The Hunchback and the Swan

A classic tale of friendship and belonging — narrated by UK’s Storytelling Laureate Taffy Thomas, MBE.

The Hunchback has no friends in the village, but his friends are the animals of the forest. When he suddenly disappears, it’s up to the Weasel, the Rabbit, the Badger, the Fox, the Robin and the Wren to save the day. They will definitely need help — and perhaps even some magic!

The story was adapted from a popular folk tale under the same title told by Taffy Thomas. It features in three books written by Taffy and published by The History Press. You can read more about the process I went through to create this film in my article, ‘The challenges of adapting a folk tale’, featured on the publisher’s website. It’s been a wonderful learning journey for me, I got to explore not only new areas of directing, but also of design, animation and even composing!

‘The Hunchback and the Swan’ was created using mixed techniques: paper cut-outs, collagraphy, pixilation and 2D digital animation. A core group in the production team was made up of UWE Animation students, and the entire process was mentored by Peter Lord, Creative Director at Aardman. A big thank you goes to the staff at UWE and Aardman for providing access to facilities, as well as support in abundance.