Tia Margan

The Big Lunch (see below) launched a competition with animation filmmakers Aardman this year. The Big Lunch asked children between the ages of seven and 15 to produce a short Big Lunch film starring Morph, using the animation software Animate It! The prize was for the animation to be featured in a nationwide campaign.

The offer created a sensation. Thousands of UK schoolchildren got down to work and submitted marvelous animated videos.

A Big Lunch spokesman said:

“We were overwhelmed by the fantastic entries received from all over the UK; so much time, effort and creativity had gone into them all. The judging panel – including Big Lunch communications manager Trudi Holden, Eden Project’s Lou Thorn and Aardman’s creative director Merlin Cressingham – found it very hard to whittle the entries down to four shortlists which went to a public vote on Facebook.

“After 24 hours of voting for the public’s favourite, a big congratulations goes to Tia Margan, aged 13 from Milton Keynes for Mad Morph Tea Party, now our official Big Lunch film for 2014!”

Tia Margan, of Milton Keynes

According to winner Tia Margan:

My inspiration came from Wallace and Gromit and it took about a week to plan and sort out my props. I’m a keen animator and I would like to pursue animation as a career.”

It's terrific for Tia that she is interested in animation, as one of the prizes for winning is to attend a seminar with top-flight Aardman animators. Her stop-motion animation submission was painstakingly arranged and shot and is an outstanding result from a girl who beat out a lot of older kids.

Congratulations, Tia!

The Big Lunch derives from the Eden Project. "The aim is to get as many people as possible across the whole of the UK to have lunch with their neighbors annually on the first Sunday in June in a simple act of community, friendship, and fun." The idea came about in 2009. The next Big Lunch is June 1, 2014.

2020