Aardman in Archive: Exploring Digital Archival Research through a History of Aardman Animations

Abstract

‘Aardman in Archive’ aims to explore digital archival research through a history of Aardman Animations. This research aims to present a comprehensive history of Aardman in which it seeks to examine the studio’s position within the British television landscape and the influence of British broadcasters on the success of a studio that began as a two-person cottage-industry outfit and grew into an internationally lauded media production company. The need for this history arose form a deficit of academically reliable secondary sources and a general lack of scholarly attention to animation and stop-motion animation in particular. While it was found in the history that the British broadcasting industry played a vital role in developing Aardman into a renowned studio that attracted attention from international feature-film financiers, it was not the influence of Channel 4 but the BBC that proved to be fundamental. The history also shows that the continued support of British broadcasters remained crucial in the later years as it enabled an exploration of the feature-film market by providing a constant stream of revenue. While this exhaustive history forms a solid foundation for future analyses of Aardman, the use of primary sources obtained via digital archival research in order to construct this history of Aardman has its own limitations that affect the authenticity of this account. To by-pass these limitations in future research, this study suggests combining both traditional and digital archival research to create well-rounded histories.