From Budapest and his painting studies along with his first animated steps (firstly influenced by Bauhaus’ leading light Laszlo Moholy-Nagy) to his London studio creation in the mid-30s. Not easy years for a Jewish to travel Europe at that time, but John moved wherever necessary to continue his animation career path, so once he got to know (and employ) his beloved Joy Batchelor for his Music Man film, a fifty-year “partnership” began.
He’s the one behind Britain’s first full length Animated “Animal Farm” feature based on George Orwell’s novel, one of the first to experiment with 3D stereoscopic animation, with computer animation, to found and chair the International Animated Film Association in the 60s and a big contributor to the British animation as a whole.
His birth centenary was a couple of days ago, so John & Joy’s daughter Vivien got to produce the following 12-minute documentary about her dad, a rare and unique opportunity to learn some basics of the British animation history.
And as an extra… John’s own vision of how the year 2000 would look like back in the early 60s…. “Automania”… full list of his films can be found on his webpage, and dig a bit (youtube for ex or Vivien’s own channel) and you’ll find many of those available too.
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