ALISON DE VERE ANIMATION LTD

(1986-1995)

Animator Alison de Vere traded as Alison de Vere Animation after the break up of producer Lee Stork's unit at Wyatt-Cattaneo. Working fom her London home studio she made an animated half-hour special of George Eliot's Silas Marner, completed in 1983, for TV producer Nicole Jouve, whose company Interama was based in New York, and provided the opening and closing title sequences and additional stock footage for The Giddy Game Show, a puzzle series designed to challenge the skills of pre-school youngsters, produced by Yorkshire TV's Head of Children's Programmes Joy Whitby.

Alison de Vere's next personal film, The Black Dog, was financed by Channel 4 and won two prizes at Annecy in 1987.

Alison and her son Ben Weschke incorporated Alison de Vere Animation Limited on 9 December 1986, and provided seven short animated versions of Terry Jones' Fairy Stories for inclusion in the episodes of the otherwise live-action TV series East of the Moon, produced by Joy Whitby through her own company Grasshopper Productions. This was followed by a half-hour TV special for Grasshopper Productions, The Angel and the Soldier Boy, based on Peter Collington's picture book, and with music by Clannad. Alison storyboarded and laid out the scenes, which were largely animated by freelancers.

Next, Alison embarked on an ambitious half-hour special for Channel 4 telling the story of Psyche and Eros, as related in Apuleius's Latin novel The Golden Ass. The film was based on drawings by Alison's former husband, Karl Weschke, reflecting the classical Greek style and supported by Greek-style music and song. She also storyboarded another Peter Collington book, On Christmas Eve, for Joy Whitby, but the film was animated by Cosgrove Hall Productions.

At the start of the 1990s Alison and her ailing mother moved to St Just, Cornwall, to be closer to Ben and his young family. She set up a small studio there and continuing work on Psyche and Eros, which was completed in 1994.

Alison then did some freelance animation for Telemagination's TV series The Animals of Farthing Wood. She decided to step down from production, and Alison de Vere Animation Limited was dissolved on 17 Aug 1995, but Joy Whitby persuaded her to direct, animate and supervise Mouse and Mole, a children's TV series of 5-minute episodes based on the books by Joyce Dunbar and illustrated by James Mayhew. Two series of 13 episodes each were planned, but only 6 of the second series were completed owing to a lack of funding.

My thanks to Ben Weschke for his help in the compiling of this and the Alison de Vere page.

Filmography

Links to Other Sites

YouTube The Black Dog Video of Alison de Vere's prize-winning film.

Channel 4 East of the Moon The series episodes, each containing one cartoon story from Alison de Vere Animation.

YouTube The Angel and the Soldier Boy Video of the 26 minute tV special, adapted and directed by Alison de Vere from the picture book by Peter Collington.

YouTube Psyche and Eros Video of the film by Alison de Vere.

YouTube Mouse and Mole All 19 episodes of the series made by Alison de Vere.

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