The Itch of the Golden Nit: Tate Movie Project

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Lastly, what can we look forward to seeing from Sarah Cox/Arthur Cox in the future? Can you give tell us anything about Arthur Cox’s involvement with the upcoming adaptation of Graham Chapman’s A Liar’s Biography? Then, fortunately, we were told we were allowed to sneak into the cinema - we sat down with all the special guests just as it was about to start. It was great to be some of the first people to see it. 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 was really creative. It was a fusion of pictures based on drawings by five to 13-year-olds. 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!

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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. 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? Since then Sarah combined her love of animation with teaching, working as a lecturer at Humberside University, then The National Film and Television School and as Head of Animation at Savannah College for Art and Design, in Georgia, USA.

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? 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. Jane Burton, creative director of Tate Media, said the team was extremely happy with the result. "We wanted it to be something that people would enjoy watching as much as the children enjoyed making it," she said. 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.

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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. 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? 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 Tate Movie Project has given thousands of children across the UK the opportunity to bring their creativity and imagination to life. At CBBC we aim to produce entertaining and engaging programmes for children, which is exactly what this project is about and I am thrilled that we have been able to support it.” Damian Kavanagh, Controller of CBBC

The film followed a unique production process. For those who don’t know could you explain a little bit how about the project came together? 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." But this is no ordinary nit. The Golden Nit is the battery that powers the sun and if Beanie doesn’t get it home by sunset the sun will die and the universe is doomed.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. 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 will 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. 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. 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. InterviewAround 2,000 children will see their own work in the film. "It has been a collaborative effort from the get-go," said Burton. "We've seen it more as a big community movie crew that has crowdsourced the film." 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.