You studied for an MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art which is renowned for turning out successful animators. What do you think it is about this institution that keeps producing such great talent? You have moved into more of a producer role since setting up your own production company, Arthur Cox, producing successful films such as Matthew Walker’s John and Karen. How involved are you in the production stages of the animation with this role and what do you enjoy about this position? The drawings submitted went through a similar process and every week myself and Emma Lazenby (Art Director) would feature a selection of drawings and sounds in a Voting Gallery and the kids would vote on their favorites – every vote winner HAD to go in the film. The same with the sounds submitted and much of the dialogue that came in went straight into the film completely unchanged. Jane Burton, creative director of Tate Media, said the team was extremely happy with the result. "We wanted it to be something that people would enjoy watching as much as the children enjoyed making it," she said. The cream of British comedy has provided additional voices for the film including Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ralf Little, Miriam Margolyes, Lucy Montgomery, Vic Reeves and Alexei Sayle. Two children provide the voices of Beanie - Bobby Fuller, known for his role of Jake on CBBC’s Sadie J - and his older sister Beryl - Rachel Rawlinson.

Around 2,000 children will see their own work in the film. "It has been a collaborative effort from the get-go," said Burton. "We've seen it more as a big community movie crew that has crowdsourced the film." The Itch of the Golden Nit has been a huge success. Are you considering making another film collaborating with children in this way?

About us

Then, fortunately, we were told we were allowed to sneak into the cinema - we sat down with all the special guests just as it was about to start. It was great to be some of the first people to see it. The cream of British comedy has provided additional voices for the film including Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ralf Little, Miriam Margolyes, Lucy Montgomery, Vic Reeves and Alexei Sayle. Two children will provide the voices of Beanie - Bobby Fuller, known for his role of Jake on CBBC’s Sadie J - and his older sister Beryl - Rachel Rawlinson. In 2002, Sarah left Picasso Pictures and set up her own production and animation company Arthur Cox, with Sally Arthur and has since directed several commercials in France and has been increasingly involved as a producer on many film projects. These include Emma Lazenby‘s BAFTA award winning film, Mother of Many, and the forthcoming live action film, iFeature’s Eight Minutes Idle. David Walliams, Miranda Hart, Catherine Tate and Rik Mayall lead the stellar cast providing the voices for the children’s characters from Evil Stella to Captain Iron Ears. Funded by Legacy Trust UK and BP, with additional support and resources from the BBC, the film has been brought together by Tate and the creative magic of Aardman Animations.

Arthur Cox continues to develop and expand, often working closely with Aardman Animations, as seen with the road safety series The Peculiar Adventures of Hector, which won a British Animation Award in 2007, and the more recent The Itch of the Golden Nit, 2011.

The stellar cast has provided the voices for the lead characters chosen from the many drawings submitted by children aged 5-13, the result of over 250 workshops and tens of thousands of individual uploads to the Tate Movie Project’s online movie studio. The online studio has had more than 500,000 hits since it went live last July and a touring Movie Studio spent months on the road visiting galleries, schools and festivals across the country encouraging children to use art as inspiration for their drawings and story ideas. Children did everything from inventing brand new superhero gadgets to spending a whole afternoon drawing planks for the pirate ship. Moving on to the fantastic film The Itch of the Golden Nit. What led you to take on such an ambitious project which allowed children to take the reigns?

Ha – well surprisingly sometimes I think I get more creative freedom in commercial projects than with the films. You are never entirely free if someone is funding you, but certainly with Tate all the direction came from the kids not from the top- whereas when we made 8 minutes idle we had 4 or 5 executive producers to convince at every stage. With TV commercials I learnt a long time ago that its really not about ‘creative freedom’– you are helping your client sell a product and you can offer your best advice to help them create a fantastic and memorable commercial – if you expect to have total creative freedom you will always be disappointed. Anyway I like to have something to rail against.I would love to but the opportunity I had was a kind of perfect storm that doesn’t come along very often.The cultural Olympiad funding, the Tate’s support and Aardman asking me to be involved. It would be difficult ( but not impossible ) to do something on the same scale. I do have loads of ideas about how we could develop the idea though – doing a live action approach, or a series or a feature and we are looking at ways to develop the concept. You walk into a little booth, they say 'read these words', you read the words and then they put the animation to it" Dom said. The stellar cast has provided the voices for the lead characters chosen from the many drawings submitted by children aged 5- 13 the result of over 250 workshops and individual uploads to The Tate Movie Project’s online movie studio. The online studio has had more than 500,000 hits since it went live last July and a touring Movie Studio has spent months on the road visiting galleries, schools and festivals across the country encouraging children to use art as inspiration for their drawings and story ideas. Eleven-year-old Beanie's bland life is changed for ever when he is sent on a mission. Armed only with laser lip-gloss and a pair of blend-in pants he has to save his parents from Evil Stella and return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe.

Throughout her time lecturing she also managed to maintain her career as a commercial director in animation; creating MTV idents and music promos with John Parry, before joining Picasso Pictures in 1994. Here, she began directing huge campaigns for Boots No7 and Avaya Communications, as well as commercials for big name brands such as Sanatogen and Virgin Megastores. The Tate Movie Project has given thousands of children across the UK the opportunity to bring their creativity and imagination to life. At CBBC we aim to produce entertaining and engaging programmes for children, which is exactly what this project is about and I am thrilled that we have been able to support it.” Damian Kavanagh, Controller of CBBC But this is no ordinary nit. The Golden Nit is the battery that powers the sun and if Beanie doesn’t get it home by sunset the sun will die and the universe is doomed. The Tate was the perfect partner for the project ( along with CBBC of course) because they gave the whole thing a really strong environment. The workshops were framed in the context of looking at art works and they had a massive influence and what the children drew and wrote. Much of the initial story came from a workshop in Tate Liverpool where we showed the children Picasso’s Weeping Woman ( which was there as part of the Picasso Peace and Freedom exhibition), we asked why they thought she was crying and within the context of a script workshop – where they shouted out ideas, developing on each other thoughts; we got an amazing story chain about a girl called Diana whose hair grew 5 meters every 5 seconds, it grew so fast she had to wash it in the Mersey, one day a dead kitten fell out, her only friends were the nits that lived in her hair etc etc…quite dark but quite brilliant material. The main thing I learnt from the project was that children really soak up the visual world around them so it is very very important to expose them to good design early on… even if they don’t speak about it – it definitely has a massive effect we could see it clearly in the drawings.

#= data.dataItem.date #

The film followed a unique production process. For those who don’t know could you explain a little bit how about the project came together? Since then Sarah combined her love of animation with teaching, working as a lecturer at Humberside University, then The National Film and Television School and as Head of Animation at Savannah College for Art and Design, in Georgia, USA. Aided by his shouty older sister Beryl, who has been shrunk to the size of a doll by one of Stella’s electric bubbles, Beanie sets out on a crazy adventure to rescue his parents and save the universe. Eleven-year-old Beanie's bland life is changed for ever when he is sent on a mission. Armed only with laser lip-gloss and a pair of blend-in pants he has to save his parents from Evil Stella and return the Golden Nit to its rightful place at the heart of the sun, thereby saving the universe."