A HUSBAND and wife team are a step closer to an animated career after winning the audience award at Warrington's Longshot Film Festival.

Peter and Charlotte Mottram, who are inspired by Henry Selick and Pixar's movies, impressed the crowd with their short animated film, The Key To Life.

The story is about the struggle to find your keys when you are trying to leave the house.

Peter, from Higher Whitley, said: "It was a complete surprise to win. I thought the other films were fantastic, both in terms of visuals and storytelling so it left me a little speechless on the night.

"However, winning has given us a little more confidence and we're now thinking of entering some other short film festivals.

"We're expecting our first child next year, so this might be our last chance to do this for quite a while!"

By day, Peter works as an electronics engineer and Charlotte works in sales and marketing while at night they are often thinking of ideas for new films.

Some of their animated favourites are The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, Wall:E and Up! They are also fans of Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro's work.

The couple previous entered Empire magazine's 'Done in 60 seconds' competition, which is a contest to remake a feature film in one minute.

But their entry for Longshot was their first attempt at an original film.

Peter added: "We shot the film pretty quickly – by stop motion standards anyway – over the course of a couple of weekends.

"This is also the first film where we've been able to use a digital SLR to take the stills, rather than a compact camera.

"This helped with creating a depth of field and handling the difficult lighting conditions."

Tony Fennell, one of the organisers of Longshot Film Festival, said: "Losing your keys doesn't sound much of a drama, but sometimes it is the normal everyday experiences that can hook people into a story."

DAVID MORGAN