aardman

The puppets in Aardman’s new Pirates Movie

Posted by hil

 

Aardman’s latest movie The Pirates! – In An Adventure With Scientists is released on 28 March, and looks like it will be lots of fun. Here are three videos that give a look at the stop motion puppets and the making process.

David Sztypuljak’s  video has some great footage of the sets, workshops and puppets. He also has an accompanying arcticle:

 

 

Andrew Bloxham talks about the complex process of creating the Pirate Captain’s luxurious beard:

 

 

And Caroline Hague, puppet and maintenance coordinator, talks about looking after the puppets.

 

Heart Made Of Sound

Posted by hil

Were

I came across a lovely stop motion animation yesterday, the Softlightes Heart Made of Sound. It’s directed and made by an Australian animator, Kris Moyes, who has done some other cool videos, including (Wolfmother’s White Unicorn (defaced), and the The Presets’ Are You the One?.

Presets

This caused me to revisit Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, which I just loved at the time. It was made in 1986, but it still stands up pretty well; not too surprising considering Aardman’s successes since then.

Sledgehammer

It’s one of those classics you assume everyone knows, but I’ve been realizing the older you get the less likely that is to be true! The other day I posted Jan Lewis’s Execution Row (postcards of the hanging), a current and clever borrowing of Dylan’s Desolation Row, at my local discussion forum, and the only response was someone young saying they hadn’t heard the song before but I liked it…

A peep into the making of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Posted by hil

The New York Times has a short slide-show of some of the sketches and models from the latest Wallace and Gromit movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I like seeing the armatures and insides:

Gromitbts

Nick Park gives the commentary. I’m not a huge fan of Aardman, but I was sorry to see the Aardman Animation studios had burnt down last week, with many of the original drawings, wooden sets, paperwork, awards and other memorabilia lost.