British Animation

Reviews / Votes

"British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor takes a look at the glory years of Britian's Channel 4 and their dedication to bringing quality animation to television. Since 1982, they've aired works such as The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, Street of Crocodiles, Girls Night Out, Feet of Song, The Village, Creature Comforts, Screenplay, Bob's Birthday, Abductees, City Paradise, Rabbit and Peter and the Wolf. In addition to this amazing line-up of animation, the channel also 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. The book, which will be published in February by Indiana University Press, should offer plenty of insider details because it's written by Clare Kitson, who was the commissioning editor at Channel 4 from 1989 until 1999. Channel 4 is one of the bright spots in TV animation history and I'm looking forward to learning more about the people and circumstances that made their artistic approach to TV animation possible."-Amid Amidi, Cartoon Brew
"Beautifully produced . . . intelligent . . . captivating."-Sight & Sound, August 2009
"The book . . . offer[s] plenty of insider details because it's written by Clare Kitson, who was the commissioning editor at Channel 4 from 1989 until 1999. Channel 4 is one of the bright spots in TV animation history . . ."-Amid Amidi, Cartoon Brew
"Clare Kitson has written a characteristically engaging,pertinently-detailed and wrily-amusing study of the heydays of animated film in Britain, in the 1980s and 1990s as championed by the ground-breaking new national, commercial television Channel 4 . . . . The book should appeal to anyone at all drawn to animation, as a casual spectator, serious student,or professional practitioner.1/16/09"-Phillip Bergson's blog, Fest 21.com
"Kitson . . . has written a humane and intimate history of the ups and downs of animation at the Channel, leavening it with just the right amount of dry wit, personal insight and anecdote. June 25, 2009"-fpsmagazine.com
"Clare Kitson, a former programmer for the National Film Theater and for Channel 4 in London, is our brilliant guide in this must-read look at some of the influential projects that have been produced in the [UK].7/24/09"-Ramin Zahed, ANIMATION MAGAZINE
"For fans of animation, certainly students, and for an account of the conflict between commercial and artistic concerns, this book is definitely worth a look. . . July 9, 2009"-PopMatters
"The present book lists most of C4's animated commissions, heavily buttressed with snippets of information and anecdotage and more lightly gilded with critical commentary, in roughly chronological order. Since the author was commissioning editor at the station for a decade, a certain celebratory note in respect of that perod is to be expected-and a certain dying fall as we come up to date unsurprising.July 31, 2009"-Times Literary Supplement
"A highly readable and informative insider account . . . This book could only have been written by this writer."-Ruth Lingford, Harvard University