Aadman maker warns UK animators may have to move abroad

The head of Aardman, the Oscar-winning British studio behind Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, Sean Clarke, Aardman Animation managing director addressed several major issues facing the U.K. animation sector, warning that the country is falling behind other key animation territories. He warned that the nation’s animation productions for children’s television will have to be made overseas because acute challenges are taking their toll on the UK sector.

He said the company is struggling with everything from serious competition from other countries on tax relief to a dire skills shortage. “Children’s television is suffering and what’s produced in this country will go off the edge of a cliff in the next couple of years, unless something is done. The ideas will still be conceived here, but they’ll be made elsewhere.”

1. tax programs meant to stimulate cultural industries such as film and tv can’t keep up with other major animation territories. Countries like Ireland, France, Canada, and Spain – especially the Canary Islands – offer tax rebates to animated productions ranging anywhere from 37% up to 50%. In the U.K., production tax rebates are just 25%. According to Clarke, “I have the Spanish calling me all the time saying, ‘Why don’t you come to the Canaries, where it’s up to 50%?’ We have to consider it.”

“It’s a constant battle of how you raise money. It’s amplified at the moment because a lot of countries are more competitive with tax credits and they’re building infrastructure, both in terms of studios and training. Training is broken in this country. There is no infrastructure to train and nurture the next generation of talent for film and television generally.

“We’ve had to set up our own academy over the last 10 years to train people because graduates from colleges and universities are not production-ready.”

Aardman was founded on a kitchen table in Bristol more than 40 years ago by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who discovered Nick Park while he was a student. Their collaborations, which include A Grand Day Out, the first of their Wallace and Gromit hits using stop-motion plasticine, as well as CGI productions, have won more than 100 awards, including four Oscars.

Kate O’Connor, the head of Animation UK, which represents the industry, said: “Business challenges affecting the animation sector have changed dramatically. Other countries have put some eye-catching tax reliefs in place. We’re not asking for handouts, but to be competitive in the global marketplace.

“Tax relief is a fantastically useful fiscal lever, but the UK rate is wrong for animation. There’s huge investment going into animation globally, while there’s been declining investment in UK-originated content and diminishing programme hours on public service broadcasting channels … we’re just going to lose out.”