Oscar-winning Australian animator Adam Elliot made his award-winning clay characters for short film “Harvie Krumpet” in a makeshift studio shed so hot, he worked in his underpants, his father said on Tuesday.
“Harvie Krumpet,” which cost only A$377,000 ($290,000) to make, won the Academy Award for best animated short film, beating animation giants Pixar and Walt Disney’s nephew Roy, the U.S. sentimental favorite.
Elliot made the 22-minute short “claymation”movie, a tragicomic story of an immigrant down on his luck, working 10 hours a day for more than year in an airless shed.
“It was as hot as hell and he had to work fairly quickly because some of the plasticine would melt and the arms would droop,” Elliot’s father Noel told Australian radio.
His mother Valerie said her son had converted a shed from the family’s storage business into a studio, which had to be completely dark and closed at all times.
“He put in lots and lots of hours in there with no air-conditioning,” she said by telephone from suburban Melbourne.
Asked about her husband’s comments that their son worked in his underwear, she said: “Oh yeah, he did. But I think Adam’s wishing we’d never said that.”
Krumpet, voiced by fellow Australian and Oscar winning actor Geoffrey Rush, was one of the few upset winners at the 76th annual Academy Awards, dominated by full-length feature film “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” which made Oscar history by winning in all 11 categories in which it was nominated.
