32 Facts About Joy Batchelor

Joy Ethel Batchelor was an English animator, director, screenwriter, and producer.

Joy Batchelor married John Halas in 1940 and subsequently co-established Halas and Batchelor cartoons, whose best known production is the animated feature film Animal Farm, which made her the first woman director of an animated feature since Lotte Reiniger.

Joy Batchelor helped co-write, write, animate, produce, and direct many of their productions.

Joy Batchelor later worked in television, directing series, including animated shows like The Jackson 5ive.

Joy Batchelor died on 14 May 1991, just two days after her 77th birthday.

Joy Batchelor was born 12 May 1914, in Watford, Hertfordshire.

Joy Batchelor was offered placement afterwards at the Slade School of Art, but did not continue schooling to help support her family financially.

Joy Batchelor worked as a commercial artist and assembly line worker.

Joy Batchelor was born into a family that had hoped for a son, leading to a sense of disappointment from her parents.

Joy Batchelor grew up feeling overshadowed by her younger brother, John, who received their mother's devoted attention.

On one occasion, she punished Joy Batchelor by locking her in the cupboard beneath the stairs, an experience that strengthened Joy Batchelor's resolve to escape her circumstances.

Joy Batchelor would narrate stories to herself as a form of solace and imagination.

From an early age, Joy Batchelor showed a strong interest in drawing.

Joy Batchelor's father encouraged her artistic talent, bringing home long paper off-cuts for her to use.

Joy Batchelor was offered a scholarship to the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art but declined due to financial constraints, opting instead to enter the workforce to support her family.

Joy Batchelor first began working in animation as an in-betweener for Dennis Connolly's projects.

Joy Batchelor met John Halas after he advertised for an assistant animator for British Colour Cartoons Limited.

Joy Batchelor accompanied him when the company sent Halas to Hungary in 1937 for work.

In 1940, Halas and Batchelor was approached by J Walter Thompson to produce advertising shorts.

Later in 1940, Halas and Joy Batchelor was taken over by the Ministry of Information, and used to create propaganda and educational films for the war effort.

Joy Batchelor helped to co-write, co-direct, and animate most of the films produced during that time.

Joy Batchelor designed Charley, the titular character of the Charley series the company created for the Central Office of Information.

Joy Batchelor's style was described as favouring the use of simplistic images and authoritative narration, which was characteristic of the Charley series.

Joy Batchelor worked on the preliminary treatments for the film, which were used to get the rights to create it.

Joy Batchelor had a leading role in writing the script and designing the characters.

In 1955, commercial television became increasingly popular, so the bulk of Halas and Joy Batchelor's output was televised shorts.

The studio's short, Automania 2000, for which Joy Batchelor wrote the script, won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award in 1964, and was nominated for an Oscar.

Halas and Joy Batchelor produced only one more animated feature film after Animal Farm, an adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta, Ruddigore, written and directed by Joy Batchelor herself.

In creating the adaptation, Joy Batchelor had to conform to a strict condition that no songs or dialogue could be altered, which was challenging when trying to shorten the film to feature-length.

Joy Batchelor had to retire in the mid 1970s due to arthritis, and could no longer work.

Joy Batchelor taught well past retirement at the London Film School.

Joy Batchelor died 14 May 1991 in London from an unnamed illness, two days after her 77th birthday.