Nick Park

Academy Award-winning animator Nick Park turned his childhood avocation into a career as one of the most recognized innovators in animation, in the process, making stars of the cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit. Park's genius was first put on display via the Claymation work for British pop star Peter Gabriel's ground-breaking music video "Sledgehammer" (1986). Working with the U.K. studio Aardman Animations, he contributed to the immensely popular short films "Creature Comforts" (1990) and "A Grand Day Out" (1990). While the former earned Park his first Oscar statuette, it was the latter that introduced the world to his greatest creations - Wallace and Gromit. Using hand-crafted clay models and the painstaking animation process of stop-motion photography, the filmmaker went on to win two more Oscars for the short films "The Wrong Trousers" (1993) and "A Close Shave" (1995), both of which continued the adventures of Wallace and Gromit. Working on a broader palette, Park co-directed the animated feature "Chicken Run" (2000), oversaw a children's series version of "Creature Comforts" (CBS, 2003-06), and gave the Plasticine pair their feature film debut in "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" (2005), which won Park another Academy Award. More whimsical adventures were had in such shorts as "Wallace & Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death'" (2008). Though his work was created, quite literally, on a comparatively small scale, Park's extensive contributions to the world of animation could not be overstated.