The Animated Leunig

Michael Leunig is one of Australia’s foremost cartoonists, artists, poets and social commentators.

Some of Michael Leunig’s magical cartoons were brought to life through one of Sydney’s most creative animation teams, Andrew Horne and Deborah Szapiro, entitled The Animated Leunig.

It was the first time Michael Leunig’s cartoons had been animated and through the wonderful work of Freerange Animation, the exhibition conveyed the techniques involved in the transformation of his popular black and white line drawings into delightful animated films.

Produced by Bryan Brown with narration from Sam Neiil

Sound design by Daryl Missen.

Music compostion from Hylton Mowday.

Music and Recording

The idea to animate Leunig’s famous characters came from long-time Leunig fans, actor Bryan Brown and LA based feature film director, Roger Donaldson, who thought that Leunig’s life time of work should be brought to the screen. Leunig Animated tied in with an animated documentary that was an inspired mix of animation and live action, exploring the life and work of Michael Leunig and was seen on SBS TV in 2002.

So many of the sound effects were created specifically for each episode, recording on location at beaches, shopping centres and a myriad of other locations to craft the sounds and match the animation. All the music was composed to the final vision. It was a dream job for any audio guy!

A few episodes from the 50 part TV series of the Animated Leunig. Created for SBS television back in the 2000’s.

In stop-motion clay animation, whilst voice-over performance is incredibly important, the director and the animator are the physical actors. Each clay puppet is moved frame by frame at 25 movements per second – this equates to 1,500 movements for every minute of animation. Each sequence is acted out by the director and animator before going into a shot, the actions and emotions of each scene then conveyed to the screen through the animators handling of the puppets’ movements.

Surround Sound Mix

Originally commissioned by SBS Independent and produced by Brown’s company New Town Films, the one hour documentary and animations were financed by Content Capital and SBS Independent and developed through the assistance of the NSW Film and Television Office.