Never mind £200 million Avatar, how will £400 Happy Duckling fare at the Baftas?

Published on Thursday 21 January 2010 21:35

A FAIRYTALE ending beckons at Britain's Bafta awards for a nine-minute Scottish animated film, mostly made by a group of Dundee students on a budget of almost nothing.

• The nine-minute adventure tale The Happy Duckling, designed and animated by a team of eight students from Dundee, has already won a string of film festival prizes

The Happy Duckling, which left its director with a bill of about 400, may not be Scotland's answer to Avatar, the 3D epic which won eight Bafta nominations yesterday.

But the tale of a reluctant young boy and a relentlessly happy duck, portrayed in an animated "pop-up" book, continued its own quiet march to success.

It was nominated for Best Short Animation – having already racked up eight awards from Scotland to Italy and Canada.

Avatar, with a budget of nearly 200 million and believed to be the most expensive movie in history, won nominations for everything from best film and director to sound and visual effects.

Its big rivals yesterday were the coming-of-age film An Education, and the Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker.

Duckling was produced by Dundee's ink.digital, a film company founded by the former pop band manager Bob Last and the Israeli animator Gili Dolev.

While Dolev directed it, the short film was designed and animated by a team of eight students from the University of Abertay and the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.

The soundtrack was written by Mick Cooke of Glasgow's Belle & Sebastian.

"It is a Scottish film for all intents and purposes – it was made entirely in Scotland ," Dolev said yesterday. "They have done a really tremendous job."

With the students working as part of their courses, it had "absolutely no budget," he said. He put down 400 cash for "bits and bobs", although the in-kind value of the students' work was worth tens of thousands of pounds.

Critics praised the film's superlative storytelling and "unique and innovative" style.

It has already shown in 50 countries, and won a Bafta Scotland award and a string of film festival prizes. Now it is up against animated shorts that include The Gruffalo.

Leading actor and actress categories saw British stars Carey Mulligan, Colin Firth and Andy Serkis up against Hollywood heavyweights such as George Clooney and Meryl Streep.

Several films boasted strong Scottish connections. In The Loop, a brilliant political satire directed by Armando Iannucci and starring fellow Scot Peter Capaldi, was a contender for Outstanding British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Nowhere Boy earned four nominations. It is a production of Ecosse Films, founded and run by Scot Douglas Rae. Even the Edinburgh festivals could claim a helping hand. In 2004, Christian McKay drew rave reviews playing Orson Welles in the one-man play Rosebud.

Yesterday, the little-known Briton won a best supporting actor nomination for playing the film-maker in Me and Orson Welles.

But The Happy Duckling is the only officially Scottish film in the mix. In The Loop was funded by the UK Film Council in London, not Scottish Screen.

A Scottish Screen spokeswoman said the nominations featured "Scottish talent and a lot of people we have worked with in the past".

Who's in the running for award glory

Best Film

Avatar, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Precious, Up In The Air

Leading Actor

Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up In The Air), Colin Firth (A Single Man), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Andy Serkis (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll)

Leading Actress

Carey Mulligan (An Education), Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia), Audrey Tautou (Coco Before Chanel)

Supporting Actor

Alec Baldwin (It's Complicated), Christian McKay (Me And Orson Welles), Alfred Molina (An Education), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Supporting Actress

Anne-Marie Duff (Nowhere Boy), Vera Farmiga (Up In The Air), Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air), Mo'Nique (Precious), Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy)

Outstanding British Film

An Education, Fish Tank, In The Loop, Moon, Nowhere Boy

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer

Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson (directors, producers – Mugabe And The White African), Eran Creevy (writer/director – Shifty), Stuart Hazeldine (writer/director – Exam), Duncan Jones (director – Moon), Sam Taylor-Wood (director – Nowhere Boy)

Director

James Cameron (Avatar), Neill Blomkamp (District 9) Lone Scherfig (An Education), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)

Original Screenplay

The Hangover (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore), The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal), Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino), A Serious Man (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen), Up (Bob Peterson, Pete Docter)

Adapted Screenplay

District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell), An Education (Nick Hornby), In The Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche), Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher), Up In The Air (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)

Short Animation

Gili Dolev (The Happy Duckling), Sally Arthur and Emma Lazenby (Mother of Many), Michael Rose, Martin Pope, Jakob Schuh, Max Lang (The Gruffalo)