Robert Morgan (born 1974) is a British filmmaker, director and writer. He is most known for ''The Cat with Hands'' (2001), ''The Separation'' (2003) and '' Bobby Yeah'' (2011) which between them have won over 30 international awards.

Personal life

Morgan was Raised in

Yateley Yateley () is a town and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. It lies in the north-eastern corner of Hart District Council area, and is approximately 33 mi (53 km) southwest of Central London. It includes the settlements of Frogmo ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. He has an older sister named Eleanor.

Career

Robert Morgan's passion for film began when he was aged three and watched 1958's

Fiend Without a Face ''Fiend Without a Face'' is a 1958 independently made British black-and-white science fiction-horror film drama directed by Arthur Crabtree, and starring Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker. It was produced by ...

film. He previously studied fine art, so was always drawing and painting. He then studied 'Animation Filmmaking' at The Surrey Institute Of Art And Design (now part of

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in Southern England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Institu ...

). He then started his career in film animation with a student short ''The Man in the Lower Left-Hand Corner of the Photograph'' in 1997. 'FilmThreat' ran an article describing The Cat With Hands as "mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to write a horror movie". This film lead to him being commissioned to make 2 short films for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

and one from

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speakin ...

in Wales. He was earlier influenced by

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

Jan Svankmajer Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Nu ...

, the

Quay Brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay ( ; born June 17, 1947) are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They received the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for th ...

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a principal originator of the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and ...

, Joel Peter Witkin and

Hans Bellmer Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 – 24 February 1975) was a German artist, best known for his drawings, etchings that illustrates the 1940 edition of '' Histoire de l’œil'', and the life-sized female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians ...

. He was a former Channel Four/MOMI animator in residence. In 2003, he filmed ''Separation''. A 10-minute animated short, begins with a pair of

conjoined twin Conjoined twins, popularly referred to as Siamese twins, are twins joined ''Uterus, in utero''. It is a very rare phenomenon, estimated to occur in anywhere between one in 50,000 births to one in 200,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence i ...

brothers in a hospital room. ''

Monsters A monster is a type of imaginary or fictional creature found in literature, folklore, mythology, fiction and religion. They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...

'' was produced through the

Film Council A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

and

FilmFour Film4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned by Channel Four Television Corporation launched on 1 November 1998, dedicated to broadcasting films. The standard-definition channel is available on Freeview and Freesat ...

's Cinema Extreme scheme. The film was based on his fears when his family moved close to

Broadmoor Hospital Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

. It also uses the idea of violent relationship between siblings, which was also autobiographical. It was premiered at the

Edinburgh Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all titles are World, international, European or UK Premieres), in al ...

in 2004. In 2009 he filmed ''Over Taken'' for the

48 Hour Film Project The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The competition has been a ...

(as part of the Branchage film festival), - filming the whole film in two days (i.e. 48 hours). He went to

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

, and then he had to pick out of a hat a film

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

(he picked 'Western') and a title, and was given a couple of actresses. Then he created a short film out of those elements. ''Bobby Yeah'' is his longest short at 23 minutes, with more characters and development than its predecessors. He likes working with

live action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games o ...

or animation/

claymation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...

film making processes. He tried to alternate between the two forms. In 2013, he produced ''Invocation'' for Channel 4's 'Random Acts' series. He occasionally paints, another outlet for his creativity as the film-making processes can take a long time. Morgan participated in

The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022 The "Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time" is a list published every ten years by ''Sight and Sound'' according to worldwide opinion polls they conduct. They published the critics' list, based on 1,639 participating critics, programmers, curators, a ...

directors' poll, where he listed his 10 favourite films:

The Unknown (1927 film) ''The Unknown'' is a 1927 American silent film, silent horror film directed by Tod Browning, and starring Lon Chaney as carnival knife thrower "Alonzo the Armless" and Joan Crawford as his beloved carnival girl Nanon. Originally titled ''Alonzo ...

Vertigo (film) ''Vertigo'' is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel '' D'entre les morts'' (''From Among the Dead'') by Boileau-Narcejac, with a screenplay by Alec Coppe ...

Seconds (1966 film) ''Seconds'' is a 1966 American science fiction psychological horror film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, and Will Geer. The film tells the story of a middle-aged New York banker who, disillu ...

, 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), Vargtimmen,

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American independent horror film produced, co-composed, and directed by Tobe Hooper, who co-wrote it with Kim Henkel. The film stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, ...

, Le Locataire,

Taxi Driver ''Taxi Driver'' is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. Set in a morally decaying New York City following the Vietnam War, it stars Robert De Niro as veteran Marine and ...

Stalker (1979 film) ''Stalker'' ( rus, Сталкер, p=ˈstaɫkʲɪr) is a 1979 Soviet science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel ''Roadside Picnic''. The film tells ...

, and

Mulholland Drive (film) ''Mulholland Drive'' (stylized as ''Mulholland Dr.'') is a 2001 Surrealist cinema, surrealist neo-noir mystery film, mystery Art film, art film written and directed by David Lynch. Its plot follows an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who arrives ...

Filmography

Awards

* BAFTA Awards 2012: Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Short Animation - ''Bobby Yeah'' (2011) * BAFTA Awards, Wales 2004: Won BAFTA Cymru Award Best Short Film (Y Ffilm Fer Orau) - ''The Separation'' (2003) *

Fantasporto Fantasporto International Film Festival (Portuguese: Festival Internacional de Cinema do Porto) is an international genre film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Screening and awarding fantasy, sci-fi and horror orient ...

2002: Won Onda Curta Award - ''The Cat with Hands'' (2001) *

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, focused on fantasy, horror, sci-fi, action and cult films, the largest genre festival in the United States. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse. Lisa Dreyer ...

2023: Won Best Director - ''

Stopmotion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhib ...

'' (2023) *

Leeds International Film Festival The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) is an annual film festival hosted in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest film festival in England outside of London. Founded in 1987, it is held in November in various venues throughou ...

2005: Won Grand Prize of European Fantasy Short Film in Silver - ''Monsters'' (2004) * London Sci-Fi Film Festival 2003: Won Audience Award - ''The Cat with Hands'' (2001) * Mediawave,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

1999: Won Youth Award Best Youth Animation - ''The Man in the Lower-Left Hand Corner of the Photograph'' (1997) *

Rotterdam International Film Festival International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

2012: Nominated Tiger Award for Short Film ''Bobby Yeah'' (2011) * Sitges Film Festival (2023): Won Special Jury Award (2023) *

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (BNFF), or PÖFF (Pimedate Ööde filmifestival), is an annual film festival held since 1997 in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. PÖFF is one of the largest film festivals in Northern Europe. In 2014, it was ...

2003: Won Animated Dreams Grand Prize "Wooden Wolf" with ''The Separation'' (2003)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Robert Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts British animated film directors People from Hart District Stop motion animators Living people English filmmakers 1974 births English animators