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Have I Got News For You

One of our first jobs was with Hat Trick North on a short lived show called ‘Turn Back Time’. It was hosted by Dara O Briann and we provided the title sequence and graphics. The show lasted for six episodes and came out the same year as ‘Mock the Week’, which didn’t.

It’s a shame, because it was a good concept and a funny show. Vic Reeves, Barry Humphries and Julian Clary were three of the guests. The latter replacing a disgraced comedian, who had himself replaced Richard Pryor, on the Muppet Show, in the 80s, after a freebasing mishap.

Over 20 years later one of the producers offered us the chance to pitch for the ‘Have I Got News For You’ titles. Another show which had lasted more than six episodes. They wanted to get back to the frame by frame transitions of earlier series and fortunately for everyone that’s something storyboard artist Maximilien Quaine is an expert in. Hat Trick loved his animatic and the design style Katie Mulrennan and Laurie Critchley had created for a previous film.

We were commissioned and ten weeks later, after Tony, Richard, Sho, Claire, Gabi and Emily had brought Katie and Lauren’s brilliant designs to life, our work is being shown on BBC1, on Fridays, at 9pm for the foreseeable future.

We’re all really happy with this one. It’s a great job, with good clients and most importantly our families now know what we do.

Hope you like the work.

Producer/Director – Jon Turner

Design – Katie Mulrennan and Lauren Critchley

Storyboard/Animatic – Maximilien Quaine

Animation – Tony Comley, Richard Jones, Sho Ogden, Claire Grey, Gabi Muir and Emily Dean

Design Process

As you can see a lot of work went into getting characters just right. BBC impartiality around politicians means we can’t be defamatory and have to give everyone equal prominence.

We had a lot of fun getting them just right. Even if Ed wasn’t able to join us this time.

Only now do we realise how much work went into the Russian sub. Impartiality wasn’t the issue here, just getting the best looking shot possible.

There was some discussion on whether to include Trump, but if not us, then who is going to notice the Wallflower President?