Knifedge Animates for TV Film of
Stuart: A Life Backwards

August 2007

Knifedge has produced a series of animated vignettes to feature in a new TV film adaptation of Stuart: A Life Backwards, the critically-acclaimed biography by Alexander Masters.

The new 90—minute film is directed by David Attwood and produced by Sam Mendes’ firm Neal Street Productions for BBC Two and HBO Films. It is scheduled for broadcast on BBC Two on Sunday 23rd September 2007.

Stuart: A Life Backwards tells the powerful story of Stuart Shorter (played by Tom Hardy), a homeless alcoholic with a violent past, who befriends writer and charity worker Alexander Masters (played by Benedict Cumberbatch). When Alexander asks if he can write about Stuart’s extraordinary and traumatic life, Stuart suggests the story is told backwards to make it “more exciting ? like a Tom Clancy murder mystery.”

In the film, Knifedge’s animations are used to reflect the inner thoughts of Alexander’s character. They are based on the simple line drawings by Masters himself in the original novel of Stuart: A Life Backwards. The animations were created using a mixture of digital and traditional techniques. Knifedge also created the title sequence for the new film.

David Attwood, the film’s director, said: “Knifedge brought an intuitive level of understanding to the animations that I don’t feel we would have found anywhere else. The animations allowed us to portray some very dark moments with real impact, but without losing the lightness of tone and humour within the book.”

Timothy Bird, Creative Director at Knifedge who led the animation team, comments: “Woven as they are throughout the film, the animations play an important role in capturing Alexander Master’s thought processes as he planned and created this brilliant novel. I believe the mix of live action and animation works very effectively to capture the idiosyncratic nature of the original book.”

Stuart: A Life Backwards was first published in 2005 and received widespread critical acclaim. It was shortlisted for the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (Biography) and the British Book Awards: Biography of the Year.

Click here for the case study and movie clip