Alan Dickson

Alan Dickson was born in Edinburgh, but grew up on Auckland’s North Shore. He is the founder and owner of animation production house Yukfoo, whose work ranges across film, digital, commercials and music videos. Afflicted with a rare screen industry condition which makes him exceedingly wary of claiming credits he feels others more rightly deserve, Dickson's experience with animation spans two decades and counting. 

Dickson has been working as an professional animator in New Zealand since 1999, following a six-year stint in the UK animating on movies and commercials. He specialises in character animation and visual effects, and has directed and produced 100 plus commercials for global blue chip clients and agencies, including Sony, Vodafone, Sorted, Honda, Canon, Qantas and Cadbury. His ad work has gained multiple awards.

In 2011 Dickson directed Preferably Blue, as part of the NZ Film Commission’s ‘Premiere Shorts’ scheme. The CGI animated short stars the Easter Bunny and Santa, but its AO take on festive spirit is far from cuddly. English comedian Harry Enfield voices an embittered bunny whose remorse for Santa’s presents is fuelled by vodka and anti-depressants. Written in rhyming couplets by Wayne Ching, the black comedy premiered at South by Southwest in 2011, followed by New York's Tribeca Film Festival. Reviewing the film for website Short of the Week in March 2013, Ivan Kander argued that the film's makers had "crafted a truly unique world — a place that’s colorful and charming on the surface but has a distinctly dark edge underneath the veil.”

Dickson's intent was creating "a world in which the somewhat sordid life of the Easter Bunny (and even Santa) is believable, so it’s not your traditional cartoon environment but a place where real 'human' things happen to our make believe characters." The hope was to create empathy for characters whose inner demons "reflect, in many ways, our own.”

Dickson is currently developing a number of 2D feature films though newly-formed production company My Dad Shot your Dad. The first, Shirley and the Hungary Bear, has been mooted as “an adult targeted film based in the 1930's with a musical theme about tragedy and loss but also joy, courage and friendship. The tagline is 'Obsession, Assassination, Show Business and all that Jazz'.

Sources include
Alan Dickson
Ivan Kander, 'Preferably Blue', Short of the Week website. Loaded 9 March 2013. Accessed 9 November 2011
Brad Schreiber, 'Best of the 2011 Palm Springs Short Film Festival', (Review of Preferably Blue) Huffington Post website. Loaded 2 July 2011. Accessed 9 November 2011
Preferably Blue press kit