Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Sam Fell started his career as writer/director of the short film The Big Cheese for 3 Peach Animation/Channel4. He then joined Aardman Animations as a director and animator on commercials and short projects like Pop, Chump, Peter Lord’s’ Oscar-nominated short film Wat’s Pig, and the BBC series Rex the Runt.

During that time he also developed a children’s TV series called Rabbits! and several feature animation projects including Flushed Away. When Flushed Away was greenlit to become Aardman’s first CG project he moved to Los Angeles to direct the movie (with David Bowers) at Dreamworks Animation studios. The film was nominated for a BAFTA in 2007. From 2008 to 2009 he directed (with Rob Stevenhagen) The Tale of Despereaux for Universal Studios in London at Framestore.

From there Sam moved to Portland, Oregan to direct Laika’s second feature film ParaNorman (with writer/director Chris Butler) which was released in August 2012 and nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA in 2013. Since then he has been directing commercials and developing long-form projects.

Peter Lord is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Aardman. He co-founded Aardman with his long-time collaborator, David Sproxton, in 1972. As a director, Lord has been honored with two Academy Award ® nominations for Best Animated Short, the first in 1992 for Adam, and for Wat’s Pig in 1996, and Best Animated Feature for Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists in 2013. He has also earned BAFTA nominations for Adam, The Amazing Adventures of Morph, War Story and Chicken Run and, as a producer for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Lord first met Sproxton in the early 1970’s at school, where they started experimenting with animation techniques on their kitchen table. They tried a range of methods before settling on plasticine/clay model animation. While they were still in their teens, a BBC children’s television producer offered Lord and Sproxton the chance to make short animated films for his program, Vision On.

Lord’s most recent film credits are as Executive Producer on Aardman’s 2015 hit film Shaun the Sheep Movie, the 2018 comedy adventure Early Man, and the second Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon released in autumn 2019.