Last summer, Slurpy produced 7 films based on Shakespeare’s life and plays for the British Council’s LearnEnglish Kids website, to celebrate the Bard’s 400th anniversary.

We’re very proud of these short films, and of the team that worked on them, so it’s of great satisfaction to see that team being recognised with nominations for two of the Manchester Animation Festival‘s new ‘Industry Excellence Awards’.

The Industry Excellence Awards are a way of honouring those vital people within any production whose contributions are often unsung: the script writers, the character animators, the storyboard artists etc.

Oana Nechifor, who animated a large proportion of the Shakespeare series, is up for Best Character Animation for Hamlet. Creating believable and relatable characters is the holy grail of the animation world, and to do so under the pressures of a series production is even more remarkable. Oana constantly rose to that challenge and was able to elicit a Shakespearean level of humour, sorrow, rage and malevolence from the characters when needed.

Bianca Ansems storyboarded all 7 Shakespeare films, and has been recognised in particular for Macbeth. Telling a story as nuanced as Macbeth in 2 minutes, for an audience of 6-10 year old kids learning English as a second language, is challenging to say the least. Bianca did an amazing job of getting across not just the narrative, but the character motivations, mood and metaphor too. We’re delighted that this has been recognised by the Manchester Animation Festival.

 

So, adding these nominations to the one already picked up for ‘Life and Times of William Shakespeare‘ for Best Commissioned Short, means the pre-selection committee at Manchester Animation Festival clearly have excellent taste!