The Snowman

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The Snowman was an awards darling and was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 1983 Academy Awards. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original short and of Channel 4, a 25-minute special titled The Snowman and the Snowdog aired on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve 2012. [18] Produced at the London-based animation company Lupus Films, [19] with many of the original team returning, the sequel was made in the same traditional techniques as the first film, and features the Snowman, a new young boy named Billy and a snow dog flying over landmarks and going to another party. [20] The story was expanded to fill 26 minutes and include a longer flying sequence which takes the boy to the North Pole and a party with Father Christmas which is not present in the picture book. The animators also brought in personal touches – a static sequence with a car is replaced by a motorcycle ride, as one of the animators was a keen motorcyclist and it was noted by Iain Harvey that this sequence kept "the action flowing after all the fun and comedy of the boy and the Snowman exploring the house and forming a friendship – and what could be better than a midnight run in a snowy landscape". [6] Similarly, although the boy in the book is unnamed, in the film he is named "James" on his present tag, added by animator Joanna Harrison as it was the name of her boyfriend (later her husband). [7] [8] Interviewed in 2012, Raymond Briggs recalls that he thought "'It's a bit corny and twee, dragging in Christmas', as The Snowman had nothing to do with that, but it worked extremely well." [9] Raymond Briggs confirmed that the boy in The Snowman seemed to reside in the South Downs area, near Brighton, suggesting that both the boy and the snowman are likely from Brighton.

The Snowman and The Snowdog animator revisits classic". BBC News. 24 December 2012 . Retrieved 25 December 2012. The Snowman was originally released on VHS in 1982 by Palace Video. It has been re-released several times by Palace and later PolyGram Video, and Universal Studios Home Entertainment UK after Palace went out of business. The Snowman is a wordless children's picture book by British author Raymond Briggs, first published in 1978 by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom, and published by Random House in the United States in November of the same year. [1] The book won a number of awards and was adapted into an animated television film in 1982 which is an annual fixture at Christmas.Barber, Martin (24 December 2012). "The Snowman and The Snowdog animator revisits classic". BBC News Online . Retrieved 25 December 2012. In a 2012 interview for the Radio Times, Briggs noted "I don't have happy endings. I create what seems natural and inevitable. The snowman melts, my parents died, animals die, flowers die. Everything does. There's nothing particularly gloomy about it. It's a fact of life." He disputed the idea that the book is a Christmas book, noting that it was only the animated adaptation that introduces this element. [4] Awards [ edit ] Interview with Hilary Andus and Joanna Harrison in "Snow Business" included on the 2002 20th Anniversary DVD The Bear – another book by Raymond Briggs which was also adapted into a 26-minute animated version and like this film was conveyed through music and action. Kate Greenaway Medal". 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University ( CCSU). Retrieved 2012-07-18.

Briggs has recently returned to illustrating, with Alan Ahlberg’s interactive children’s books The Adventures of Bert and A Bit More Bert (2001-2), but his own latest, The Puddleman (2004) is another idiosyncratic work, about a child’s appreciation of a character who puts puddles in the ground. He has now achieved a subtle and expressive form, equally able to move and entertain us. He has, says Nicolette Jones, ‘elevated the standing of the art of strip illustration and added status to children’s books’. a b Brown, Helen (21 September 2023). "How Walking in the Air took The Snowman to great heights". Financial TImes. Archived from the original on 1 October 2023 . Retrieved 1 October 2023.After they play with the lights on the family car, he prepares a feast that the duo eat by candlelight. The snowman takes the boy outside and they begin to fly over the South Downs and watch the sun coming up from Brighton pier before returning home. When the boy wakes in the morning, he finds that the snowman has melted.