Alan Dewhurst - Brisbane Lecture ~ Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf is a short animated film that won a 2008 Academy Award. Alan Dewhurst, one of the producers, gave a lecture on May 27th 2009 at Queensland University of Technology.

The film took about 4 years to make and over 250 people are credited in its production.

The three main people involved were: Producers Alan Dewhurst and Hugh Welchman, and director Suzie Templeton.

The film was eventually made in Poland in association with Se-ma-for Studios. It was shot using cameras lifted from Berlin at the end of World War II.

The film is strongly influenced by eastern European themes and music. It's foundations are from the story by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. The design of the film was based on the central relationship between the visual presentation and the music.

The darkness and seriousness of the film has given it distinction but at the same time hampered its growth into the main stream. The animation and design is excellent.

Maya software was used to produce a detailed animatic with ruff models and a full layout and to animate the blue balloon that helped the magpie to 'fly'.



>Find out why the animators were directed to animate a female wolf.

Find out where computer graphics were used to complement the stop motion animation.

Alan spoke a lot about funding and obstacles to production. How a lot of the film is created based on a complex web of promises that needed to be honoured over time (before paying the producer's fees). A gem he dropped into the lecture was, "Don't let ambition run in front of the budget, otherwise you get in all sorts of trouble."



Suzie Templeton made an award winning student film at the Royal College of Art in 2001.