Reg Hill 1950s. Hill worked in all things artistic, from set and puppet design to special effects. This collaboration ended, and the production of new programs commenced, with "Four Feather Falls", a Western featuring the voice of Nicholas Parsons as Sheriff Tex Tucker. During these early years, Hill was also involved in producing Anderson's low-budget film, "Crossroads to Crime" (1960). In 1962, AP Films was bought by Associated Television director Lew Grade, and in 1966 was renamed "Century 21 Productions". It would subsequently become "Group 3 Productions" in 1972 (named after its three founders: Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, and Hill), and "Gerry
Supermarionation Supermarionation Supermarionation (a portmanteau of "super", "marionette" and "animation") is a style of puppetry devised in the 1960s by British television production company AP Films (APF). It was used extensively in the action-adventure puppet series produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, of which the best known is "Thunderbirds". The term was coined by Gerry Anderson. The term "Supermarionation" was expressive of Gerry Anderson's preference for artistic realism and his desire to make APF's puppet-filming techniques "more and more life-like". According to Sylvia Anderson, it was created "to distinguish the pure puppetry of the stage from our more sophisticated filmed-television version".