Meet the partners behind Marsden's Fettle Animation after 10 years of creativity

Fettle Animation was set up 10 years ago by Kath and Zane, who are partners in life and business. Kath, a local government arts development officer in a previous life, and Zane, a gifted animator who has worked for some big names in the computer game world, were both ready for a change of direction. “We had a young daughter at the time and we wanted a civilised way of getting a bit of a work-life balance.”

However, they hadn’t reckoned with just how successful their animation studio would become. During the past decade they have produced work for the likes of the BBC, the Open University and the former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield; won six Royal Television Society Awards, a Sandford St Martin’s Children’s Award and a prestigious Japan Prize for educational media – and have even had their work screened at the United Nations in New York.

Their latest success was at the Royal Television Society Yorkshire Programme Awards where they won the best animation prize for their powerful three-minute animation on modern slavery, made in collaboration with West Yorkshire Police’s Anti-Slavery Partnership.

The story is based on several accounts from real women. “Zane does a lot of detailed visual research. We got as much information as we could and tried to generate an environment that was generic enough to capture the spirit of these women and where they might be from, and to create a character that had some universal appeal but wasn’t specific to any one place or person,” explains Kath.

“We had to make sure the way we portrayed her was culturally appropriate and the way she was dressed was appropriate because there’s a lot of sensitivity around these things. You have to make sure there’s nothing too specific that relates to one family or one person and alienates them.”

From start to finish the project took around six months, which illustrates just how much time, care and effort goes into producing a short animation work. “It looks simple and that’s the art of it,” says Kath.

Storytelling is at the heart of what Fettle does with Kath the producer and Zane the director. Or, as Kath jokes: “I do the words and he does the pictures.”

There is, of course, far more to it than that, with Zane concentrating on perfecting the animation, while Kath focuses on collecting stories and developing new partnerships and creative networks.

Operating from their Marsden studio they collaborate with a raft of other people including writers, actors and musicians, as well as freelance animators, and have produced an impressive body of work for children and adults – from commercials and product launches to children’s series and poignant educational films.

Their acclaimed Children of the Holocaust animated series for the BBC, based around interviews with survivors of Nazi persecution during the Second World War, has been shown in 19 cities worldwide and led to a string of awards as well as a Bafta nomination.

Part of the appeal of animation is the way it can cut across cultures and tackle difficult topics in an accessible and profound way. “It’s the way it can make something abstract. It can show deep feeling and emotion and exploitation without showing the gory bits,” says Kath.

“It takes something we feel comfortable with from our childhood and creates surprise by making something more serious. You can also use a bit of humour to get things across and I love the way you can build that world where the rules of your imagination are all that apply.”

It can also be used to reach a wider audience. “We’ve found that charities are wanting ways to reach new audiences. People don’t want leaflets anymore so they’re looking for ways to reach their donors and supporters and tell the stories of what they’re doing, so animation works really well for them.”

Another key strand of Fettle Animation’s work is its collaborations with university researchers on a variety of projects. “They want to find ways of getting things across, so we’ve done something on the housing safety crisis and irritable bowel syndrome, subjects that are quite difficult to put across but which we can do in a gentler way,” says Kath.

Their work with the University of Sheffield exploring ways of making animation more interactive for pre-school children involved working with academics to learn more about how children learn and play outdoors, which included working in a local forest school. This, in turn, has helped Fettle create a children’s TV programme – based around a couple of animated characters Floss and Em – which they hope to develop into a children’s TV series.

They have also moved into the world of Augmented Reality (AR) in a collaboration with University of York and XR Stories to explore its potential use in animation.

Kath says: “It feels after 10 years we’ve got a lot to be proud of and can celebrate where we’ve been, and now we’re trying to pull all the threads of the good stuff we’ve done into the new world.”

For more information visit https://fettleanimation.com/