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In 1992, Ian Mackinnon & Peter Saunders founded a company that has been responsible for some of the finest stop-motion puppets in the world.

Ian and Peter met in the 1980’s whilst working at one of Europe’s largest animation companies Cosgrove Hall Films .  Peter had previously worked as a puppet maker on Jim Henson’s live action movie “The Dark Crystal ”. Subsequently he learned to adapt and miniaturise animatronic techniques which enabled him to create highly sophisticated stop motion puppets.  Peter was joined at Cosgrove Hall by a young talent named Ian Mackinnon arriving fresh from working with Gerry Anderson .  The partnership was born and whilst at the studios the pair began to push forward the art of puppet making on productions such as “The Wind in the Willows”, “Noddy”,  the British Academy Award winning “The Reluctant Dragon” and the Emmy Award winning “The Fool of the World”.

The success of the duo’s creative developments led them to set up Mackinnon and Saunders at the start of the 1990s.  In 1993, alongside puppet making, Ian produced “The Sandman ” with colleagues Colin Batty and Paul Berry.  This beautifully dark short film gained great success on the International Festival circuit culminating in a nomination for an Academy Award . Their first contact with Tim Burton swiftly followed when, in 1995, he commissioned the company to design and construct all the Martian character models for the movie “Mars Attacks!”.  Then in 1998 the team first collaborated with character designer Carlos Grangel on another Oscar® nominated production “The PeriwigMaker”.

Short films aside, the quality and range of their stop-motion puppet production was recognised in a major retrospective exhibition of their work in 2000 which was shown across Europe and Japan to massive acclaim.  Some of their "Mars Attacks!" and "Corpse Bride" puppets have been exhibited at New York's MoMA this year as part of the Tim Burton retrospective there - the exhibition is moving to ACMI in Melbourne, Australia this spring. 

Over the years Mackinnon & Saunders’ state-of-the-art workshops in the North of England have fast become the “birthplace” of some of the best known characters in the world of children’s television including “Bob the Builder”, “Engie Benjy” and “Koala Bros”.

With over 60 different television programmes, 70 commercials and various feature length movies to their credit their client list includes Warner Bros., HIT Entertainment, Nickelodeon, Cosgrove Hall Films, Gerry Anderson, BBC, Will Vinton Studios, Aardman, Loose Moose, Barry Purves and Disney.    (And Sylvester Stallone now owns the caricature puppet of himself which was created for JWT New York’s Lipton Brisk Tea commercials!)

The company won two Mobius Advertising Awards for commercials the company produces for Procter & Gamble, Inc’s innovative “Puffs ” tissues campaign.  They created  two extraordinary Harryhausen-inspired puppets for the 2005 comedy feature film “League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse ” (based on the hit BBC TV show) and of course they have reaffirmed their relationship with Tim Burton on “Corpse Bride ”.

Traditionally in stop motion features, facial expressions have been animated by use of replacement heads or simple limited mechanics, but it was here that “Corpse Bride” broke new ground.  The team at Mackinnon & Saunders developed sophisticated geared mechanics to articulate the puppets’ heads, enabling the animators to create a whole range of facial expression with an hitherto unheard of subtlety.

Tim Burton said of their contribution to Corpse Bride “They do such beautiful work.  They really raised it to a new level for this film.  These puppets are so real, they are so sensitive and textural, you really do believe they are alive”.

Currently they are busy with the next chapter in the Mackinnon & Saunders story with the development of their own film and TV projects whilst continuing to work on a huge range of puppet styles for commercials, two upcoming CBBC series and a feature film.