Reflecting on 60s/70s Influence

I've had lots of feedback from people seeing Whistle-stop Thistle saying that it reminds them of things they watched as a child, charming and wonky stop-motion animation from the 60s/70s, which I take as a HUGE compliment and reassures me that I have achieved the tone I was aiming for.
Animations like Bagpuss, Trumpton, The Herbs are all considered classics and are each distinct worlds that captivated child audiences at the time.
I was definitely influenced by this era of children's entertainment and that is what I was trying to recreate, but I do hope that my book is also something very different and a world all of its own.

I have been reading Oliver Postgate's biography and I sense a reflection of myself within his words. Both in our similarly anxious minds, desire to please others and our passion for world-building. My favourite quote from his biography is this one:
'Magic or not, something was changed in me that day. Perhaps I had found broad space and clarity. There was no going back on that and if the world didn't suit? Well then, I would make another one.'



'The virtue of our films doesn't lie in what they are, it's what they aren't. They're not made by formula, they're not made at enormous expense, they were made just by Peter Firmin and myself...'
'It was a matter of providing enjoyment.' 'We were so bad at animation that we had to have a very good story.'
'The actual stories were driven by the objects. What I had to do was to scout around and find something... and I would put it down in front of Peter... and we would try and think up what its story was, how it got like that.'
Reusing things
Strange, woolly creatures where you're not quite sure where they are
It's through watching them again that you really see what was important to you
The fact that everyone remembers them, that itself is proof of the alue of the work.


Gordon Murray (Trumpton,Camberwick Green,Chigley)'s intentions are not dissimilar to my own: 'To see it on television' 'for the young people who watched it to remember it with pleasure'



A suggested video after watching this was one which showed how Windy Miller was brought to modern audiences for the Quaker Oats commercials. I found it really admirable how the team at Loose Moose had closely examined such details as camera angles and how the puppets moved (the signature 'plod') in order to recreate the classic character and CHARACTERFUL animation.



'In these old animation series they kept things really simple. So stuff like the fact that they don't have a mouth and they don't actually speak when you hear voices... it's a convention that has been established.'
Retro 'style' campaign stands out against everything else that you see as a viewer. It's different and striking in modern Television to see something as handmade as this.