FINE & SNOWDEN

FINE & SNOWDEN

Husband and wife team David Fine (13 Sept. 1960 in Toronto) and Alison Snowden (4 Apr. 1958 in Nottingham U.K.) are currently (2019) Vancouver based animators.

“When you do an NFB film it’s very creator-driven. No one’s requesting changes, no one says you have to make it this way.”                                                                    David Fine. Globe & Mail, 27 Jan. 2019.

“I think there aren’t too many people left that will fund short films like ours. They [NFB] allow you to make it exactly the way you want. It’s quite a rare opportunity, because with the NFB, your part of a community.”                                                      Alison Snowden. Globe & Mail, 27 Jan. 2019.

Growing up in Toronto Fine connected with animation as he watched National Film Board (NFB) animation shorts. While attending National Film & Television School in England he met and married English born Alison Snowden.

In the mid 1980’s they moved to Canada and began work with the National Film Board. In 1987 they completed George and Rosemary, a short film about elderly romance, which won a Genie Award for best short, first prize at the Zagreb Animation Festival and the Jury Prize for short film at the Montréal World Film Festival. This film was followed by In and Out released in 1989. It won the UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

They were back in London England in 1989. Still involved with the NFB they created Bob’s Birthday which was released in 1993 and won an Oscar in 1995.

About 1998 they developed Bob’s Birthday into a television series called Bob and Margaret which ran from June 22 1998 to December 25, 2001. It was co-produced by Nelvana and Martin Gates Productions of Britain.

Karen Mazurkewich described the series as follows.

“It is literally an animated sitcom based on a horribly normal British couple who elevate the mundane to sublime comedy. In a cultural landscape littered with gross-out shows like South Park Fine and Snowden have perfected a kinder gentler form of adult animation.                                                                                                                          Cartoon Capers: 115.

They returned to Canada in 2004 and moved to Vancouver where they produced Ricky Sprocket Showbiz Boy, a television series. It began 8 September 2007 and ran to 4 May 2009. It was produced at Studio B Productions in Vancouver, and Snowden, Fine and Bejuba Entertainment.

Animal Behaviour,(2018) also released as Zoothérapie and produced by the National Film Board won the 2019 Canadian Screen Award for Best Animated Short Film. It was dedicated to the medical team at the Vancouver General Hospital which saved Snowden when she was diagnosed with a life threatening lung disease.

SOURCE:

Article book:

Cartoon Capers. Writ., Karen Mazurkewich. McArthur & Co., 1999: 74, 115.

Article newspaper:

Globe & Mail, 27 Jan. 2019: “Canadian animators draw Oscar’s attention.” Writ., Barry Hertz.  A1 +.

Internet:

“David Fine & Alison Snowden” Writ., Wydham Wise. Canadian Encyclopedia. 15 Dec. 2013. Accessed 4 Aug. 2019. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/david-fine-and-alison-snowden