|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Introduced in 1989’s A Grand Day Out, the cheese-obsessed British inventor Wallace and his ever-suffering canine companion Gromit have come a long way since their first adventure. Along with his work Creature Comforts, Nick Park helped redefine Aardman Animations with Wallace & Gromit and introduced two of the most beloved and recognizable stars of the stop-motion world over the past few decades. Now, Park is co-directing with Emmy Award-nominated Aardman veteran, Merlin Crossingham, and the inventive duo returns with a brand-new adventure in the movie Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
“We pushed the relationship between Wallace and Gromit a little more than we have ever done before. Vengeance Most Fowl is bigger, more expansive and a bit more cinematic than the previous projects.”
— Director Merlin Crossingham
Fans have waited almost 20 years for a new Wallace & Gromit feature after The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This time around, Gromit is concerned over Wallace’s (Ben Whitehead, taking over from the late Peter Sallis) overdependency on his latest invention: the “smart gnome” Norbot (Reece Shearsmith), which has seemingly developed a mind of its own. To make matters worse, a vengeful figure from their past returns: the infamous penguin Feathers McGraw, last seen in 1993’s The Wrong Trousers. Is he the mastermind behind the “hacking”? It is once again up to Gromit to find out and save his master from certain doom.
On a recent visit to Aardman’s Bristol studio, the design of the project — from the puppetry to the set pieces — revealed (as one would expect) a healthy mix of Ealing comedy and Hollywood homage, with the impeccable artistry taking place one frame at a time!
Go Big or Go Gnome
At Aardman, everyone strives for perfection, yet its work remains a celebration of imperfection. Sure, the visible thumbprints add to the quirks and texture of the characters, but there is a blueprint adhered to that has helped create such a distinctive (and perfected) formula. “We are so well known for stop motion, but we just love telling stories,” says producer Richard Beek. At the center of these classics are not only interesting tales but also captivating characters and intriguing inventions.
In Vengeance, character and invention are melded together in the form of “retooled” garden gnome Norbot, who adds a different flavor to the proceedings. “Nick and Merlin have joked about the genre being ‘Gnome Noir,’” adds Beek, which makes complete sense considering gnomes have been another important fixture of this world, feeding perfectly into the effortless old-school humor; those Hammer Horror and Hitchcockian gags that pay tribute to an integral part of the British persona.
With the task of managing large crews, and given the time and effort involved in making a feature-length stop-motion film, Park usually shares directorial duties — with Peter Lord on the first Chicken Run and Steve Box on The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This time he partnered with Crossingham, who for the last 10 years has been creative director of the Wallace & Gromit brand. “Merlin was always one of the top animators on all our projects,” recalls Park, “but he also seemed to get things really quickly and has done some of the best bits in the Wallace & Gromit films of late. Also, he’s good at directing and good at humor. So, when it came [time] for me to think about whom I would share the journey with, a fellow visionary, the choice wasn’t difficult really.”
At the studio, we were shown initial artwork before we saw the puppets, which are the perfect amalgamation of craft and engineering. Each detail and iteration of the designs are approved by Park and Crossingham before scans are produced for the 3D-printed molds that are used for both hard and softer materials to build onto the characters’ armatures. Over time, the techniques have evolved as more animators have worked on productions. For instance: Wallace’s jumper was originally clay and is now foam latex. Depending on what a character is doing, only heads and hands are clay, or, depending on articulation, silicone appendages are used, which is easier to maintain.
Setting the Scene
There is an infectious energy and jovial spirit at Aardman, the veterans as spritely as the freshest animators. Director of photography Dave Alex Riddett has worked on Wallace & Gromit animations since A Grand Day Out. “I’m a regular,” he says, laughing, before presenting an incredible basement set piece involving Gromit and some small intruders. “Keeping everything in camera as much possible has created this distinct Aardman aesthetic, making sure all those elements are in the ‘Wallace & Gromit world,’ so it doesn’t break the spell.”
This aesthetic is evident in how the lighting is meticulously rigged to match the stop motion — a pattern programmed to repeat as “frame specific” — a flourish of front and back projection that creates unique textures, while the odd spark and atmosphere are added in postproduction.
Next up on our tour was production designer Matt Perry, who was also an integral part of last year’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget as an art director. On board since The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Perry faced fresh challenges on the new film. “We’ve had some difficulties on this film because it touches on themes about artificial intelligence and computers, which doesn’t quite fit into that zone. There’s this handmade, slightly old-world charm to Wallace & Gromit that fits somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s.” Although there has always been a spattering of postwar austerity in the decor, the duo’s era isn’t confined to a particular decade but to nostalgia itself, capturing that charm of how any generation remembers the good old days. To solve this problem, Perry nudges Vengeance slightly more toward the retro ’90s and PC age.
His designs are meticulous yet also replicable at various scales, and made as cost-effectively as possible, such as by building only two-thirds of an epic Yorkshire set — moved around and reconfigured to save on budget — with riffs of Mission: Impossible taking shape on GoMotion “cruise control,” the bombastic action merely played for laughs. And, of course, another crucial element of the story is the return of a fan favorite, the arch-villain Feathers McGraw. For his Captain Nemo- and Blofeld-inspired surroundings, it’s all in the meticulous paint job, especially (without giving too much away) the “Naughty Lass,” Perry’s own affectionately titled invention.
As Becher demonstrated on the tour, the process goes way beyond technical skills; animators understand the feelings of the characters — locating an emotion within a tiny puppet to help develop characterization — captured on camera by directors Park and Crossingham through a process known as Live-Action Videoing, or “lavving.” Toggling in the Dragonframe stop-motion software, Becher finished off animating a final shot in the film. “We are physically pushing the clay around with our fingers; the ‘thumbiness’ [is] something we try to actively keep. That texture makes you connect with it when you watch the film because you know that it’s organic and real.”
Enter the Peng-Win
Sitting down with Park and Crossingham over lunch, it’s immediately clear how in tune they are. Crossingham, having originally worked on A Close Shave as a runner, has become fully immersed in this ingenious little world, over the years developing a shorthand with Park. With directorial duties shared across the production, there was an even split between the pair for the acting, comedy and action.
Shooting all scenes simultaneously, the production relied heavily on edited storyboards that help retain the continuity of performance Park and Crossingham hold so dear. “As a structure, we haven’t deviated from the script, but as we begin to film, we learn so much about the story [that] we push things around a bit,” says Crossingham.
“When Toy Story came out we were asking: ‘How long have we got left?’ But there has been a genuine resurgence of stop motion, and we’ve contributed to that.”
— Director Nick Park
Park is no stranger to allowing things to evolve, or for a story and character to take hold. Having spent seven years on A Grand Day Out in his cupboard, he was writing as he went along, while Feathers evolved from sketchbooks dating before he started on that first outing. Of course, the genius of the character — as with Gromit — is his silence. “There’s not much more emotion than a milk bottle. [A] simple head turn, the look,” says Park, laughing. “You may not think it, but he’s really difficult to animate as the animators have to be reined in.”
The story, while remaining light and breezy, portrays technology as just as much of a villain as the dastardly penguin. “It’s more about who controls the technology we believe in. That was a crucial element of bringing back Feathers,” explains Park. Crossingham adds: “We weren’t looking at how technology is bad but how it impacts Wallace and Gromit’s relationship. The wedge it drives between them.”
A human-made look and feel is a vital part of Aardman animation, but the studio is not averse to technology, something Park reflects on further. “The tactile quality is the spirit of it all, really. But we work with technology a lot. It’s funny, when Toy Story came out we were asking: ‘How long have we got left?’ But there has been a genuine resurgence of stop motion, and we’ve contributed to that.”
Vengeance Most Fowl is a quintessentially British adventure that explores what can happen when our reliance on technology threatens our most treasured relationships. Therefore, it is no surprise that with its “inventive” plot, high-speed chases, twists and turns and laugh-out-loud gags, Park and Crossingham have delivered another Oscar-worthy Aardman classic; a timeless animated feature ready to be embraced by new and old fans alike.
Cracking Magic: Some Fowl Facts & Figures
- There are over 200 crew members who worked on the production, spanning modelmaking, puppets, VFX, animation and rigging — the latter of which involved up to 30 animators during peak production.
- On average, each animator produced 4.2 seconds of animation each week, which is a total of 127 seconds.
- Actor Ben Whitehead recorded 22.5 hours of takes for Wallace’s dialog.
- The line that required the most takes was Wallace’s “I was grabbed by the Norbots! … Very unpleasant experience!” which was recorded in 44 ways.
- In total, 432 lines of dialog were recorded, which took the directors an eye-watering 216 hours to select final versions. On average, that’s 15 minutes to select each line of dialog from the actors.
- The water in Wallace’s opening waterslide scene is made from replacement resin pieces, while the bubbles in his bath were created with glass beads stuck to foam and wax.
- In total, the puppet department created 750 hands for the various Norbot puppets.
- There are 23 “extras” in the crowd scenes, some of them based on the villagers from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
- A total of 600 eyes were created for the characters in the film.
- Feathers McGraw’s eyes are black glass pinheads — the puppet department had to go through 50 pots of pins to find enough that were exactly 2.77 mm (.1 inch) in diameter for the 11 identical Feathers puppets.
- The lion who confronts Gromit in the zoo had the longest development process of any puppet Aardman has ever made — it took months of work by three modelmakers and is the most highly engineered puppet in the film, even though he only appears for a few brief shots.
- There were 10 Norbot puppets with 20 interchangeable heads The amazing puppet team also created a gnome army consisting of 34 fully armatured puppets with interchangeable heads for when they changed from evil to good!
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will premiere in the U.K. on BBC One and iPlayer on Christmas Day (December 25), and on Netflix globally on January 3.
