Editing Smallfilms (section)

==History of Smallfilms==
[[File:Smallfilms Bolex camera.jpg|thumb|16 mm Bolex Camera used for all the Smallfilms programmes.]]
Setting up the business in a disused cowshed at Firmin's home in [[Blean]] near [[Canterbury]], Kent,<ref name="CliveBanks"/><ref name="BBCObit"/> Postgate and Firmin made children's animation programmes, based on concepts that mostly originated from Postgate. Firmin did the artwork and built the models, whilst Postgate wrote the scripts, did the stop motion filming, and voiced many of the characters. ''Smallfilms'' was able to produce two minutes of TV-ready film per day, twelve times as much as a conventional stop motion animation studio,<ref name="BBCObit"/> with Postgate moving the (originally cardboard) characters himself, and working his [[16 mm film|16mm]] camera frame-by-frame with a home-made clicker. As Postgate voiced so many of the productions, including the [[WereBear]] story tapes, his distinctive voice became familiar to generations of children.

They began in 1959 with ''[[Ivor the Engine]]'', a series for [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] about a Welsh [[steam locomotive]] who wanted to sing in a choir, based on Postgate's wartime encounter with Welshman Denzyl Ellis, who was once a [[fireman (locomotive)|fireman]] on the [[Royal Scot (train)|Royal Scot]].<ref name="CliveBanks"/> It was remade in [[colour television|colour]] for the [[BBC]] in the 1970s. This was followed, also in 1959, by ''[[Noggin the Nog]]'', their first production for the BBC, which established Smallfilms as a safe and reliable pair of hands to produce children's entertainment, in the days when the number of UK television channels was restricted to two.

''Noggin the Nog'' was also remade in colour in 1982. However, only six episodes were produced, due to the BBC believing that Smallfilms’ work was “old-fashioned”.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pallant |first=Chris |date=2022 |title=Beyond Bagpuss: A History of Smallfilms Animation Studio}}</ref>

In 2000, Postgate and his friend Loaf set up a small publishing company called The Dragons Friendly Society, to look after ''Noggin the Nog'', ''[[Pogles' Wood]]'' and ''[[Pingwings]]''.

After Postgate's death in December 2008, Smallfilms was inherited by his son Daniel. Universal took the distribution rights to the works of Smallfilms. Any such agreement does not include the materials published through The Dragons Friendly Society.

In 2014, Daniel collaborated with Firmin on the production of a new series of ''[[Clangers]]'', with Daniel writing many of the episodes.<ref>'Noggin rides again', an interview with Peter Firmin by Julia Raeside in The Guardian Arts, 28 July 2014</ref>