Chancery Lane
CARDIGAN
Ceredigion
West Wales UK
SA43 1HD
Just a “Stones Throw” from Cardigan Castle - On Beautiful Cardigan Bay - West Wales - UK.
Cardigan’s Longest Established Family Variety Store.
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This Page is really for dedicated “Claymation” fans, and has been put on-line to keep Welsh Animation alive.
Non-Welsh visitors might be surprised just how much of the animation they see on Television comes out of Wales.
Anyone who knew our daughter Lorraine Ford in the 1970’s & 80’s
who attended Llechryd Primary School and Cardigan Secondary School, might find this page interesting. Mike
Not every member of our family is involved in our retail business.
In 1994 our daughter Lorraine graduated from Wimbledon School of Art with a degree in Technical Arts Interpretation, (turning someone else’s artistic idea into a 3D product,) and worked as the Head Model Maker with the Welsh animation company “Aaargh! Animation” in Cardiff, until they disbanded in 2000.
From 1995-1997 the small team produced the popular 13 part TV series of Claymation 5 minute shorts called “GOG’s”. The story of a dis-functional Welsh Stone Age family.
Each episode cost £45,000, cheap at the time.
Aaargh! in those early days comprised just five production personnel.
Lorraine produced the Plasticine stone age characters and clothing etc, while another model maker, Nigel Leach, made the dinosaurs and scenery.
The two founder members of the company, Michael Mort and Deiniol Morris, wrote the stories, did the story boards and much of the animation along with an assistant animator, Jody Meredith. Who’s web site is: Http://www.jodyanimator.com
A check on IMDB will see the team won awards world wide for Gogs.
Gogs most famous “fan” was the director Steven Spielberg and his children, whom Mike & Deiniol were invited to visit in the USA.
Quite a few products from our shop appeared regularly in the Gog’s and Rex the Runt, a BBC2 animation series Lorraine also worked on a Aardman Animation in Bristol. (More below).
Like the £1 Patchwork Chamois Leather’s we STILL sell, and which were used to make the “stone age family” costumes throughout the series.
A 30 minute “special" costing £750,000 was made in 1998 for the BBC called “Gogwana”. This was an extensive undertaking and took 35 weeks to make with a much larger crew. It was co-funded by S4C and BBC Bristol. And, like Gogs, was very popular in countries like Canada, and Japan.
But because of it’s “toilet” humour, the BBC did not give it the continued exposure it deserved.
So the Gog’s following in England was minimal.
Notice how Tom & Jerry Cartoons haven’t been shown on the BBC at “tea time” for many many years? Deemed too violent now perhaps?
Between them, Gogs and Gogwana gained many international awards for best Animation, including Banff in Canada, and Rio de Janero, (See Wikipedia for full list).
To reduce costs even further, S4C started looking abroad to places like Russia to produce animation, so when funding for Gog’s began to dry up, the company was mothballed and everyone went their separate ways.
Lorraine went on to work with other Model Makers at Bristol’s Aardman Animation in 1999. First working on “bits of chickens” for “Chicken Run”, then she was offered the job of Art Director on series 2 of “Rex the Runt” for showing on BBC 2.
(We provided Blackspur “props” for that series too.)
Over the years as a freelance artist working from her family home near Brecon, Lorraine has also worked on TV commercials, again helping Mike Mort.
These include the animated Levi Jeans commercial, and the more recent “Lynx” Stone Age deodorant commercial, for which she designed and made the costumes, the hair, and the furry skins of the Mammoth and Sabre-Tooth Tiger.
She also designed and made the costumes for the tiny characters in the Siriol production of the 2005 TV series “Fireman Sam”, and Channel 5’s “Hana’s Helpline”.
Lorraine, now married Lorraine Hole, with two young children, as well as helping Mike Mort develop mini-costumes for his latest “adult” animation project, Chuck Steel: Raging Balls of Steel Justice”, which previewed on Film 4 in July 2014, is also diversifying her artistic talents with her own company and web-site, offering select, high quality, custom made Wedding Stationary, and custom designed wedding decorations.
Her products are sent around the world. If you have a wedding coming up, her web site is: www.bluebowdesigns.co.uk Mike
The Aaargh! Animation team in the late 1990’s. Click for their names.
@ October 2013, The GOGS “Swing” episode, and seemingly most of the other episodes, could be viewed on:
“You Tube- Gogs ” ….Happy viewing.
Watch out for the Poo and the green Snot! Yuk!
On this page are a collection of Images from programs and commercials that Lorraine was involved with over the years, either as the Model Maker or Costume Designer. It goes to show that children from our local schools can do well in the Arts if they have the talent and determination
This “dead” Dinosaur, along with a few other Gogs artefacts, were saved from the clearance rubbish Skip by Lorraine when Aaargh! Animation disbanded. We even have a unique plasticine baby Gog, Gweeg, on a swing resembling Stone Henge .
They and other artefacts now reside in “Mikes Museum of Curiosities”, and, along with memorabilia of the Electronics and Computing age of the last 50 years, can be seen by customers in a glass display case on the top floor in Mike’s Shop.
Planned to be coming to a screen near you in 2017
