Trevor Hardy says six years spent struggling to build his animation business is akin to fiddling with a bad tooth, though his recent hugely popular music video, ‘The Happy Song,’ for Imogene Heap and newest short, ‘A Right Royal Sprout’ may signal a welcome bit of pain relief.
After more than six years and dozens of animation projects with very little profit to show for his efforts, UK filmmaker Trevor Hardy describes his PigBird stop-motion studio as “a bad tooth I can't stop fiddling with.”
“It's almost like it’s a weird curse that's been put on me,’ says Hardy.“Even though you get constant rejection and it's just so frustrating, I still find myself back in the studio, thinking about more stuff to do.
What am I doing? It doesn’t work for any business model.‘How about for the next five years, by myself, I will make something that probably won't make another penny?’ How many times do I need to be kicked? But I still find myself here.So, yeah.
It is a choice, and I do love it.But equally, I do have to seriously question, ‘Why do I keep putting myself through this?’” Hardy’s one-man studio has become known by a handful of fans for its short films, advertisements and music videos – most notably Imogen Heap’s , which now has over 70 million views on YouTube.PigBird currently has its holiday short film , based on Hardy and Neil James’ book of the same name about a little sprout too small for the royal palace that goes on a big adventure, airing worldwide on Channel 5 Television’s Milkshake Kids Channel through the month of January.
PigBird’s other recent short film, , about two cabin neighbors in the wintery woods, was selected for Animac 2025, the International Animated Film Festival of Catalonia, taking place in Lleida from February 20 to 23.Hardy himself gained an avid following when the animator was recruited by Nickelodeon to create , a series of one-minute stop-motion shorts that aired in-between ads on Nick Jr.UK from 2011 to 2015.
Budgets cuts for short form content ended their run.Both and hold the answer to why Hardy continues to run the still lesser known PigBird studio, and it’s not just because of the chance to work with notable names like Heap and Nickelodeon. “I used to get emails from parents because , like , actually resonated with autistic kids,” shares Hardy.“And I used to get really heartfelt letters.
I had one letter from a woman with an autistic child who said, ‘Dear Trevor Hardy…’ This is going to make me cry.She said, ‘I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.I've never heard my child laugh before he started watching your show.’ You just don’t get letters like that.
So, I know these animations have got something.I just need people to invest.” Hardy began running PigBird out of his house after animating and directing his first stop-motion feature, , a film about a young mole who aspires to become a footballer.The film – which Hardy worked on with Gigglefish Studios and creatives Neil James (writer), Jeremy Davis (executive producer) and Edward Catchpole (storyboard artist and EP) – premiered at the 2018 Carrefour du cinéma d'animation.
The film featured the voices of Lizzie Waterworth-Santo (), Jacob Scipio () and Ken Stott ( film series). “ was mostly self-financed through Edward, and we made the film in under two years,” notes Hardy.“Aardman is the big stop-motion studio in the UK and so I thought people would be interested to know who I and these knobby producers were who’ve never made an animated feature film in their lives and now, after stumbling around for 18 months, created a stop-motion feature that was quite good.We thought people were going to go mad.
But, instead, it was like the film never happened.To this day, I don’t know why.” Nevertheless, after the team scattered following ’s release, Hardy went ahead with plans to create his own studio.On PigBird’s YouTube channel, viewers will find promo videos for events like Switzerland’s One Minute Film & Video Festival and SouthShorts Film Festival, Crafty Christmas idents for Nick Jr., as well as short films like , and , which is the short that initially caught the attention of producers at Nickelodeon. “It was about an old lady who lost her cat,” explains Hardy.
“She goes all around town looking for this cat.No one has seen it.She even puts up little ‘Lost Pushkin’ signs.
Eventually, she comes home, slumps in her chair, plays the piano and reminisces about her lost cat.Then she hears a cat crying on the roof.She opens up her window and begs the cat to come inside.
It won’t.The woman gets out on the window ledge to help the cat inside, the cat jumps down and accidentally causes the window to close and locks its owner outside.The woman knocks at the door and the cat just continues to clean itself.” Hardy, who drew set inspiration from Eastern Europe, continues, “The owner has been worried sick and, now that it’s fine, the cat couldn’t give a toss.
I got the idea from an older lady I was doing Home Care for and, when she opened the door for me, her cat shot out and she said, ‘Oh no! Don’t let Pushkin out!’ At the time, my short was called , which I knew was awful.But then I thought, ‘Pushkin.What a brilliant name.’” PigBird’s music videos for artists like Rick Denzien and ANIMA! created some buzz around Hardy’s work.
But nothing compares to the recognition Hardy’s studio has received for .“ absolutely blew out of proportion,” shares Hardy.“It’s classic me to be self-deprecating, so I thought, ‘Oh they’re just tuning in for Imogen.
They’re not really interested in me.’ But then I thought, ‘Well, hang on.They could just listen to her songs on Spotify.They must be tuning in because they like the visuals.’” The music video, which features a wide range of mountainous, undersea, and even intergalactic landscapes and characters, is one of PigBird’s more visually complex projects.
Having built all the characters – rabbits, pigs, birds, aliens, and so on – out of merino wool, Hardy elicited the help of friend Mark Miko to handle compositing in After Effects. “It was one of those rare cases where the person who was providing the money and the song freely admitted she knew nothing about the visual side,” notes Hardy.“[Imogen] stepped back and went, ‘I’ve done the song.That’s my bit.
I’ve seen what you do, Trevor.I like your style.Go and create a world that matches this song.’ So, I had absolute carte blanche to create this world, which was a delight.
And people, including Imogen, went mad for the wool.” Merino wool was also used to create characters in , as well as .Cellotex, a kind of insulation board, was painted white, then covered in plaster and glue to create ’s snowy hills.Cellotex was also used to make walls, trees and more in .
Both films were animated using a frame grabbing program called Dragon Frame and both edited in Premier Pro.“ and were made from all sorts of found materials and then put together in a little studio I’d built in my back garden,” says Hardy.“A friend helped me build that out and then I’ve had people come and help with voices and things like that.
I usually do the rest.” Hardy says that in the UK, it’s been difficult for him to get development money for any of his stop-motion projects and it’s been limiting in terms of what he’s able to create. “Funding here is incredibly tight, and it’s gotten worse over the years,” he shares.“My dream is to do another feature film.I’m working on a new project idea called , which is about a warthog named Gus who’s born into a stinky lifestyle but dreams of going to this place his grandad told him about called ‘Zanadoo,’ which is fresh and clean.” As Gus sets off on a journey to find Zanadoo, he meets a bear named Doug who says he knows the way.
“At that point, it becomes very much like a kind of movie,” notes Hardy.“Doug is John Candy and Gus is Steve Martin.” The project is still in its early stages, but Hardy hopes that, if enough attention is paid to and , investment money might be on the horizon.“What I do, it clearly resonates with people,” says Hardy.
“I hope I get the chance to do more.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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