Castaway oxfordtimes.co.uk Joanna Harrison pictured at the Phoenix Picture House, Oxford, with a cel from her animation The Snowman and the Snowdog, due to be screened again on Channel 4 this Christmas Photographs: Mark Hemsworth 8 Oxfordshire Limited Edition December 2013 oxfordtimes.co.uk Castaway ewind 12 months to Christmas 2012 when 11 million viewers sat down to enjoy The Snowman and The Snowdog, the highlight Rof Christmas Eve televison. Oxford-based animator, storyboard artist and An original author Joanna Harrison was art director for the animation cel film — and also worked on the original from The 26-minute ground-breaking animation based Snowman — on the much-loved book by Raymond Briggs, representing which was made for the fledgling Channel 4 one 12th of a 30 years previously. second from the When The Snowman was first broadcast on finished film Boxing Day, 1982, it immediately charmed audiences with its beautiful music and heartfelt storyline. It was named as one of the100 Greatest British Television Programmes, a list drawn up to mark the Millennium by the British Film Institute. Joanna was born in Oxford in 1955, and grew up near Abingdon. She always had a love of art, so it is probably no surprise that she ended up following an artistic career. But where did her journey start? Joanna attended the Manor School in Abingdon and, after a stint at a boarding school in Sussex, returned to Oxford to study for her A-Levels at Beechlawn College, Banbury Road. She said: “I could not decide whether to study art or science. My father and his father were both eminent natural scientists and I was fascinated by botany. “My grandfather was an etymologist. When he was 21 he was working on his own for a year on the coral atoll of Aldabra in the Indian Ocean, researching the native flora Living with and fauna. “The atoll (world’s second largest) is also famous for its giant turtles. While he was there he collected unknown plant species, some of which are now in the Pitt Rivers and are named after him,” Joanna added. “My father John Fryer was director of the Weed Research Organisation at Begbrooke by The Snowman Yarnton, until it was disbanded by the Thatcher government in 1986.” “During the war in Vietnam he was sent to study the effects of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange on the mangrove swamps. My Sylvia Vetta meets Joanna Harrison, the animator who father is also a passionate gardener and I share brought Raymond Briggs’ much-loved character to life my love of plants with him. “On the other hand, on my mother’s side on our television screens there were some wonderful artists who worked in Cornwall and France, including Walter Chetwood-Aiken. I have been drawing since I Best Ten Amateur Films of 1978.” being asked to clear out the cellar which was was young and I suppose I had always been “One of my claims to fame was an incident stacked with boxes of animation artwork considered ‘good at art’. I also loved the at the award ceremony at the British Film including The Flying Man. I kept as much as I anarchy of art rather than the discipline of Institute. could, but sadly no longer have them. science. So it really was not such a hard “As the other ten winners were men, I “Sadly, George died soon after I started work choice.” suppose I stood out in a red flying suit and at TVC. At the time he was working on the After her A-Levels, Joanna went on to wedge heels. Michael Winner, who was early stages of a animated feature film based St Martins School of Art, followed by handing out the awards, looked at me and said on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which sadly Goldsmiths in 1974. ‘Will you marry me?’ remains unfinished. George remains a huge “I was planning to be an illustrator. But I “What an offer! Suffice to say I turned him inspiration to me,” Joanna said. walked into a classroom where they just down,” Joanna laughed. “At TVC, I worked on children’s series and happened to be showing a three-minute “My film was shown on television and at the commercials until, in about 1980, Channel 4 animation by Canadian animator George Annecy International Animated Film Festival. started up a few doors down from us in Dunning (who went on to direct The Beatles’ On the back of its success, I approached a Charlotte Street. Yellow Submarine) called The Flying Man. It was company called Television Cartoons (TVC) and “The animator Jim Duffy (who went on to a pivotal moment for me,” Joanna revealed. they offered me a job as assistant animator. make Rugrats) came into the studio with a “It inspired me to make a short animated “Imagine by delight and surprise when I book, which he had been enjoying with his film of my own called Make Up. The short went found I was to be working with George on to win a prize in Movie Maker magazine’s Dunning! Ironically one of my first jobs was Continued on page 11 December 2013 Oxfordshire Limited Edition 9 oxfordtimes.co.uk Castaway animated the bedroom sequence as well as song went on to become a massive hit. doing many of the backgrounds. For ages the The Snowman was nominated for an Oscar boy had no name. I had just started going out and went on to win a BAFTA for Best with James and I decided to name the boy after Children’s Programme. my new boyfriend, especially as they both Despite this success, Joanna says she was came from Sussex!” overtaken by the desire to do something John Coates had approached the composer adventurous. Ron Goodwin to create the soundtrack for The “Animation involves sitting over a light box Snowman, but felt that the sample piece he had day-after-day doing numerous drawings. So I produced did not have the “right feel”. planned the big adventure, which was going A chance meeting brought John and round the world by train, bus and boat. My composer Howard Blake together — and he boyfriend James came with me,” Joanna said. asked Blake if he would like to have a go at In the days of the Cold War, travel on the creating the soundtrack. other side of the Iron Curtain was no easy Joanna said: “When I first heard Walking in option. the Air I thought it was complete magic. We “We went through Checkpoint Charlie in knew it was perfect. ” Berlin and on into Poland, from Gdsansk to Blake also wrote the lyrics for the song — and Helsinki by ship and on to Leningrad. The city in the film it was performed by a St Paul's was unbelievably beautiful, completely Cathedral choirboy called Peter Auty. unspoiled but it was almost impossible to find “It took us 11 months to make The Snowman anything to eat. In Moscow we caught a train and it went out on Channel 4 on Christmas on the Trans–Siberian Railway and went to Eve, 1982. It had good reviews — but it really China via Mongolia.” took off the following year when a toy company The problem of finding food was to get even asked if they could use Walking in the Air for a harder once they reached China. Nobody commercial.” spoke English, there were hardly any shops and Aled Jones was chosen to sing a new version for the advert as Auty’s voice had broken. The Continued on page 13 From page 9 children. It was Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman. “The producer, John Coates, gave me and another animator, Hilary Audis, the task of turning it into a ten-minute animatic — this is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence with rough dialogue and a rough sound track. “We took the book and cut it up to make a storyboard. We then extended the middle sequence. “In the book, the snowman and boy only fly as far as Brighton, and we felt there really had to be a bit more than that. So we came up with the flying sequence where the snowman and the boy fly to a snowman party given by Father Christmas. “The idea was for the story to be told without words, just through pictures, action and music. John took the project to Channel 4 who loved it and allocated most of their children’s programming budget for that year to make The Snowman film,” Joanna said. “Channel 4 had launched with some controversial programmes and Jeremy Isaacs (the founding chief executive of Channel 4) felt they needed something gentler to balance it. “Having got the go ahead the challenge was how to recreate the feel of Raymond Briggs’ book on film.” The film was produced using traditional animation techniques, consisting of pastels, crayons and other colouring tools drawn on pieces of celluloid, which were traced over hand-drawn frames. For continuity purposes, the background artwork was painted using the same tools. Joanna showed me an original animation cel from The Snowman. She said: “This represents one 12th of a second from the film!” Joanna continued: “I storyboarded and December 2013 Oxfordshire Limited Edition 11 oxfordtimes.co.uk Castaway From page 11 certainly no restaurants, as we know them. Joanna said: “There was no point of reference for a westerner, and most Chinese had never seen a European person, especially a blonde, and we were generally followed by large crowds of curious onlookers wherever we went.