Animation is a big draw at the cinema again. From the family-driven superheroics of The Incredibles to the muckencrusted adventures of Shrek the ogre, from robots to fish to sabretoothed tigers, movie audiences are being wowed by the delights of hi-tech computer generated imagery and the films are topping traditional blockbusters in terms of box office receipts, viewing figures and winning over the critics.

Itisn't all CGI whizz-bangs, though, and two recent acclaimed animated movies have drawn attention back to one of the oldest disciplines in the genre - stop-frame animation.

One is, of course, the first fulllength Wallace and Gromit move, Curse of the WereRabbit, which wooed audiences across the world.

The other is last month's The Corpse Bride, a dark fairytale from the mind of Tim Burton, who is more well known for his gothic fantasies such as Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow, but has previously dabbled in the world of stop-motion animation with The Nightmare Before Christmas some years ago.

Appearing at the Bradford Animation Festival next week is one of the animators who worked on The Corpse Bride, Phil Dale.

Speaking from a film festival in Brest this week, he said he was hugely looking forward to coming to Bradford for his first BAF appearance, although he is no stranger to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, having visited many times in his student days.

Although a Warner Brothers blockbuster, The Corpse Bride was actually a very British production.

Phil said: "It was shot at a studio in the East End and the crew was largely British.

"Tim Burton was very involved in the production at the beginning but had to go off halfway through to shoot Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

"I met him a few times on set. He was really inspiring."

The Corpse Bride took 56 weeks to film, which Phil says is pretty tight for a movie of this nature; Nightmare took around 18 months.

It's a very painstaking process; while the finished product might look slick and clean and has the benefit of being spruced up with modern technology, the basic techniques used are the same as they were when Ray Harryhausen animated skeletons and monsters for Jason and the Argonauts in 1963 and Willis O'Brien brought King Kong to life 30 years before that.

"The core technique has not changed, " said Phil. "We still move the models, take a shot, and move the model again.

"What we have today is the marriage of these old techniques with the latest digital technology."

Although the success of The Corpse Bride and Wallace and Gromit has put stop-frame animation back in the spotlight, it is in danger of becoming a lost art with the advent of evermore powerful computer animation techniques.

Phil said: "It is a very painstaking, time-consuming process, and many film students today are more interested in the latest computer techniques.

For any students who are interested in stop-frame animation, it's difficult for them to get involved because the industry is geared up to computer generated animation today."

Like many animators, Phil began as a child using his parents' Super 8 movie camera and animating his own Plasticine models and action figures.

He's also recently made a foray into live-action movies, with his short thriller The Census Taker getting an airing at several international festivals, including Brest, where he is this week. More conventional movie making is also something he got into at an early age.

He said: "I used to make my little brother act in my films, but he wasn't very good and wouldn't do what he was told, which is probably why I started getting into animation!"

Although animated models rarely storm off set or refuse to come out of their trailers, Phil admits that animators like himself do build up a relationship with their miniature stars.

He said: "When you're working on movie for more than a year you do grow close to the characters, they do adopt their own personalities.

"When you watch the completed movie straight after production is complete you tend to look at the technical aspects of it, so it's good to sit down with an audience some months later and watch it as they do - you do treat it differently.

"I was fortunate enough to be invited to a couple of the premieres for The Corpse Bride and it was wonderful to see the audience being swept up in it.

"Animation still gets looked down upon by certain sections of the film community but I think we've proved these days that an animated film can be easily on a par with a live-action movie when it comes to engaging the audience and getting an emotional response from them."

Phil Dale appeared at the Bradford Animation Festival on November 18 2005.