Lee Hardcastle

Lee Hardcastle (born 21 January 1985) is a British animator who specialises in stop-motion techniques. He is famous for his hand-made independent animations. His work includes original remakes of emblematic 1980s action and horror films, as well as parodies of animated series and video clips. His work is known for its violent and gory content.[1]

Lee Hardcastle
Born (1985-01-21) 21 January 1985
Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK
OccupationAnimator, Filmmaker
Years active2006–present

Biography

Lee Hardcastle was born in Leeds, United Kingdom. His love of cinema began when he was a teenager, and when he was eighteen years old he decided to study cinema in the Northern Film School of Leeds Beckett University. After graduating in 2006, he began his artistic work.[1]

At first, he worked with action figures instead of clay. He also combined stop-motion with live-action in the 2014 video Game Boy: The Movie.[2] Usually, he uses clay for his works.

Hardcastle founded Missing Head Limited, and on 13 July 2006 started a YouTube channel with the Dead Corps series of videos. His popularity increased in 2011, when T is for Toilet was selected to be in the film The ABCs of Death. The short was inspired by his prior experiences baby-sitting:

The previous year before I made the film, I spent three months working in a café with my girlfriend. The café was owned by her brother-in-law and they had a nephew who was like two-years-old, so while they were busy working, I'd do a lot of babysitting, looking after this child and I'd never been in that position before. It was a new experience and it really inspired me to see the world through this young child's eyes and that's where "T is for Toilet" came from.[3]

He has worked with many companies including Momentum Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Adult Swim, and has also worked with notable artists such as Sufjan Stevens.

In 2014, he published the project Spook Train in the crowdfunding portal Kickstarter. It was declared "the first claysploitation movie in the world". He did not reach his objective of £40,000 and left the project temporarily,[4] until changing his mind later and coming back to it.[5] The first chapter of the film was released on YouTube in September, 2018.[6]

Influences

Hardcastle enjoys the works of filmmakers Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Sam Raimi, and animated series The Simpsons and Family Guy.[7] He affirms that he decided to create animations using clay after he watched Comet Quest, Wallace and Gromit and Celebrity Deathmatch. He has sometimes cited John Carpenter's The Thing as his favourite horror film, and as one of the most important inspirations for his works.[4]

Filmography
Year Title Notes
2006 Stories from the Hotel Next to the Haunted Hospital
2010 Chainsaw Maid 2 Unofficial Sequel of Takena Nagao's 2007 Clay animation Chainsaw Maid
2010 Une de Perdue, Dix de Retrouvees
2011 Nightmare Music video for Love Automatic's "Nightmare"
2011 Postman Pat's Pet Sematary Parody of the British series Postman Pat
2011 A Zombie Claymation
2011 T Is for Toilet Also included in the anthology The ABCs of Death (2012)
2012 Worm Farm
2012 Pingu's The Thing Crossover of the animated series Pingu and the film The Thing
2012 Hamster Hell
2012 Claycat's The Thing Parody of the film The Thing
2012 Claycat's The Raid Parody of the film The Raid
2012 Claycat's Evil Dead II Parody of the film Evil Dead 2
2012 Chainsaw Babe 3D Sequel to Chainsaw Maid 2
2013 Drug Bust Doody
2013 An Alien Claymation
2013 Ghost Burger
2013 NinPlay-Doh Entertainment System
2013 A Good Clay to Die Hard Parody of the film of A Good Day to Die Hard
2014 There's Something in the Attic
2015 Frozen Blood Test Parody of John Carpenter's The Thing with the characters from Disney's Frozen
2015 Minion Ways to Die Parody with the characters from Illumination Entertainment's Minions
2015 Tech Noir Music video for GUNSHIP's "Tech Noir"
2016 The Simpsons Couch Gag (You're Next) Crossover of the animated series The Simpsons and the film You're Next
2016 Spook Train In process of production
2017 The Belko Experiment Claymation Shorts Series of four short films meant to promote The Belko Experiment
2017 Rick and Morty Go to the Movies Rick and Morty parodying classic films
2017 Mark Stroermer - Filthy Apes and Lions Music Video for Mark Stoermer
2018 Gorillaz - Tranz Small Portions of the video
2018 Portugal. The Man - Tidal Wave Music Video for Portugal. The Man

Awards and nominations

References
  1. «Lee gets animated with clay» (en angles).
  2. «An Appreciation of Claymation Horror Expert Lee Hardcastle»%20(en anglès).
  3. Nemiroff, Perri (5 March 2013). "Interview: The ABC's Of Death Director Lee Hardcastle". Shockya.com. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
  4. "Update 6: A very final Spook Train update · SPOOK TRAIN 3D".
  5. "Update 8: Spook Train: Day One · SPOOK TRAIN 3D". Kickstarter. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
  6. "Update 10: Curtains - SPOOK TRAIN [room 1] - reupload · SPOOK TRAIN 3D". Kickstarter. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
  7. «La animación gore con encanto 'lo-fi' del británico Lee Hardcastle» (en español).
  8. "Kill The Noise Is MTV Clubland's Pick Of The Year... Again". MTV News. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
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