dSCAPE/07
dSCAPE/07 Animation Night
Chris Shepherd - Biography
Chris Shepherd is a television/film writer and director. Born in Liverpool in 1966. He is mainly known for combining live action with animation. His work fuses comedy with commentary on the darker side of human nature.
His writer and directorial debut came with a Channel 4 film called The Broken Jaw. The animated short, made in 1997, illustrated the plight of a public house after it's been transformed into a fun pub. During the same year he animated the world stare-out championship for BBC comedy sketch show Big Train.
He directed and co-wrote a spoof general election series with Peter Holmes called People's Britain for Channel 4 in 2001. As producer he worked with Cramp Twins creator, Brian Wood, on his Channel 4 film School Disco.
His 2003 animate! commission, Dad's Dead, featured Ian Hart as its narrator. The film ground breakingly combined animation with live action in a unique style which led the film to win 25 international awards including Best Short Film at the British Independent Film Awards and BAFTA nomination.
More recent credits include animation on Channel 4 sit com Nathan Barley and Channel 4 documentary Bollocks To Cancer. 2005 saw him co-write and co-direct with artist David Shrigley on a second animate! commission called Who I Am And What I Want. His most recent film Silence Is Golden won the TCM Classic Shorts Award at the 2006 London Film Festival.