Rachel talks to Gavin Strange. Gavin shares how he got into design and animation and became a director at Aardman, emphasising the importance of curiosity, self-motivation, and finding one's own path in the creative industries. He shares the importance of using different mediums, such as animation, to tell stories and make a positive change in the world.

Gavin highlights the collaborative nature of animation, the importance of nuance and empathy in discussions about climate change and animal welfare, and the value of small changes and personal responsibility.

He also gives advice for parents with children interested in animation and talks about his personal projects.

Gavin Strange

Website: https://www.jam-factory.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamfactory

Aardman/Greenpeace Turtle Journey: https://youtu.be/1iJbo3fhJFk

Curious About Nature is hosted by Buttercup Learning Founder, Rachel Mills.

Website: https://buttercuplearning.com/

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Email: info@buttercuplearning.com

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Curious About Nature is a nature show for families, home educators and teachers from the team behind Buttercup Learning and the UK's only nature prints with augmented reality.

There's a new episode every month where guests discuss nature and ways we can connect our families and communities to nature.

What we discussed in the episode

Background and Career [00:01:39]

Gavin Strange talks about his background and career, including his passion for design and filmmaking, and how he ended up at Aardman Animations.

Inspiration for Design and Animation [00:04:08]

Gavin Strange discusses his inspiration for design and animation, including his love for pop culture and graphic design, and how he discovered his passion for filmmaking.

Turtle Journey [00:08:52]

Gavin Strange talks about his work on the multi-award winning animation "Turtle Journey" in partnership with Greenpeace and Aardman, including the story behind the project and the use of animation to raise awareness about the plight of the world's oceans.

Translating empathy to plasticine turtles [00:10:33]

Gavin Strange talks about the inspiration behind the "Turtle Journey" animation and how they used claymation to create a human bond with the audience.

The production process of "Turtle Journey" [00:11:35]

Gavin Strange explains the process of creating the animation, including the use of stop frame animation and computer graphics, and the collaborative nature of animation production.

Learning from Greenpeace [00:18:45]

Gavin Strange shares what he learned about climate change from working with Greenpeace, including their positive and nimble approach to affecting change.

Animation as a tool for change [00:20:58]

Gavin discusses the power of animation to tell stories and create change, and how it can capture people's attention and imagination.

Advice for aspiring animators [00:22:03]

Gavin gives advice for parents on how to support their children's interest in animation, including using simple tools like pen and paper, and exploring apps and schemes.

Personal projects and curiosity [00:27:47]

Gavin talks about his personal projects, including a course on passion projects, skateboard designs, and a story he wants to turn into a film, and emphasizes the importance of curiosity and learning.

The importance of nuance in discussions [00:30:52]

Gavin Strange talks about the importance of nuance in discussions about climate change and how it can make people think about the treatment of animals.

Gavin's desire to tell stories like Greenpeace [00:32:50]

Gavin expresses his desire to tell more stories like Greenpeace, using comedy, animation, warmth, and heart to tell an important message and end with hope.

Where to find Gavin's work online [00:33:23]

Gavin shares where to find his work online, including his website, Aardman profile, and social media accounts.

• Greenpeace and Aardman's Turtle Journey
• Gavin Strange

Welcome to the Curious About Nature Podcast. This is a podcast for folks who want to connect with nature and rewild childhood. Hosted by Rachel Mills, Buttercup Learning's founder, an educator with 20 plus years of experience with a passion for animation, the natural world and conservation. Rachel focuses on getting digital kids outdoors and having fun in nature, promoting wellbeing and a can do attitude to local wildlife, conservation and sustainable living. Join her and her guests for their stories, experiences and tips to support outdoor learning and nature connection.

Welcome to the Curious About Nature podcast. Today I'm joined by Gavin Stranger, director and designer at Aardman Animations. Hi there, Gav.

Hello. Nice to see you.

Nice to see you as well. How are you doing?

Yeah, good. Thank you. It's a Friday afternoon. Just add a little spot of lunch. I'm in my home studio. Yeah, I'm good. Thank you very much.

That's good. Yeah. Brilliant. I'm similar, actually. I'm at home today as well.

My home studio is looking a bit blank because it's actually the spare bedroom for the podcast. I usually work in the Little garden studio that is much more decked out, but not really a great space for podcast hosting. Lots of glass, no carpeted floor, nothing to soften it. I've to do my first episode in that I realised that you need I needed the comfort of home. So could you tell us a little bit about your background?

Yeah, sure. So my name is Gavin Strange and I am a director and a designer at Aardman. Aardman is a creative studio based right here in Bristol in southwest of the UK, and it's a creative studio predominantly known for animation, and it's been active for the last 50 years nearly, which is rad. This is great place. It's almost like a British institution really. It was co-founded by two mates who met at school, which I find a huge source of inspiration all the time to two lads called Pete and Dave, who met and formed a love of animation almost by accident, formed an animation company that 50 years later employs nearly 500 people and has won many Oscars awards and made some lovely things.

And I've been there for 15 years now, nearly. It'll be 15 years in January next year. And I originally joined as a senior interactive designer. That's what my bread and butter was. I used to work for myself as a predominantly digital designer, but I have this great passion for doing all sorts of things. And my second thing that I would do equal to design in my own time was filmmaking and making skate videos or capturing my friends, doing R or animation and motion graphics. And I desperately wanted that to be my profession too. And luckily enough for me, Aardman gave me a platform over a period of a decade to learn and to grow and try things out. And over those years, I got the chance to do small pieces of filmmaking. Until this decade in, I got my first gig as a director on a potential job, which was a lovely thing making a motion graphics film to celebrate the life of Maya Angelou, the incredible poet, writer, activist, dancer, incredible human being for BBC Radio four.

And I got to design it and direct it and animate it. It was like a relatively small project in the grand scheme of things for Aardman, but for me it was huge. It was absolutely huge. And yeah, it went well again, very fortunately for me and I loved it and that's been my position ever since. And I jump between being a director predominantly of animation and then other times being pure graphic designer. Often it's a combination of both. And yeah, it just means every day is varied and I really, genuinely love what I do.

Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. It's so inspiring. I think. What initially inspired you then to go into design and animation?

I'd love to tell you there was a grand plan. I'm 40 and so back in, I don't know what would that have been? 95, 96 As you're starting to do this sort of career advice, The career advice wasn't really a thing, was it? They'd just say, Go and be a plumber. Go and be a doctor.

There was no sort of nuance or minutia of the possibility of what job roles there are on the planet. It was always very reductive. And so I knew I like drawing. And so I figured I would do something to do with drawing. There was really no understanding of what there was to do out there. And so I just did the next logical step, which was for me, okay, I do a little bit of further education at a design college in Leicester, and I didn't really even know what graphic design was. I looked at the course syllabus and the prospectuses and all that stuff and thought, okay, I'm not an artist, but I do like design. I was fascinated with video games and movies and I liked all the graphics and the logos and the very in-your-face aspects of design rather than fine art. I wasn't looking at painting. I was looking at posters of video games or wrestling tag team logos or whatever it may be. It was very much pop culture inspired, which kind of translated as graphic design.

So I just gravitated towards, okay, maybe graphic design is the thing, but when I was there, I very quickly met who is now my best friend, who was equally as excited and inspired by filmmaking and movies. And I didn't even know that these worlds could co-exist, really. So even. In my early days of graphic design, I spent most of my time writing terrible scripts. So terrible that actually my best friend kept a copy of the script and produced it on the day of my wedding day and distributed it to everyone. I literally turned inside out with cringe. It was so bad. That kind of tells you about my career, really. I love designing and graphics and visual design, but at the same time I love filmmaking equally and that just felt right. I had no idea at the time. As a 16, 17 year old where that could take me, but I knew that I had the passion for both. And luckily enough for me, 20 years later, I've got a job that I can do both and I can veer between.

But all the time I whatever I was doing during the day, I would excitedly try out my passions and the things that no one asked me to do in the evening time. So I've always had this dual role of daytime stuff, whether that be early education or early jobs. And then evening time. That's when it's up to me to discover how to grow and learn and get better and improve my skills. Really, the more you do, the more you learn and the more avenues that you open up and the more people you meet. And when you meet those people, they're maybe doing something you want to do and suddenly there's a link. I think that's the hardest thing with education, and this is something I'm really hoping to help with my kids as they grow up, to give them a little bit of a path for how things can go. Luckily enough, my kids love watching credits in movies, which I'm so stoked on, and over time I'm hoping to explain to them what those different roles are so they could connect and go, Oh, that sounds fun.

I would love to be a camera operator. I would love to be a writer. I would love to be a set painter. Like every single creation on the planet was made by someone in some degree. I'm really hoping to demystify that and to show potential roots for things, whatever it is that they may end up doing.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, Imagining what your own kids might do? My daughter at the moment says she's going to be a marine biologist, a professional ballet dancer. And what's the other one? I can't remember. Oh, fairy.

Oh, yes. She's a true polymath. I love it. I'm fat. And actually, I became fascinated with the ideas of polymaths. These are not really a thing anymore, is it? And I don't really know why, but you look at, you know, Da Vinci or Michelangelo, the artist, not that Ninja Turtles that they have these multiple strands to them that they would do that. And that was an accepted thing.

But you can't really be a polymath anymore because I think the Industrial Revolution decided that wasn't useful. You need to fit in a box somewhere. But I'm still massively inspired by those people who can surprise you and can do multiple things. I think that's exciting. So yes, we need more marine biologists, ballerina fairies for sure.

So could you tell us a little bit about the turtle journey? So in 2020, you directed the multi-award winning turtle journey in partnership with Greenpeace and Aardman. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. It was the project of an absolute lifetime. It was a very short film. Just 100 seconds long for Greenpeace called Turtle Journey. That was a commission by Greenpeace. It was a commercial job and they wanted to use animation to tell the plight of the world's oceans to an audience. But using a different technique often, obviously they make real documentaries, real films that show the real devastation or the real thing that is happening. But of course we've all sadly quite desensitized to to that.

And they want to use any and all techniques to get the messages out. Greenpeace have been really experimental over the years, so it was an honor to be able to be involved in this project where they knew they wanted to use animation, particularly animation from Aardman, to pull the rug from under people. To be honest, they wanted you in the first frame to think, Oh, this looks nice and charming. Perhaps if the audience remembers a thing called creature comforts, which Aardman made, you might think, Oh, this is familiar, I know this. And then along the way, we tell this story of a family of turtles on a family journey home, a journey that we all know as humans. You're all there, Mum, Dad, Kids stuffed in a vehicle on the way home after a visit. It's quite a universal thing. And that was the point. That was a story we wanted to tell and an element of that story that I wanted to tell was lost. The overarching thing for the project was these animals and we picked sea turtles as one of the many species that is affected by the things that are happening to to the world's oceans.

These animals are experiencing loss on such a huge scale. It's a loss of habitat, it's a loss of species. It's for them the loss of their individual family units. And I figure if we if you told that story to another human and you'd said that you'd lost your family in this tragedy that was brought upon by these different things, you would have this real human empathy and real sense of heartache. Unfortunately, we see it on the news that has happened. This habitation has been destroyed. And yeah, we're sad and then we move on. I wanted to really transplant that quite human bond on onto plasticine talking turtles and can we use that? Can we use claymation as a way to tug at the heartstrings and to make the audience feel something in a powerful way? That was our self brief in 100 seconds. We wanted to make the audience laugh, then cry, then feel galvanised to take action.

Yeah, Every time I watch it, I get tears in my eyes and it really is such an emotive story.

So well done. You said that it's obviously claymation. There is some elements of obviously stop frame and CG in there together. Can you tell us a little bit more about the production process?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Stop frame animation is such a special thing and for those who aren't familiar with what stop frame, it is essentially taking a huge amount of photographs and moving the things within those photographs a very small amount in between each photo that you take. But when you play those photos back at a certain frame rate, which is standard for how you watch television, let's say 25 frames per second, when you play that back, suddenly it comes to life. It looks to move of its own accord. And when you're doing stop motion because you are using a real camera photographing real things, you get real natural light, you get real natural depth. It's got this tactile quality because it is like looking at a photograph. So using stop frame I find is very magical. It's very special because you see it as a director, as a person on the production, as static.

It's really not until the very end you press play and these inanimate objects really do come to life. But that was only half of the production. The other half was made in CG. So we use computer graphics to create the world that this family of turtles moves within, and that was for creative reasons. So we could control its look, but also logistical scale reasons because our characters, they're called puppets. When you're working the stuff from they're puppets. Clay Puppets, we're quite large. The largest one was about this big. If we then have to make an entire ocean scene, it's bigger than the studios that we have and it would take forever to build. So we're using the best of both areas of technology. So yeah, it was a really exciting process. It was about three months end to end from the very beginning of writing scripts, which is how you always start a project because with stop frame and animation in general, you really make the film up front, you write it, and then with that script you then start doing drawings to create storyboards.

So each scene, each moment is drawn, and then you put those drawn boards to an animatic on an edit timeline so you can play it back and watch it and get a sense for how the timings will. Work and you don't ever move to animation until your animatic is locked because an animator will not animate anything extra. There is no point. That's a real waste of resources. They need to know exactly what you are making up front, and that's a little bit of opposite of how you would make a live action film because you would write your script in the same way. Possibly you would storyboard it. But when you are shooting and filming, you might get your actors to try it a different way. You might get them to try a different. Way of moving their body. And so you will have this big collection of footage. You then take into your edit suite and you you can build the movie afterwards, but also you can change the movie because the way you put shots together and the different takes you use is it can change the intended sort of effect of the movie you make.

Whereas with animation, you're doing those decisions up front before you ever put a camera on things. So yeah, so it was this lovely process, three months long, 70 people in total that we got to work with. And it was just a joy all the way through the process, through being in the model making workshop and seeing these geniuses bring things to life and with tactility and then seeing that complemented by the CG team. Some of my most exciting memories are each day when you're starting a new shot in an animation unit, which is essentially a big empty space with your puppets, your cameras and your equipment and your lights all curtained off with black drapes. So no additional light spills in. You all assemble in this animators unit to talk about what you're what the shot needs to be. And everyone in that space has their own angle of looking at things, whether it's a supervisor, looking at how are they going to match the physical camera move in the world, whether it's the animator, what is the performance going to be? The assistant animator needs to know what math shapes they need to prepare.

The producer is looking at it from This looks like a complicated shot. Are we going to go over time? Are we going to go over budget? Do we need to get more people? It's really exciting when you get this very collaborative nature, and animation is absolutely hugely collaborative. You, of course, like anything, can do things on your own, but when you get to the scales of a even though it doesn't sound long, 100 seconds of animation is a lot of is a lot of animation. It takes a long time. So yeah, it was a really collaborative, very special process and I honestly won't ever forget it because it was all backed up with, We're making something that matters. We're making something for a client and a partner that we really love and respect for a very important matter. So when you're working with dream people on a dream project for a dream reason, it feels like you're just, you know, in this other world. So it was really special.

Yeah, I guess it's that magical feeling, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.

Yeah. And like I say, me growing up, not quite sure in my early days of what I wanted to do or what I could do, who I could be, and loving both design and filmmaking. And then to get to do both with an incredible team of people for a brilliant reason. I never want to forget that you get that lovely fizzy feeling in your tummy. I think the worst thing I could ever be is jaded. I wouldn't ever want that. I do feel so special to have this job and to work with these people. I feel like that's a kind of a part of me. I don't want to ever forget that. I want to constantly be excitable. And I've really leaned into that and got no, I'm very proud of what I get to do and I feel very fortunate and I want to enthuse anything I work on with that same energy because that's how I want to operate. You start thinking quite deeply about things quite quickly, and I love that. As to why not, being creative is not a binary thing.

It can be complicated and it has its ups and its downs and it plays into who you are as a human being. And I want to be a good, excitable, positive, happy, kind human. And I want to reflect that in the work that I do.

I would imagine that makes you quite an interesting and fun director to work with. Gavin I mean, that is a compliment.

I hope so. I have no idea. I really hope so. And again, you worry about that stuff. You absolutely worry about that stuff. But I figure the things that I can control is how I operate, how I can work with people. And I want to be kind and patient and I want to be clear and I want to be open and I want to be collaborative. As much as I would love to control the narrative about what people think about me, I'm never going to be able to do that. And so all I can control is what kind of human I am. And I really want to make sure that I am a positive and a kind one.

What did you learn about climate change from directing the film?

What I learnt actually was how positive the team of Greenpeace are, because I think in my head I thought, Man, you must just be so. Frustrated all the time. Do we have to keep telling you like this? Do we have to keep shouting? Do we have to keep doing this? But they're not. I was so struck with how motivated they were, how smart they were in the ways that you have to affect people in that no one way works for everyone in that you have to change your tactics all the time. I was really taken aback with how nimble they were and how kind of ten steps ahead they always are of okay, whether it's because this was all aiming towards an assembly of politicians and policy makers that unfortunately, because in then 2020 we hit Covid, that it never quite happened in the same way. But they're constantly thinking, how do we affect change on on on the streets. On your average person and how do we change their mindset? And also how do we change world leaders? How do we change countries? How do we change corporations? So they're constantly having to do that.

And that was just really inspiring actually, that because I get quite burnt out, I feel very strongly about things and I shout and I rant and I rave and then I feel sad that really ultimately I'm shouting into a void and people still behave the same way. So I was really inspired. How they aren't jaded, they aren't jaded by that. They figure out how to move on, how to affect. And actually I think they're much better at understanding that the smallest change is still a change that I think they're very realistic in that you're not going to get a company overnight. Go, Oh, actually, yeah, sorry, we won't use fossil fuels or we won't do X, Y, and Z. That change is hard, especially on a systematic infrastructure level. So I learned that from them. And then just I went vegan, which was a big thing for me. I was vegetarian and I'd always flirted with veganism and it was just being around them. I wanted to it was really nice. So I very much feel changed by working with them.

Why do you think animation lends itself so well to documentaries?

You know, what I love about animation is you can do anything, so you can show anything. You can create anything. You can use metaphors to tell quite honest and open stories. You can allude to things. I think the fact that animation is magic, if you've got someone that is really liking what they're seeing on screen, you instantly have kind of captured them in a sense of they willingly give up their sort of suspension of disbelief. And I think animation has quite a magical quality to allow you to do that. And yeah, I think as humans, because we see things with our eyes and obviously just in the last, I don't know, ten, 20 years, I think with the proliferation of media and social media and rolling news, it's impossible to not be desensitized with shocking things really. I think we need different mediums, animation being one of them to help tell those stories and to be a tool in the arsenal of people who are trying to make change and do good for the world.

So I think it's a thing that can be used for good for sure. And that's exciting.

Yeah, absolutely. If I'm a parent who has a child that's thinking, Oh, I'd quite like to get involved in animation, maybe even a career in it. What advice would you give them to maybe help support their children or young adults into career?

I think just start playing incentive like the tools and things that are out there. As long as you've got a pen and paper, you can make an animation, whether that's a flipbook or you start doing some storyboards. So in terms of animation, you can draw things. There's loads of great apps, particularly on iPad. There's one called Loom, which is l o m that's really simplistic and very natural. You really just doodle and see things come to life. I think if you've got especially younger kids, if you show them what you can do with animation of maybe a few scribbles or drawings, and then when you press play or let it play back, it comes to life itself.

That is magical. Now if you can hook them with that, I think that's always really nice. There's some great. Apps again for tablets and phones for stop frame. If you're interested in that, there's an option one called animate it and there's another one called Stop Motion. Both are fantastic and both essentially take photographs that you stitch together. And my son, who's nearly six, he just started playing with it for the first time a few weeks ago. And he's old enough now to see the magic. He just got some. This is the thing with with stop frame house full of toys. Great. So just get one of your favorite toys. Put it there, take a picture, move it a little bit. Take a picture. Move it. I showed him three frames and then he gets it. I think Get them involved in that. If you see a spark for that, because I think it's just fun to do anyway. It's a nice piece of creation and you can also add your own sound effects and add your own voices.

Again, most of the popular apps support that, so it's no longer a technical hurdle, whereas pre tablets and stuff, particularly shooting something like stop frame, it gets complicated pre-digital cameras because it's really hard and then for people who have older kids, I think there's now lots of schemes out there and I know the UK is particularly good of schemes for getting people on placements and it's things like checking the BFI, the British Film institution, look at BAFTA. BAFTA have lots of lots of schemes. There's a thing called the Aardman Academy, which is an education wing of Aardman that is both paid for courses that anyone can take, but also they have different connections and routes within schools and education facilities to get you close to that. Just doing a little bit of Googling if you think your kids are interested in that world, seeing what schemes are out there, because I think that's that could be an important thing. Like you say, it was such a huge leap for me to make the connection of, Oh, that's a job, that's a real job.

Whether you're a metal worker and you're interested in animation, you could be a rigger, you could build puppets, you could build sets. Whether you like painting big things, you could be a set dresser, you could be a set painter, you could be a map painter. Or maybe you like that, and you like digital stuff. Maybe you can be a compositor. Look at film titles and Google what they are. That's a great thing with credits. Just see what that stuff is. If we've got that information at our fingertips, be curious and the amount of people that I know and work with that have come to their jobs through wild and wonderful routes is so amazing. Not many people that I work with on a professional level went to school for the thing that you work with them. I went to university for the thing that you work with them as did the thing that you work with them as and work their way up, especially in the creative industries. It can be, don't get me wrong, of course, people can absolutely have a laser focus from the get go, but I don't think it's that common.

And again, I find it inspiring that you can find your own way there. And when you do find your own way there, that's inspiring because they're going to bring something different to the table. They might be a former breakdancer who's now an animation rigger, and they're going to understand the human form in a different way to someone else who studied it because of their interest and their hobbies and their passions. I think don't be put off by if you can't find a direct route. They're the biggest realization That changed quite a lot for me in my early 20s was it's not any company, any corporation, any education places responsibility to make sure you are 100% creatively satisfied. It's no one else's responsibility but your own. And I think I was wanting my first job, whereas this junior designer to to give me all those opportunities. If you can find a place, it can allow you to do all the things that creatively satisfy you, then incredible. But again, I think those positions are very rare. And so it really dawned on me that it was up to me to do those things.

And I hope that they would one day translate into a position where I could do it full time. But I just enjoy doing it anyway. And that's I've got this side alter ego called Jam Factory that I've made stuff under for the last 20 years. It is all the stuff that no one asks for. It's all the stuff that no one wants. And it's how I learn and it's how I grow. And for me, that's that was when I was making a lot of my filmmaking in the early days and where I taught myself learn and you learn at such a rapid pace as well because you're self-motivated, because you're purely doing it. Yeah, I think it's just to to a very long winded answer to your question. Start searching stuff out and look for schemes and look for placements.

You mentioned about Jam Factory there. What projects are you working on right now?

In my own time. It's Jam Factory. Oh, that's a great question. I've got a few different bits and actually I'm going to bring up my list.

So I don't forget making a course for Domestika, which is great. Domestika is like this online course creators. So I'm filming a big about how to make passion projects and how to stay engaged. So that's been a big part of the year, doing lots of writing. I'm doing a couple of skateboard designs for a skateboard store that I'm friends with here in Bristol called 5050. And then, yeah, just using it as, as learning and growing. There's a story that I've wanted to write and translate to a film for a while. There's a prototype video game I want to develop, but I've got some ideas for and I've been blending the world of making wonky music. So I've got all of these lovely pieces of music, hardware and visual graphics as well. I'm really interested in real time engines and video game graphics. So I've got this thing where I can play real time music and then it will translate to real time visuals and stuff. So yes, we'll use it as opportunities to collaborate with people, things to teach myself and just grow and just be curious.

I think that's isn't it. Most people are curious. Just where possible. Indulge it.

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned earlier about the Greenpeace project. Who inspired you to become vegan? I'm curious to know how it's made you feel about climate change and maybe what actions you might have taken as a family.

We're not vegan anymore. Full disclosure, we were for a bit, but with the kids it was quite difficult to not have milk in stuff. So my daughter is the youngest. She really likes oat milk and we love oat milk. It's the best. So I think she would happily have everything that's vegan. Obviously cheese was always hard as a young kids. Cheese features a lot, isn't it? But my eldest, he does not like the taste of any milk substitute. And sometimes we try and trick him and he'll take one little sip and go. Is this oat milk? This is oat milk. Have you given me oatmeal? Damn it. Oh, just give it a try. Yeah.

So we're not vegan anymore? We are veggie. And the kids have always been veggie, which is really nice. And we're quite clear with them as well as to the reasons why. And for us it is twofold. It's animal welfare. You look into industrial farming and the treatment of animals is not nice and also climate with the amount of land and the amount of energy and the amount of everything to maintain industrial farming. The climate change thing is an interesting one because I do feel really strongly about it, but at the same time, you don't want to be that person shaming. Other people have talked about things publicly, perhaps in social media, about I'm not preaching, I'm just offering something I found. And a big thing for me with drinking milk was that the realisation that for a cow to produce milk, she must be inseminated and just given birth. And so cows are always inseminated, much like a mother feeding a child and. I can't believe that's not common knowledge that a cow doesn't want to be pregnant all the time and that calf is taken away from her.

And again, like all things with climate change, there's lots of nuance, There's lots of minutia that doesn't get used in arguments, in inverted commas, in discussions, but things because of social media and human beings, things, nuance is dead. Nuance is dead on the Internet, unfortunately. But I think that's a very important thing because I think that makes you think about the treatment of an animal. How would you, as a human and again, I guess is kind of goes back to the things that we were thinking about with the Greenpeace job. How do you use human thought and empathy and use that as a tool to hopefully inspire change? And I did share this recently actually about the thing about drinking milk, even though I know I'm a hypocrite. And again, this is where nuance comes in that I am a vegetarian. And so we have milk in things. We don't drink milk, but dairy is in the products that we eat and we eat cheese. So I'm fully aware of that. I think if anything that I've learned with what my role is within climate change, it's those small individual actions which at time is exhausting because when you look at those stats of the top 100 countries and the top 100 companies are responsible for 99% emissions, you do feel futile to be totally honest, and you do feel like what is the point? And I think that's why for us as a family, we really strongly believe in the treatment of the animals.

And so that's why we stick with it. We also like it so instantly, as soon as you try and have this discussion, you really can't convince someone either way, can you? People have to naturally want to make a change because otherwise you feel like you're being shouted at. And that's a really tricky thing to overcome. Again, that's why I'm very was really inspired by Greenpeace, how they don't lose that energy. They were finding their way to tell the message in their own way.

My final question to you gave is, as a creative, what stories would you like to tell or maybe support in the future?

Well, that's a lovely question. I think I would love to tell more stories like Greenpeace, I really would to use comedy and animation and warmth and heart and silliness to tell a story. With the Greenpeace Turtle Journey Project, we found a way to combine all of that, actually have a bit of silliness and warmth and charm and familiarity, but then tell an important message, but then hopefully end with a bit of hope.

So we could do more things like that that could make a difference. That that would be amazing. That would be the dream.

Sounds fantastic. So if anyone's interested in seeing some of the projects that you've worked on, where can we find you online?

Oh, I think you could just search Gavin. Strange. So I think when you do that, my website pops up, which is Jam Factory, but then also my Aardman profile, which has got Turtle journey and the other things I've made is there as well. And you can just visit that odd man with two A's at the start. And then, yeah, my social medias are all at Jam Factory as well and I try and share everything. I really love sharing behind the scenes and just all aspects of all these different creative projects. So yeah, please do come and have a look.

Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really fun talking to you.

Oh, thanks for having me. Been a joy.

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