AN ANIMATION written and directed by University for the Creative Arts (UCA) alumnus Chris Butler beat Walt Disney’s Frozen 2 and Pixar’s Toy Story 4 to be crowned winner at the Golden Globes Awards.

Missing Link, released by Laika Studios, earned Chris the award for Best Motion Picture Animation at Sunday night’s awards ceremony at the Beverley Hilton Hotel, Los Angeles.

It was a surprise win for the film, which was up against strong competition from other Hollywood blockbusters – but one that rewarded the film’s originality, distinctive and hand-crafted look.

“I am flabbergasted,” Chris said while accepting the award alongside the film’s producer Arianne Sutner.

“It takes a lot of people to make one of these movies – there were 450 talented artists, craftspeople, technicians, engineers – human beings who made this possible.”

After graduating from UCA Farnham in 1995 with a BA (Hons) in animation, Chris fulfilled a dream of working for Disney – becoming a storyboard artist on the 2005 animation Corpse Bride.

He later joined Laika Studios where he worked on Coraline (2009), and wrote and directed the Oscar-nominated animation ParaNorman (2012).

Missing Link is Chris’s latest endeavour and is a beautiful tale of friendship told in stop-motion.

Set in the late 19th century, Mr Link (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) recruits explorer Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman) to help find his long-lost relatives in the fabled valley of Shangri-La, with the help of adventurer Adelina Fortnight (voiced by Zoe Saldana).

In a review of the film, Empire gave it four stars and The Guardian wrote: “Laika Studio’s fifth lovingly-crafted family movie brims with visual charm and energy.”

Missing Link is out now on DVD, as well as available on streaming service Netflix.

In 2019 the animation course at UCA Farnham celebrated its golden jubilee, having been established 50 years ago by Oscar-winning animator Bob Godfrey.

The campus also opened its new state-of-the-art film and media centre in December 2018.

To learn more about studying animation at UCA, visit www.uca.ac.uk