BAF09 Day 5 : Tony Fish

There are many huge names in the animation industry that should have a lot to thank this year’s winner of the BAF Lifetime Achievement award 2009 for. Tony Fish has worked with such names as Bob Godfrey, Geoff Dunbar, Erica Russell and Suzie Templeton, among other luminaries in the animation field.

We held a screening of his work on Friday and the audience were treated to a documentary put together to commemorate his work with excerpts and full versions of his finest animation.

Even those who are not versed in the world of animated shorts will recognise Fish’s work on such epics as ‘Pink Floyd: The Wall’, and Sir Paul McCartney/Geoff Dunbar’s ‘Rupert and The Frog Song’ and ‘Tuesday’. Fans of Bob Godfrey were also thrilled to see ‘Great’,’Roobarb’ and ‘Henry’s Cat’.

The special documentary featured some charming stories from the man himself about his involvement in these productions as well as the many others he has played a key role in.

He spoke of the task of editing Suzie Templeton’s more recent ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and the attachment one particular animator had towards the character he was animating; the poor animator nearly had a nervous breakdown when he had to film the character’s demise!



The documentary helped us all understand the amount of effort Fish had to put into ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and having to match the film with the slightest change in music seemed no easy task.

Tony Fish didn’t have a great deal to say in person when he collected his award; he dedicated it to his mother and thanked everyone he had worked with over the years but cut out any unnecessary chit chat and stuck to the important things. Just like any fantastic editor.