The animation creators' latest movie, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, won the Alexander Korda Award for the Outstanding British Film of the Year and Nick Park collected the award with Peter Sallis at the BAFTA Ceremony last night.

The Bristol-made film also featured voices from Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter.
Speaking today, Nick Park said: "One of the wonderful things about this award for all of us is that it's the best feature film, not just animation, and it deserves to win, it's a bit of history in the making."

The film recently swept the boards at the Annies, Hollywood's annual animation awards, taking home nine trophies. It is nominated in the best animated feature film category for next month's Oscars, against Howl's Moving Castle and Corpse Bride.

The film's success is good news for Aardman Animations just months after the company's archive - including the Wallace and Gromit sets - was destroyed in a blaze at their storage unit in Bristol.

Later the co-director Merlin Crossingham was joined by a life-size Wallace & Gromit along with the original figures to explain how it takes he and a team of over 50 other people to produce less than 2 seconds of film per day: “Wallace and Gromit are made of regular Plastersine, we keep the studio air-conditioned in order that the figures do not melt, then in order to capture 1 second of film, the figures have to move 12 times. Expressions are mainly a direct result of our own faces as we become the models for Wallace & Gromit’s reactions”

Functionpix photographer Sayaka Hirakawa and reporter Pascal Molliere were present at Trafalgar Square to capture the entire event and all of their pictures can be seen by clicking <HERE> - as in all cases, profits from the sale of these images will be donated entirely to charity.

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