Saving Ginger's Privates

Saving Ginger's Privates

Towards the end of 2002, Rob Martin had been discussing projects with various film organisations around Yorkshire, and had also wanted to expand upon some idea's that he had done a few years earlier.  One of these idea's was the series he did called 'Video diary of a gingerbread man' which was done using a gingerbread man and a broadcast quality camera borrowed from contacts at various local establishments, such as the media college and Huddersfield university.

One of these episodes featured the hapless gingerbread man doing battle with digestive biscuits with a sherman tank, and it was this that became the basis for Rob's next film.  The only problem was, how was it going to be filmed?

Rob's initial idea was to go back to the same methods used in the Lob Stories films, building puppets and animating them in and around the real world, and while concept photographs looked good, there were many technical issues that were causing concern, such as durability of the characters as the Lob Stories puppets had to be partially re-built, repaired and touched up with paint on a regular basis.

While the idea's were being developed, the use of computer animation was mentioned, and Rob went to his contacts in Cosgrove Hall to see if they would be willing to help.  As it turned out they were, and the whole look of the film was now being defined with Rob's imaginative artwork being central to the whole look.

Rob approached Tom Clarke-Hill, the voice behind Tony the Tiger and many film trailers to provide a narrative and voices for the film, and to many people's surprise he agreed.  His distinctive voice is heard throughout, and he even provided some ad-lib improvising moments, such as the 'Lets get ready to crumble' line and many more that sadly could not be included.

In 2003 the film was finished.  The Yorkshire film council, who funded the film were so impressed, it was entered into the Cannes Film festival of that year, as well as being entered into the best short animation section of the BAFTA's the following year.  While the film didn't win at the BAFTA's, it has won awards on the short film circuit and is still shown alongside work by Hollywood animation studio's at various film festivals around the world.

Sadly, it has never been shown at the Bradford film festival.