The fourth instalment of the Aardman Podcasts, short Monthly films with Dave Sproxton talking about the history of Aardman, has gone up.

Although perhaps not as exciting as the earlier instalments, where we saw some new footage and heard new stories, this video describes the important point at which Dave Sproxton and Peter Lord met Nick Park and invited him to work with them.

This period of Aardman’s history is well documented already, but it’s still very interesting to hear it first hand from Dave Sproxton in such an open environment. Comparing it to the last three videos I think this one really has a feeling of ‘something is happening’ and big changes are taking place in the animation world as Nick Park makes his impact.

However, what’s perhaps most fascinating is how much Dave Sproxton puts the emphasis on 'Creature Comforts', especially the Jaguar, and he almost ignores ‘A Grand Day Out’. Indeed, despite the fact that ‘A Grand Day Out’ sparked the Wallace and Gromit revolution that changed the way animation was viewed by the mass public more than almost anything else in history I don’t think we hear the words ‘Wallace and Gromit’ said in this video.

I know ‘A Grand Day Out’ obviously wasn’t as groundbreaking as ‘Creature Comforts’ in itself, and maybe the video editing had something to do with it, but I was just surprised not to hear much about it. The next video will no doubt cover ‘The Wrong Trousers’, and possibly ‘A Close Shave’, so I really look forward to seeing how those subjects are discussed! Of course, it was around this time that Dave Sproxton started taking more of a producer’s role, rather than the hands on animation he had been so involved with in the past, so it will be interesting to hear his thoughts on that.

You can view the video here, and it’s complete with Dave Sproxton’s introduction blog: http://www.aardman.com/about-us/podcasts/episode-4-dave-and-pete-meet-nick-park/