I magine the scene: squads of fresh-faced model-makers and assistants merrily building Thomas the Tank Engine model trains, artisans finessing their Bob the Builder puppets, artists sketching and colouring drawings of Angelina Ballerina; people making moulds, polishing and spray painting, removing imperfections, scanning dimensions into computers. It could be Santa’s workshop, but this is the scene in the various production studios of HIT Entertainment, one of the leading British makers of preschool children’s animated television entertainment.

Children’s TV animation has come a long way since the original Noddy and Andy Pandy programmes were first broadcast in the 1950s. When Enid Blyton’s character, Noddy, first ventured on to the television screen, he had been hand-drawn on paper and then transferred on to acetate sheets and hand-painted, before being filmed in stop-frame animation. This required 25 frames to fill one second of TV. The Andy Pandy series, which began in 1953, was made using puppets gently manipulated on strings. At about the same time Lotte Reineger, a German immigrant to Britain, was making painstakingly precise handmade animation for television, as seen in her story of Jack and the Beanstalk, which used exquisite cut-out black paper silhouettes.

Since then the medium’s senses have sharpened swiftly. We have children’s television bursting with rollicking energy and precision, its colours hard and bright, its pace a little faster. It’s as if the medium has made the switch from opium pipe to additive-infused sugar. Today some children’s programmes are made entirely on computers, but most are made with an element of computer enhancement.

“With computer-generated imagery [CGI] everything is done inside the computer,” says Michael Harvey, the curator of cinematography at the National Media Museum, in Bradford. “Characters are created and drawn in 3-D and so is the background. Everything is animated in the computer using motion capture. This involves photographing actors making the required movements, filmed from 360 degrees, and that information is then applied to the characters in the computer . . . It’s a big change going from model animation to CGI. Not necessarily an advance though. Personally I don’t think you can better the 1937 animated version of Snow White.”

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Almost every variation of animation method is still used today. CGI technology is still expensive, so a surprisingly large proportion of children’s TV programmes are still made using traditional methods or a hybrid of traditional methods aided by computers. This allows the programme-makers to update their products without losing the charm of the original concept.

“Our Rupert the Bear programmes, for example, still use traditional models that are shot against proper handmade sets,” says Anthony Utley, the managing director of Cosgrove Hall Films. “We then use computers to add backgrounds, which gives a greater depth of field and makes it more realistic. Sometimes we add sparkly effects, like a sort of fairy dust, using computer technology, but the basic approach is still traditional models but enhanced with computer technology.”

Cosgrove Hall’s Postman Pat series, about the cheery postman and his cat going on his rounds among the villages of the Yorkshire Dales, is still made entirely in the traditional model-animation style with a live action shoot done painstakingly, frame by frame. “CBeebies recently asked us to make it a little more high-tech, so we’ve introduced a special delivery post service by helicopter. But that is enough for the moment. It’s an evergreen series and very popular just as it is. There seems to be no point in tinkering with a formula that works very well.”

HIT Entertainment has been making its Angelina Ballerina series using one of the most traditional methods of all: 2-D paper and pencil drawings. “The television programme wanted to retain the charm of the original illustrations in the books, so we have used that sketched style to try and keep it as close to the books as possible,” says Lenora Hume, the executive vice-president of production and programming. “We do have a new series in development now, however, which moves towards 3-D and is made in a computer-generated style. We have models of the characters that will be able to dance in a way that can mimic true dance. It will look different from the book, but we have involved the original illustrator and we’re all delighted with the results.”

Aardman Animation introduced an animation method called Claymation or clay/stop-motion animation into Britain in the 1980s, inspired by the American virtuoso animator Will Vinton. This involved clay and Plasticine models and live-action filming.

The company’s founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton, achieved early commercial success with a clay character called Morph for the BBC TV programme Take Hart, but Aardman’s Claymation rocketed to success when Nick Park joined Aardman full-time in 1985 and completed his graduation film, A Grand Day Out, the first of the hugely popular Wallace & Gromit films.

Other traditional methods still hold strong. Cel animation, for example, which was used to make most cartoons until the early 1990s, is still practised, but its methods are gradually being transferred into the computer. Images were drawn on paper, transferred by hand-tracing on to vinyl sheets, then copied, hand-painted and filmed frame by frame, 25 frames for one second of film.

“Computers have started becoming part of the process. Images are still drawn on paper, but then they’re scanned into computers and painted digitally. And in some cases the artists can draw directly on to a computer palette so that it goes straight into the computer that way,” Hume says. HIT Entertainment’s Peppa Pig series is made using this process.

Alongside the gradual invasion of computer technology into TV animation, there has also been a change in the look of children’s TV characters. Many of them are rounder and more cuddly looking than they were when first conceived by their original illustrators. This is not to mimic the growing waistlines of TV-addicted children, but rather to promote cuddly toys.

The need for a commercial return grows ever stronger. “It’s all about selling toys nowadays. TV is only a shop window,” Utley says. “Many of these programmes are now led by merchandising opportunities.”

Cosgrove Hall, for example, in designing a programme about an Asian creature called Ping Pong, produced a two-storey pagoda for her to live in.

“The two-storey design fitted perfectly into our set, but the merchandisers wanted to sell it as a doll’s house and wanted it to be three storeys. I’m afraid they won on that one.”

First steps to a career in TV animation

Books The Animator’s Workbook by Tony White and Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation are useful.

Accessible software animation packages can be downloaded free: iMovies for Macs, Windows Movie for PCs. www.stopmotion.com has information and downloads, and www.download.com has Audacity, which is a free sound recording and editing programme. www.filmstreet.co.uk is a free interactive website with an animation section aimed at children.

The Bradford Animation Festival, held every November at the National Media Museum in Bradford, has workshops and gallery tours and a special competition for animators aged under 16. The 2008 festival is from November 12-15.

The Cooperative Young Film-makers Festival, hosted by the National Media Museum in mid-October, offers masterclasses and the opportunity to have your films assessed by professionals.

Animated Exeter is an annual film animation festival in Exeter, running from February 15-23. Schools week is February 11-15 (www.animatedexeter.co.uk)

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