Virtual clay: Aardman extends the appeal of its claymation characters to the CG world. (Broadcast).

You're back in school and have been assigned a group project. After countless cups of coffee and lots of chitchat you find the deadline approaching and there is still no consensus on anything. It is time to go live with your presentation, and you have to "wing it." And, as if this weren't bad enough, you have to deal with one over-enthusiastic, inept project partner and another who is under-motivated and short-tempered.

This scenario describes the theme of "The Presentators," a series of five 90-second CG interstitials airing on Nickelodeon UK that follows the trials of a hapless trio who find themselves battling technology, fate, and each other while hosting a live television talk show. The series, produced by the UK's Aardman Animations. uses simple animation techniques to capture the malaise, youthful enthusiasm, and frustration of each "actor."

"The Presentators" is based on "Deadline." a short animation directed by Stephan Marjoram. For that project, Marjoram, along with Dan Lane and Brian McGrath, each modeled a character after himself, and then animated and voiced that character. The trio reunited for "The Presentators," only this time artist Steve Blake animated McGrath's character since McGrath was busy working on another project. McGrath did, however, perform the voice work.

While more famous for its claymation projects--including the feature film Chicken Run and two Oscar-winning shorts starring Wallace and Gromit--Aardman has been using computer graphics since the mid-1990s. Today, the studio's CG department is 17 animators strong and is producing shorts and commercials, including "The Presentators," which received an award for Best Script at the 2003 Imagina Festival.

Real Deadlines

For "The Presentators," the three animators had a mere 10 ...