Steve Harding-Hill
Award winning Commercials Director for Aardman
Animations, Steve Harding-Hill, completed the
Foundation course in Art and Design at Bradford &
Ilkley College in 1988.
“In 1987, after years of making pork pies at my
dads’ bakery I decided I’d had enough of hard
work and that I wanted to become an ‘artist.’
My fathers parting words were ‘No son of mine
is flouncing off to Art College, coming back with
funny ideas and a funny haircut.’
Ignoring him, I
went off and enrolled on the Foundation course
in Art and Design at Bradford & Ilkley College.
This proved to be one of the best years of my life.
It was fun, cool and unlike school, you got to call
your lecturers Dave (not all of them, just the ones
called Dave).
From there I managed to get on the Graphic
Design degree at Leeds Polytechnic, run by my
now dear friend and artist, the bombastic John
Ross. After surviving his gruelling regime at Leeds
(much of it centred around the Fenton Arms) I
decided that I never wanted to make another pork
pie again and set out on a career as an animator.
Within months I’d won the Channel Four
Animation Award and I was commissioned to
make my first animated film Angry George Irons (co-written by Ross).”
In 1993 Steven embarked on a Masters in
Animation at The Royal College of Art, winning
the prestigious British Film Institute Award for
Best Animated Film while there. “After graduating I worked as a Commercials
Director at Studio AKA, London and that same
year my RCA graduation film The Ticker Talks was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Animated
Film.
In 1999 I moved to Bristol and became a
Director at Aardman Animations where I now
create advertising campaigns in all manner of
mixed media; stop-motion, 2d drawn, live action,
CGI etc.
Only recently I directed the Leonard Cheshire
Disability Awareness campaign, which takes the
actual dialogue of disabled people and turns
them into Creature Comforts style animation. My
aim was to make thought provoking, funny films
that challenge able-bodied people’s perceptions
of disability. It was a dream of a job and I have
just finished another 4 ads for them. And yes I do
feel very lucky.”
Photograph supplied by Aardman Animations