British Animation: the Channel 4 Factor

Clare Kitson celebrates one of the most creative sources of broadcast animation?Britain's pioneering Channel 4, winner of three Academy Awards for animation. In the 1980s and 1990s, Channel 4 flourished as a world champion of televised animation. The channel regularly showcased both British and international works, set up the Animate initiative with the Arts Council of England, and backed the animator-in-residence program hosted by the British Film Institute's Museum of the Moving Image. It commissioned innovative, challenging, left-of-center short films by artists such as the Brothers Quay and Ruth Lingford. Kitson, who served as Channel 4's commissioning editor from 1989 until 1999, helped foster the channel's growing reputation as a broadcasting powerhouse. In British Animation she takes a fond look back at this exceptional era.