Trevor Hardy - animation specialist
Having lost his tyre-fitting job at the age of 20, Trevor Hardy enrolled for a B'tech course in media (not many animation courses available at the time) whilst making super-8 animations from a little box room. This lead to Trevor enrolling onto the animation degree at Farnham, that later granted him entry onto a 'Model Animation Course'. It was Trevor’s professional turning point. The course was run by Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit) and after successfully completing the course, Trevor stayed on with Aardman to animate a Wallace & Gromit advert for Japanese Television. Trevor Hardy now owns and runs his own stop-frame animation studio, Fool Hardy Films, creating very high standard Stop-Frame films.
“Pushkin”, one of Trevor’s celebrated cartoon creations, has won him the Renderyard Short Film Award 2008 and the Animation Category at MOFILM Festival 2009 in Barcelona where the judging panel included special guest Kevin Spacey.
(Please refer to the bottom of the page for useful links related to the field of Animation)
Accademia Apulia UK has asked Trevor Hardy the following questions:
Is it true that you once worked in a garage fitting car tyres – what happened there?
I was a lot younger back then. I was about 22 and working for a local tyre fitting company. It had been a very long day and we had all been rushed off our feet fitting tyres. It got to about 10 minutes before we were all due to go home. A car came into the garage and my boss asked me to fit two new tyres on the front. Trying to hurry and leave, I stupidly put the wrong make of tyres onto the car, a more expensive set, the customer has bought a set of cheap budget tyres and I had given them a set of, top of the range Pirelli tyres. Mr Boss was not impressed.
There are people who perform a job that they are not always happy with – “but someone has got to do it”. What are your views on career satisfaction?
Well I think you have answered this question yourself. I have worked very hard, worked for over 14 years to start my animation career. I have done more then my fair share of “Normal Jobs”, so although I consider myself to be very lucky doing what I’m doing, I have worked extremely hard for it. I really do feel for anyone who is unhappy in their job, it’s a horrible feeling and very stressful. If you have a dream, never give up on it, my break came when I was least expecting it and it was simply a case of me being in the right place, at the right time, meeting the right person with the right product…that’s the chance meeting you have to wait for in this industry.
I never have decided it will be. I just cross my fingers every time a job comes in that it will follow up with another. I think this is a very hit or miss industry. When the work comes in it is fantastic and when it doesn’t you start thinking about going back to your old van driving job. It’s pretty merciless like that.
At what point in your career did you think ‘I can do this for a living’?
Well put quite simply, the moment I started getting paid to animate. It’s like any other job in that sense, if you get paid to do it, you can afford to live.
What is the most rewarding element of doing Stop Frame Animation?
Every element has its rewards, when I think of the story that is exciting, then I think of the sets and characters and that is exciting too. Then comes the animation and although it is very exhausting, when all the scenes start coming together then that is very gratifying. And once the music and sound effects go on, the whole thing takes shape and is very exciting. So really, every stage is brilliant!
You perform an exciting job that brings characters to life that many people, especially children, end up falling in love with. Is there an aspect/stage of the animation process that you don’t particularly enjoy?
Waiting for stuff to dry. GRRRRRR! I can spend hours, days, weeks waiting for sets and models to dry. It’s ok in the summer because everything dries quickly, but in the winter it takes an age. I made some plaster backgrounds for a set once. Just plaster brushed onto chip-board, just to give the background a bit of texture. It was winter time and I waited 3 weeks for it to dry…nightmare!
Where do Pushkin, Twicher, Gran come from? How do you ‘invent’ a character over another? Do you think of people that you know for the dramatisation of your stories?
I tend to match the characters to the feel of the film. When I think of the film, I tend to see it in my head and that gives me an idea of what the characters look like. I don’t consciously put people I know into my characters but I have had people say to me they can see my relatives’ in them. Apparently the car mechanic in ‘Pushkin’ is the spitting image of my dad.
Which come first the puppets or the story, or both?
As above. But I guess, I tend to think of the story then match the character of the puppets to the feel of the story. Sometimes I think of a character or have one pop up in my head and that leads me to think of the kind of story that would suit that character,so I guess my answer would be both.
Do you work alone - are you very protective of your creations?
I do work alone, and I am protective of my creations but not to a ridiculous level. I have spent many years studying styles and looking at many different character designs by different artists. So I have spent a lot of time working out how to create textures, different types of puppets and stuff like that. So I am quite protective of that, what might take me a lot of time working out and creating I like to keep to myself.
What are you working on at present? What is the future like for Fool Hardy Films?
The future is looking good for Foolhardy Films. I am working on a whole bunch of stop frame stuff for Nickelodeon as well as a couple of short films and I have just completed a couple of adverts for a film completion.
I also have a few things in the pipe line that fingers crossed will come off.
As you know, many members of Accademia Apulia UK are youngsters that look up to you as a source of inspiration. What is your message to them?
If you want to break into the animation industry then you will have to prepare yourself for a rocky ride. The Journey I took lasted many years, 14 in fact, and only now am I starting to get a reaction from people. Having said that, you can never really tell what it will be like until you start your journey. I can only tell you my experiences. I have found this an incredibly difficult industry to crack, I have knocked on doors until my knuckles bleed. I have talked to endless people all promising to work with me and create magic…I’m still waiting! I found the best thing for me was to crack on and do it myself. No one was as keen as me, to get ME into this industry and why would they be? I would wait for months for people to ring me back or offer me work but the phone never rang. So I set up my camera, started thinking of stories looked at model making websites, read the blogs, looked at endless books on animation and got down to it. I would say to anyone who wants to get into the animation industry, just do it. Forget enrolling onto a course, forget degrees, you are going into a visual business and trust me when I say, no one cares about qualifications…they just want to see you can animate. At the end of the day, that is the business they are in. If they get a client that wants a commercial made, then it is your talents they will be after, not your degree results. I would probably say the best thing to do is, Ring up companies, try and get work experience. If you are lucky and have a friend or relative that live near the studios then sleep on their sofa and do it that way! Once you come out of college you will probably be expected to do this anyway. Unless you are very good at animation or very lucky, and get snapped up by a company. I say, just work for free at the companies, gain experience, hang out with the staff, make friends and contacts and work your way up. I know this sounds a bit radical but it would probably be better for you then spending 3 years on a degree course, making an arty little film that no company wants to watch and having to start at the bottom anyway. I went to college, did a degree and went onto an Aadrman course. In the end I found myself coming home and doing a van driving job. It is only since I have done it all off my own back that people are suddenly showing an interest in my films.
I really hope this helps, I am not trying to frighten anyone, I just wanted you to see the real side of how the industry can be. The thing with this career path is that you never know how your luck will turn out? As I said, I slogged my way through, on the other hand my friend Phil enrolled onto the Aardman animation course from a fine arts degree and six months later he was working on Wallace and Grommit. You just never know.
Good luck and stick with it, it is a labour of love but if you get there the rewards are all worth it!
Thank you for reading.
Trevor Hardy
Foolhardy Films
For a career in animation Trevor Hardy suggests the following courses
You may wish to read the following interview: Alfredo De Giuseppe
