I Am Not An Animal

Peter Baynham had this idea of group of animals that are bred to be companions for an increasingly single society. They live in a "club class" wing of a secret vivisection laboratory. The lad running the experiment gets a little carried away and they are pampered and clothed unlike any lab animals in history, fed vintage wine and exquisite food, they’re blissfully unaware of the real world outside. Until one cruel night, when they are brutally liberated into their ‘natural surroundings’ by a gang of animal rights activists.

We had to find a means of making three hours of material quickly. We had looked at CGI, mo-cap etc, but it was all in it’s infancy and would’ve been too restrictive as we needed lots of sets and environments. I felt like this opportunity was falling away, I remember going back to the studio, with a feeling of having my back against the wall. I’ve always been fascinated with photo collage and we quickly worked up concept art for what became the break-through and we were soon in business! We animated in Celaction, it was a bonkers schedule, not enough time and Peter kept having more and more ideas when he saw stuff on the screens, so that meant more work! Everyone worked long hours and somehow we got it made!

Steve Coogan played Phillip the horse and Mark the bird, Julia Davis was Claire the rat. Kevin Eldon was Hugh the monkey, Amelia Bulmore was Winona the dog, Simon Pegg was Kieron the cat, Arthur Matthews was Niall the rabbit and John Shrapnel was the narrator.

6 x 30’s for BBC2, Baby Cow Animation.