video
to collect together several of Purves' films was a French
release by Potemkine/Agnès b.'s DVD label on the 17 June 2008 with the title His Intimate Lives.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
, director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and writer
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
of puppet animation
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
and also a designer
Scenic design
Scenic design is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with M.F.A...
and director of stage plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, primarily for the Altrincham Garrick
Altrincham Garrick
The Altrincham Garrick Society is an amateur dramatic society in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, England. It normally stages 12 main productions per season in its own theatre building, the Altrincham Garrick Playhouse....
Playhouse
Theater (structure)
A theater or theatre is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance , a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces...
in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. Known as one of Britain's most celebrated animators on account of his six short films
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
(see filmography below), each of which has been nominated for numerous international awards (including Academy Award and British Academy Film Awards
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
nominations), he has also directed and animated for several television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
s and over seventy advertisements
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
, title sequence
Title sequence
A Title Sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound...
s and animated insert sequences for feature films. His film credits include being head animator for Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
's Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...
(before the decision was made to use computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
in place of stop motion), previsualization
Previsualization
Previsualization is a function to visualise complex scenes in movie before filming. It is also a concept in still photography...
animation director
Animation director
An animation director is the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated film or animated segment for a live-action film...
for Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's King Kong
King Kong (2005 film)
King Kong is a 2005 fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a remake of the 1933 film of the same name and stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody. Andy Serkis, through performance capture, portrays Kong....
and being "casually involved," simultaneous to this, with animation for the same director's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic fantasy-drama film directed by Peter Jackson that is based on the second and third volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings...
during the 2003 film's post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
.
Purves has taught animation, made documentaries, written articles for magazines and books and his own book Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance was released through Focal Press
Focal Press
Focal Press is a publisher of media technology books and it is an imprint of Elsevier. It was founded in 1938 by Andor Kraszna-Krausz, a Hungarian photographer who immigrated to England in 1937 and eventually published over 1,200 books on photography....
in 2007. He has held workshops about animation in several colleges in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and beyond as well as major North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n studios such as Dreamworks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
, Pacific Data Images
Pacific Data Images
Pacific Data Images is a computer animation production company that was bought by DreamWorks SKG. The company is now known as PDI/DreamWorks and is half of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., the public company formed by merging PDI and the feature animation division of DreamWorks.-History:PDI was...
, Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
and Will Vinton
Will Vinton
Will Vinton is an American director and producer of animated films. He was born in McMinnville, Oregon, near Portland. He has won an Oscar for his work, and several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for the work of his studio.- Education :...
Studios (now Laika Entertainment House
Laika Entertainment House
LAIKA, Inc. is an American animation studio specializing in feature films, commercials, music videos, broadcast graphics and short films. The studio is best known for its stop-motion feature film Coraline, released in 2009....
). Around 1996 he made plans to shoot a full-length film of Noye's Fludde
Noye's Fludde
Noye's Fludde is an early 15th century mystery play from the Chester Mystery Cycle. It was set to music by Benjamin Britten in 1957 based on an edition by Alfred W. Pollard...
, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's opera version of a mystery play
Mystery play
Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song...
about the Deluge; one of his strangest credits was co-presenting, in Mandarin, the live final of the Chinese
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
talent search show Super Girl in 2006.
A selection of his films, and those with animation by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
, the bolexbrothers
Bolexbrothers
bolexbrothers is an independent British animation studio based in Bristol. The studio specialises in stop motion animation, producing numerous short films and commercials, as well as one stop motion feature film, The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb...
, Suzie Templeton
Suzie Templeton
Suzie Templeton is a director, animator and writer of stop motion animation films. She is best known for her 2006 animated adaptation of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf....
and others, were included alongside those of Kihachirō Kawamoto
Kihachiro Kawamoto
was a Japanese puppet designer and maker, independent film director, screenwriter and animator and president of the Japan Animation Association from 1989, succeeding founder Osamu Tezuka, until his own death...
himself in the Watershed Media Centre
Watershed Media Centre
Watershed opened in June 1982 as the United Kingdom's first dedicated media centre. Based in former warehouses on the harbourside at Bristol, it hosts three cinemas, a café/bar, events/conferencing spaces, and office spaces for administrative and creative staff. It occupies the former V and W sheds...
season Kawamoto: The Puppet Master in 2008. The first DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...
to collect together several of Purves' films was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
release by Potemkine/Agnès b.'s DVD label on the 17 June 2008 with the title His Intimate Lives.
Filmography
- Next: The Infinite Variety Show (1989), a farceFarceIn theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
inspired by Shakespeare's playsShakespeare's playsWilliam Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 37 plays are divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being...
in which William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
himself attempts to impress the twentieth-century theatre director Peter Hall, with music by Stuart Gordon of The KorgisThe KorgisThe Korgis are a British pop band, originally composed of singer / bassist James Warren and singer / drummer Andy Davis , both former members of 1970s band Stackridge, along with unofficial members violinist Stuart Gordon and keyboardist Phil Harrison.-Career:The Korgis released their first single...
, John Sheaff and Will GregoryWill GregoryWilliam Owen Gregory is best known as a songwriter, and the lead keyboards/synthesizer player & producer of the electronic music group Goldfrapp. Originally a classical music student at the University of York, Gregory is the son of an actress and an opera chorus-line singer...
of GoldfrappGoldfrappGoldfrapp are an English electronic music duo, formed in 1999 in London, England, that consists of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory ....
. - Oh, Mr. Toad (1990), which was co-directed with Jackie Cockle and Chris Taylor.
- Screen Play (1992), which recounts the Willow patternWillow patternThe Willow pattern, more commonly known as Blue Willow, is a distinctive and elaborate pattern used on ceramic kitchen/housewares. The pattern was designed by Thomas Minton around 1790 and has been in use for over 200 years. Other references give alternative origins, such as Thomas Turner of...
story (relocated to JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
) in the style of East AsiaEast AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n physical theatrePhysical theatrePhysical theatre is used to describe any mode of performance that pursues storytelling or drama through primarily and secondarily physical and mental means. There are several quite distinct but indistinct traditions of performance which all describe themselves using the term "physical theatre",...
such as kabukiKabukiis classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
and BunrakuBunraku, also known as Ningyō jōruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:* Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai—puppeteers* Tayū—the chanters* Shamisen players...
, narrated simultaneously in British Sign LanguageBritish Sign LanguageBritish Sign Language is the sign language used in the United Kingdom , and is the first or preferred language of some deaf people in the UK; there are 125,000 deaf adults in the UK who use BSL plus an estimated 20,000 children. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands,...
and EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. - RigolettoRigolettoRigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
(1993), which is part of the Operavox series of half-hour animated versions of operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s commissioned by S4CS4CS4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is the fifth oldest British television channel .The channel - initially broadcast on...
. - AchillesAchillesIn Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
(1995), which recounts the story of Achilles and PatroclusAchilles and PatroclusThe relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is a key element of the myths associated with the Trojan War. Its exact nature has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times....
in a style inspired by the theatreTheatre of Ancient GreeceThe theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was...
and sculptureAncient Greek sculptureAncient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. They were used to depict the battles, mythology, and rulers of the land known as Ancient Greece.-Geometric:...
of ancient GreeceAncient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
. - Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
: The Very Models (1998) - Hamilton Mattress (2001)
- Rupert Bear, Follow the Magic...Rupert Bear, Follow the Magic...Rupert Bear: Follow the Magic... is a children's television series based on the Mary Tourtel character, Rupert Bear. Aimed at pre-school children, the show is part animated, part computer-generated imagery. Rupert Bear still wears his trademark bright yellow plaid trousers and matching scarf, with...
(2006) - Plume (2011)
- Tchaikovsky (2011), an introduction to the composer's life and works.