The Itch of the Golden Nit: Tate Movie Project

Product Information

The reason for doing this was to obtain subtlety in the characters and their relationships – in their facial expressions and movements – I just don’t think I could do that with drawings. Some people can but not me.

We caught up with Sarah to learn a bit more her and her role in Arthur Cox, as well as discover more about the process of working with children to create the fantastic film, The Itch of the Golden Nit. Interview You studied for an MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art which is renowned for turning out successful animators. What do you think it is about this institution that keeps producing such great talent?Moving on to the fantastic film The Itch of the Golden Nit. What led you to take on such an ambitious project which allowed children to take the reigns? David Walliams, Miranda Hart, Catherine Tate and Rik Mayall lead the stellar cast providing the voices for the children’s characters from Evil Stella to Captain Iron Ears. Funded by Legacy Trust UK and BP, with additional support and resources from the BBC, the film has been brought together by Tate and the creative magic of Aardman Animations. The stellar cast has provided the voices for the lead characters chosen from the many drawings submitted by children aged 5-13, the result of over 250 workshops and tens of thousands of individual uploads to the Tate Movie Project’s online movie studio. The online studio has had more than 500,000 hits since it went live last July and a touring Movie Studio spent months on the road visiting galleries, schools and festivals across the country encouraging children to use art as inspiration for their drawings and story ideas. Children did everything from inventing brand new superhero gadgets to spending a whole afternoon drawing planks for the pirate ship. Funded by Legacy Trust UK and BP, with additional support and resources from the BBC, the film has been brought together by Tate and the creative magic of Aardman Animations. The Itch of the Golden Nit follows 11 year old hero Beanie on his mission to save his parents from Evil Stella and to return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe. It’s a surreal and spectacular adventure that only the wild imaginations of kids could dream up!

The film has as its hero 11-year-old Beanie who embarks on a mission to save his parents from Evil Stella (Catherine Tate). At the film's centre is the eponymous Golden Nit (Walliams) who needs to be returned to his rightful place in the sun for the universe to be saved. The cream of British comedy has provided additional voices for the film including Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ralf Little, Miriam Margolyes, Lucy Montgomery, Vic Reeves and Alexei Sayle. Two children provide the voices of Beanie - Bobby Fuller, known for his role of Jake on CBBC’s Sadie J - and his older sister Beryl - Rachel Rawlinson. Sarah Cox, the film’s director, recognised children’s ability to work with animation some time ago. After studying for an animation degree at Liverpool, she began working with the community film collective ‘Open Eye’, running animation workshops with children in deprived areas of Liverpool. She then moved on to the Royal College of Art and, a year after graduating, completed the film 3 Ways to Go, which was commissioned as part of the ANIMATE! Scheme and won Best Film under 10 Minutes at the British Animation Awards. Throughout her time lecturing she also managed to maintain her career as a commercial director in animation; creating MTV idents and music promos with John Parry, before joining Picasso Pictures in 1994. Here, she began directing huge campaigns for Boots No7 and Avaya Communications, as well as commercials for big name brands such as Sanatogen and Virgin Megastores. David Walliams, Miranda Hart, Catherine Tate and Rik Mayall will lead the stellar cast of The Tate Movie Project’s film, The Itch of the Golden Nit, voicing the characters devised by children. The Tate Movie Project is the first of its kind – an animation made by and for children. The half hour animation has been created from thousands of drawings, sound effects and story ideas by children from across the UK .Eleven-year-old Beanie's bland life is changed for ever when he is sent on a mission. Armed only with laser lip-gloss and a pair of blend-in pants he has to save his parents from Evil Stella and return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe. Burton admiited that with so many children involved it could have been a recipe for disaster. "I was quite nervous at the outset that we might end up with a soup of disparate parts – but that, I think, is where the genius of Aardman comes in." In 2002, Sarah left Picasso Pictures and set up her own production and animation company Arthur Cox, with Sally Arthur and has since directed several commercials in France and has been increasingly involved as a producer on many film projects. These include Emma Lazenby‘s BAFTA award winning film, Mother of Many, and the forthcoming live action film, iFeature’s Eight Minutes Idle. The film was really creative. It was a fusion of pictures based on drawings by five to 13-year-olds. The Tate was the perfect partner for the project ( along with CBBC of course) because they gave the whole thing a really strong environment. The workshops were framed in the context of looking at art works and they had a massive influence and what the children drew and wrote. Much of the initial story came from a workshop in Tate Liverpool where we showed the children Picasso’s Weeping Woman ( which was there as part of the Picasso Peace and Freedom exhibition), we asked why they thought she was crying and within the context of a script workshop – where they shouted out ideas, developing on each other thoughts; we got an amazing story chain about a girl called Diana whose hair grew 5 meters every 5 seconds, it grew so fast she had to wash it in the Mersey, one day a dead kitten fell out, her only friends were the nits that lived in her hair etc etc…quite dark but quite brilliant material. The main thing I learnt from the project was that children really soak up the visual world around them so it is very very important to expose them to good design early on… even if they don’t speak about it – it definitely has a massive effect we could see it clearly in the drawings.

Throughout your career in animation you have balanced working as a commercial director with directing your own short films. Do you feel you are able to have creative freedom in your commercial work or do you find that it always comes with a compromise? We asked them all questions about how they were involved in the film, what it was like and why they thought it was an important project. Ha – well surprisingly sometimes I think I get more creative freedom in commercial projects than with the films. You are never entirely free if someone is funding you, but certainly with Tate all the direction came from the kids not from the top- whereas when we made 8 minutes idle we had 4 or 5 executive producers to convince at every stage. With TV commercials I learnt a long time ago that its really not about ‘creative freedom’– you are helping your client sell a product and you can offer your best advice to help them create a fantastic and memorable commercial – if you expect to have total creative freedom you will always be disappointed. Anyway I like to have something to rail against. You have moved into more of a producer role since setting up your own production company, Arthur Cox, producing successful films such as Matthew Walker’s John and Karen. How involved are you in the production stages of the animation with this role and what do you enjoy about this position?

The Itch of the Golden Nit follows 11 year old hero Beanie on his mission to save his parents from Evil Stella and to return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe. It’s a surreal and spectacular adventure that only the wild imaginations of kids could dream up! Aided by his shouty older sister Beryl, who has been shrunk to the size of a doll by one of Stella’s electric bubbles, Beanie sets out on a crazy adventure to rescue his parents and save the universe. As it was lots to do and remember we were glad we practised before everyone arrived. We did this by interviewing some of the facilitators who had run the Tate workshops. Eleven-year-old Beanie's bland life is changed for ever when he is sent on a mission. Armed only with laser lip-gloss and a pair of blend-in pants he has to save his parents from Evil Stella and return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe."