The old industries may have long gone, but Teesside is now reinventing itself as a home for creative technology. Nick Morrison finds out how cartoons can be a serious business.

AFTER years of admiring his work, Shaun Featherstone finally managed to meet his childhood idol. But when the moment came, he found he could only stare and nod dumbly at the man who had given the world Roobarb and Custard.

"I was a complete gibbering wreck. I just froze. This was a guy who has been such an influence on me, and I made a complete idiot of myself," he says. "These guys are just so special, and occasionally you do get a bit star-struck."

For Shaun, Bob Godfrey, producer of the 1974 cartoon, was a hero in the way pop stars or footballers were to other youngsters, only this was a hero known only through his work and not by sight. "I grew up with the classics, like Roobarb and Custard, and I had a real fondness for the British stuff, the anarchic side of animation."

A childhood obsession with cartoons saw him skip PE at his Middlesbrough school, and head instead to the art room. "I was not into sport, so I would sit in the art room and do a few doodles and ideas for cartoon characters," he says. "I did get a bit of stick for it, and teachers used to say I had problems with concentration, but what they didn't realise is that when you get a story idea in your head you just have to get it down.

"I came up with little stories and ideas for a decent character design, and I would have to rush home and finish them. It's hard to switch off when you get an idea."

It may have been a youthful preoccupation, but now it has developed into a bold attempt to make Teesside into a breeding ground for tomorrow's animation heroes. As a lecturer in computer animation at Teesside University, Shaun has helped put together Middlesbrough's third animation festival, which starts on Monday.

Ranging from discussions with Oscar-winner Phil Tippett, who has worked on the Star Wars films and Jurassic Park, to open-air screenings and a sneak preview of Monsters Inc, the new film from Pixar, creators of Toy Story and A Bug's Life, the festival has been building an international reputation in the animation world.

Teesside's students have also been making a name for themselves. Alex Parkinson, a graduate of the computer-aided graphical technology applications course, went on to develop the techniques which brought the dinosaurs to life in the TV series Walking With Dinosaurs. And visualisation graduate Andria Warren last year won a national competition to create a short animated sequence for Channel 4.

But the most ambitious step is to try and create a National Centre for Animation on Teesside, part of the university's Digital City project to bring together leading-edge technologies. Housed in a purpose-built complex, it would include an animation archive, run workshops and provide post-production facilities. By encouraging established companies to visit Teesside, the university hopes to give its students experience of the commercial world, and, eventually, perhaps prompt the creation of an animation industry on its doorstep.

"Our students are the most talented people involved in this, and we want to make it easier for them to get into the industry," Shaun says. "We're hoping the reputation we have built means we will be able to bid for some of the work that, at the moment, goes out to other companies. It will be fantastic for us, and an incredible opportunity for our students.

"There are some incredibly talented individuals in this area, and to group that creative force together under the helm of this National Centre for Animation will also show how Teesside is a particularly creative place to be."

He says the fact that Teesside's students are giving a grounding in both traditional and computer animation makes them an attractive proposition in what is becoming a booming, and very competitive, industry worldwide. And the shortage of post-production facilities in the UK, where visual effects are added onto films and TV programmes, means there is a niche to be filled.

"If it does take off, we will see the area becoming much more desirable within the industry. The intention of the festival is to put Teesside on the map, to bring the industry to us and say this is the work we're doing, this is how serious we are about animation.

'And the fact that creativity often disappears from the area is something we really want to remedy. If we can set up a National Centre for Animation, it will help companies to think about Teesside as an emergent force, where they have animators on tap. If the industry gathers here, then talented students will not have to leave Teesside to pursue animation as their career."

The challenge of creating a national centre in what is a highly competitive field may not be easily achieved, but it does represent a contrast to the traditional industries which underpinned Teesside in the past - ship-building and steel.

"If you think about the industries we have had and lost, they never really paid any attention to the creative side of the area," says Shaun. "What we're trying to do with this national centre is build on local talent and be able to give something back. We're hoping the image won't necessarily be established, old Teesside, but emergent, new, creative Digital City. It is quite a risk but we have got a lot of support." But, as well as raising the profile of Teesside, turning it into a viable location for creative industries, and retaining local talent, for Shaun, the promotion of animation has another purpose, harking back to his own, early fascination for cartoons.

"People think of animation as something that makes them laugh, but an animator can use the same time frame and affect you on so many different levels. A simply-drawn, animated film can spell-bind, and do something in five minutes that other film-makers struggle to do in two-and-a-half hours.

"We want to open up people's perceptions of animation. It is an art form, and one of the most pertinent and irreverent art forms of the 21st Century. Animation has this tremendous ability to take people out of themselves for a small period of time. It is an incredibly creative force and the perfect antidote to real life."

l Middlesbrough International Animation Festival runs from Monday. Details are available on the website www.animex.org.uk or from (01642) 384416