Animation director on the Beatles film Yellow Submarine
The animation director Jack Stokes, who has died aged 92, had an energetic career that lasted more than 50 years, of which the highlight was his work on the Beatles' groundbreaking animated feature film Yellow Submarine (1968).
Jack's connection with the Fab Four was first established in 1965, when the London animation studio TVC was commissioned to produce an animated television series The Beatles. It was a great ratings success in the US, although it was never shown in the UK. Made to the typical standards of TV cartoons at that time, it showed no hint of what was to come with the feature film.
He was contacted by the Beatles again to do the animated titles and inserts on their Magical Mystery Tour film, which aired on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967. The following year came Yellow Submarine: there was barely a script to work from, but the animators' imaginations were given free rein, and they wove together a kaleidoscope of different techniques and styles into a work of art. The film was of its time, and yet still feels fresh today, much like the Beatles music that holds it all together.
Yellow Submarine tells the story of Pepperland, a paradise of happiness and music, which comes under attack from the Blue Meanies. They are out to banish music and drain the world of colour. John, Paul, George and Ringo are asked to help, and travel to Pepperland in a yellow submarine, passing through a series of surreal landscapes and dream-like happenings.
The stunning designs for the film were provided by the German illustrator Heinz Edelmann, and the animation direction was split between Jack and Bob Balser. Jack was responsible for the opening sequence up until the titles, and the entire second half of the film.
Yellow Submarine was premiered in July 1968 at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus, with screaming fans blocking the roads all around. But even at the height of Beatlemania, Jack managed to take "the boys" out a few times and got to know them quite well. He has recounted how they were not so interested in the film until, towards the end of production, they saw how radically different it was from the TV series.
Jack was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and his art training began nearby at Southend College of Art. In 1939, with the outbreak of the second world war, he joined the RAF and served in Coastal Command as a wireless operator mechanic and as an air-gunner in the far east.
In 1946 Jack joined the newly opened Gaumont British Animation studio at Moor Hall, Berkshire. David Hand, the supervising director on Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi, had set up the studio to act as a rival to Hollywood. It provided a perfect start for Jack at a time when opportunities for trainee animators barely existed in the UK.
By 1961 Jack was running his own studio, Stokes Cartoons, and produced animated commercials for cinema and TV. He also established a relationship with the TVC studio, run by his friend the producer John Coates, and the Canadian film-maker George Dunning, who was to be the overall director on the Yellow Submarine film.
In May 2012, a restored version of Yellow Submarine was screened at the Bafta cinema in London. Jack and Balser were reunited on stage to recall those heady days. They both agreed that the digital restoration made them feel as if they were watching the film for the first time.
Psychedelia and flower power weren't really Jack's thing, though. A story such as Robert Burns's Tam O'Shanter excited him more. In the early 1990s, with Channel 4 money, he developed a beautiful storyboard for a Tam O'Shanter project. It was full of energy and dramatic lighting, hallmarks of all Jack's storyboard work. Much to his disappointment, the film didn't get financed, but there were other projects waiting for him.
Over the years, his work included episodes of Bob Godfrey's Roobarb; an animated feature film of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1978); the television film Castle, which combined documentary and animation to describe the construction of a medieval Welsh castle (1983); and Asterix vs Caesar (1985, from the French comics).
He and I worked together on the half-hour TV special The Tailor of Gloucester (1993), a faithful translation to the screen of Beatrix Potter's original tale for the series Tales of Peter Rabbit and Friends. Jack storyboarded and directed, and I was animation director. Yellow Submarine was the film that inspired me to become an animator, so it was a privilege to work with him.
Jack carried on working until he was about 80 and then enjoyed an active retirement, painting and writing.
He met his wife, Jill, while in his teens and they married in 1942. She predeceased him. He is survived by their two daughters, Jacqueline and Hilary.
• John Albert Stokes, animation director, born 2 April 1920; died 20 March 2013