AN animator who has worked on Clangers, Postman Pat and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is returning home to host a stop-motion masterclass.

Kim Emson, a former Lymm High School student, will be showing people how to make an animated Christmas message at St Wilfrid’s Parish Centre in Grappenhall on Sunday. The three-hour workshop is aimed at hobbyists and enthusiasts but families and kids, aged seven and over, are equally welcome.

With a range of winter wonderland characters, glittery letters and snowflakes, crafty types can learn about what it takes to create a stop-motion animation, a century-old art form.

Kim, who recently worked with Mackinnon and Saunders on Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, said: “I whipped these up from some Christmas decorations and turned them into puppets. I’ve kept it flat to make it as simple as possible for them and they can make Christmas scenes and bring them to life with little characters.”

The class costs £40 and a laptop and webcam is required.

Kim, who now lives in Hulme but whose family lives in Thelwall and Stockton Heath, added: “Although it’s a bit of an investment on their part and they’ve got to have a bit of equipment already it means they’re set up for trying it again at home

“They’d feel really satisfied that they’ve accomplished something together. People seem to be curious about how stop-motion is made and their mind is blown by the fact that it takes a day to make 10 seconds of footage. Everyone relates to it on a childhood level as well because it does take them back to when they would watch cartoons.”

That is how it all began for Kim. She was still at St Wilfrid’s CE Primary School when she watched a documentary about the making of TV show Peanuts, featuring Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

She said: “I was about 13 when I realised for the first time that people got paid to make animation and cartoons because I saw Nick Park getting his first Oscar for the Creature Comforts adverts.”

So Kim started making her own characters on paper, plasticine and Play-Doh.

She added: “I was always doing creative things and when I was a kid I would often win drawing and colouring competitions at school so the passion and some form of talent was there. I remember I got my picture in the Guardian for coming third in a competition to design your own Care Bear.”

After studying at Priestley College Kim did an animation degree at the University of Hull.

The 37-year-old then got her foot in the door with work experience at Hot Animation, which used to be based in the Altrincham studios that Mackinnon and Saunders now use. Hot Animation offered Kim a training scholarship after her degree in 2003 and she cut her teeth on much loved children’s TV programmes such as Bob the Builder and Rubberdubbas.

Part of the philosophy of what she does is trying to create the illusion of toys coming to life.

Kim said: “I definitely enjoy bringing character to something inanimate. Certainly way before Toy Story there was Jim Henson’s Christmas Toy

“It wasn’t stop motion, it was hand puppets but it was a favourite growing up and that was about toys coming to life when you’re out of the room. Stuff like that captured my imagination.”

Kim even got to work with Tim Burton on Frankenweenie, a black and white stop-motion feature about a dog that comes back from the dead.

She added: “Tim would come to the studio about once a fortnight. We’d have an animators’ meeting and he’d come and talk to us all.

“He had a certain humility about him. You’d expect him to command the room but he was quite self-conscious. He started out as animator for Disney so his grounding is in animation.

“It was my first feature film so it was a great opportunity

“I worked on that film for a year but I joined them on week eight of the shoot. To get to that stage they had months and months of testing, scriptwriting and design and working with Mackinnon and Saunders on the puppets.

“I left them on week 58 and they carried on beyond that as well because the way it works is they have a skeleton staff and ramp up and then ramp back down towards the end.”

This painstaking process was for a 87-minute feature. Some feat when you consider that animators only typically create 10 seconds of footage in a day.

Kim, who has also done animation work for brands like Starbucks, Waitrose and John Lewis, said: “People say to me all the time you must be really patient.

“It does feel like time’s playing tricks on you because you’re spending eight hours looking at 10 seconds.”

More recently Kim has teamed up with artist Jess Wheeler for Channel 4’s Random Acts.

Kim will be using a multiplane – which comprises of a seven layers of glass and camera sitting at the top shooting directly down – to bring Jess’s collages to life.

She added: “It’s a technique I learnt on Bob the Builder. We did a project called ‘Bob on Site’ and created some paper artwork on the multiplane and brought it to life.

“Jess has got this vision for the film but she’s never animated before so I’ve been working with her. Random Acts is all weird films that wouldn’t get commissioned otherwise because they’re not pop culture or mainstream viewing. They’re unusual and unique.

“It’s good to be able to bring Jess’s imagination to life.”

Kim's Christmas animation masterclass is on Sunday from 1pm to 4pm.

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