[23
AUG 00] COVENTRY UNIVERSITY NEWS
Jan Runs Her Chickens In A Model Way
A
Coventry University graduate has helped thousands of film-goers squawk
and cackle their way through the summer hit Chicken Run.
Jan
Sanger is behind the plasticine magic of the successful film from
Aardman Animation, and has been involved with other classics including
Wallace and Gromit
She
studied Fine Art at Coventry University in the early 1980s, when it
was still known as Lanchester Polytechnic.
Following
graduation, she moved to Bristol, where Aardman Animation is based,
and became involved with the fledgling company.
Jan
said:
"I
moved to Bristol to race mountain bikes, but during my degree I had
completed a 3D animation film. This coupled with a love of
surrealism, led me into animation and model making."
She
presented her show reel to Peter Lord of Aardman, and joined what was
then a company of just eight people as a freelance animator and model
maker.
Over
the next three years Jan combined her work with Aardman with racing
mountain bikes in Britain and the US.
During
this time she worked on the Lip Synch series - five shorts for Channel
4, which included Creature Comforts and War Story, and worked on many
of Aardman's commercials inspired by this series.
In
1989 Jan gave up the biking and became head of the model-making
department, designing and building the characters for commercial
projects and working on the films that have become British classics,
and which have made Wallace and Gromit household names.
Grand
Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and a Close Shave were enormous hits, and
Jan played her part in them all.
She
now heads the 54 strong-team of model makers that worked on Chicken
Run.
Centring
on the efforts of Ginger and other chickens trying to escape the
chicken farm before they are turned into chicken pies, it is the first
Aardman feature film with a world-wide release.
Jan
said:
"The
film, which was over three years in the making, is currently in the
box office top ten in Britain and the US.
"Aardman
has a five feature deal with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks studio,
and we are currently working on the next film - based on the classic
story of the tortoise and the hare taken from Aesop's fables."
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