Ivor Wood

Ivor Wood (4 May 1932 – 13 October 2004) was a prolific Anglo French stop motion director, producer, animator and writer known for his work on children's television series.^[1]

Born in Leeds to an English father and a French mother, his family moved to the mountains near Lyon, France after the Second World War, where he was educated.^[2] He studied fine art in Paris, and later worked in an advertising agency in Paris, where he met Serge Danot. Together they made the acclaimed French series Le Manège Enchanté (known in English as The Magic Roundabout), with Wood as the animator .^[3]

Following the success of The Magic Roundabout in the UK, Wood partnered with the British London-based animation company FilmFair (now part of DHX Media). Wood became both animator and director for a number of FilmFair's animated children's programmes, starting with The Herbs in 1968. During the 1970s he animated and directed Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings, Hattytown Tales, The Adventures of Parsley, The Wombles and Paddington.

Woodland Animations

Woodland Animations was founded in 1973 by Ivor Wood and his wife Josiane, specifically to produce stop-motion animated series for the BBC. The company produced a number of programmes, the earliest and most popular of which was Postman Pat and the shortest and least popular of which was Gran which lasted 10 minutes shorter than the other three.

Productions

• Postman Pat (1981)
• Gran (1982/83)
• Bertha (1985/86)
• Charlie Chalk (1988/89)

Following the high popularity of Postman Pat, new seasons of it were made starting with specials in 1991, 1994 and 1996, and the show has been produced since then. In 2001, Woodland Animations was sold to Entertainment Rights, which is now part of DreamWorks Classics which later would be acquired by NBCUniversal as part of NBCU's purchase of DreamWorks Animation.^[4]

References

External links

• Ivor Wood at the Internet Movie Database
• The World of Ivor Wood blog