London - were a special one forFramestore's director of computer animation, Mike Milne, won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards, presented at London's Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane at a ceremony hosted by Fern Britton.
Milne received his award from RTS Chair, Wayne Garvie. In a short acceptance speech, Milne stressed the collaborative nature of the projects he'd worked on, thanking his many friends, colleagues, and collaborators over the years,both from within Framestore and from companies such as Impossible Pictures,who were responsible for initiating the Walking With Dinosaurs programmes,widely regarded as Milne's crowning achievement within the industry. Milne's citation, read before a selection of his work was screened, ran inpart: > "[Milne] began his career in the mid-60s as an artist and beachcomber,> developing a passionate interest in wildlife and all aspects of natural> history and evolutionary theory, an interest which was to influence his entire> professional career.He was an early pioneer of combining CGI with live action> and won a D&AD Silver Award for his work on Spitting Image.
Then, in 1992, he> formed Framestore's first computer animation team.1999 saw the appearance of> the first series of Walking With Dinosaurs, a programme which revolutionised> television creature work, bringing big screen quality VFX to the small screen> for the first time. The unprecedented success of Walking With Dinosaurs> created a host of sequels and spin-offs, which [Milne] has continued to> supervise, taking viewers to the earth's most remote past, beneath its oceans> and even into space."Attending the ceremony were a number of his colleagues and friends fromFramestore, including Joint CEOs William Sargent and Sharon Reed, FramestoreChairman John Spearman, Mike McGee, Fiona Walkinshaw, Andy Lomas and EsmeLong.