Nick Park

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Nicholas Wulstan Park, CBE (b. December 6, 1958) is an Academy Award-winning British filmmaker of stop motion animation best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit.

Nick Park was born in Preston in Lancashire, England, and grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons. He studied Communication Arts at Sheffield Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) and then went to the National Film and Television School, where he started making the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out.

In 1985, he joined the staff of Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products (including the video for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer") and completed A Grand Day Out. With A Grand Day Out in post-production, he made Creature Comforts as his contribution to a series of shorts called "Lip Synch". Creature Comforts matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about their homes. The two films were nominated for a host of awards; A Grand Day Out beat Creature Comforts for the BAFTA award, but it was Creature Comforts that won Park his first Oscar.

Two more Wallace and Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), followed, both winning Oscars. He then made his first feature-length film, Chicken Run (2000), co-directed with Aardman founder Peter Lord. He also supervised a new series of "Creature Comforts" films for British television in 2003.

His second theatrical feature-length film and first Wallace and Gromit feature, , was released on October 5, 2005, to much critical acclaim. The film was rewarded with the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 78th Annual Awards, March 6, 2006. After he won, he was interviewed by U.S. News & World Report.

Tragedy struck on October 10, 2005, when fire gutted out Aardman Animations' archive warehouse. The fire resulted in the loss of most of Park's creations, including the models and sets used in the hit movie Chicken Run. However, some of the original Wallace & Gromit models and sets, as well as the master prints of the finished films, were elsewhere and survived. A silver lining to the event was highlighted by comedian Jimmy Carr, who described the fire as "causing an estimated five million pounds worth of publicity".

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