Bagpuss, The Clangers and Me...

Me, Peter Firman and Steve Allen at Canterbury Anifest '07

Well today was a real treat and something that really warrants writing about. This morning I was lucky enough to interview Peter Firman who along with Oliver Postgate produced such wonderful animations including 'Bagpuss', 'The Clangers', 'Noggin the Nog' and my favourite 'Ivor the Engine'.

My current project which I'm sure I'll write more about over the coming months is a short animation craft series for an online channel. The series is aimed at young people in Kent, to demonstrate different animation techniques. For the series I really wanted to interview Peter Firman as he and Oliver Postgate produced all of their animation here in Canterbury in an old Pig shed.

The interview took place in two different venues, the first was the museum of Canterbury, which is where Bagpuss now lives with all his friends in his Bagpuss and Co shop window. The second location was the Sidney Cooper Gallery, which up until 13th December is holding an exhibition of Peter Firman's artwork and Bob Godfrey's 2D animation. The timing for my interview couldn't have been better as it meant the second part could be filmed on a mock up rostrum in the gallery where Peter demonstrated the cut out technique used on 'Ivor the Engine'.

As a boyhood fan of the animations, an animator and someone who teaches animation I found today a really special experience. Peter speaks with so much energy and enthusiasm about the productions, you can't help but be inspired. Peter is an incredibly creative person and his stories about his creations are tales of their own. Peter spoke for around half an hour, talking about both his cut-out and model work showing plenty of examples. I now have the challenge of editing the piece from 34 minutes down to 4 minutes! I'll try to get a clip on here over the next month, and talk more about the processes used.

I'd just like to finish by thoroughly recommending the 'Animate' exibition including Peter's work. It is along Canterbury high street at the Sidney Cooper Center, its completey FREE and includes the Clanger models, lots of cut outs from Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog and lots of work from Bob Godfrey. More Info at

http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/sidney-cooper/exhibition/current.asp