2. Brief History
Aardman Studios is a British based animation studio based in
Bristol. Aardman was founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and
David Sproxton. The animation studio is best known for
making stop motion clay animations. Their most recognisable
animation the studio are known for is Wallace And Gromit.
Aardman has created 5 feature films which include Chicken
Run, Wallace And Gromit, the curse of the ware rabbit, Flushed
away, Arthur Christmas and The Pirates In An Adventure With
Scientists. Aardman Have also successfully created a CGI
animation feature film Flushed away which was brought out in
2006, And Arthur Christmas which was released in 2011.
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3. Key Films/
Creations
The first animation that has brought special significance to
Aardman is Wallace And Gromit. From December 25, 1989,
there has been four 30 minute short films, ten 2 minute
shorts and one feature film that ran for 85 minutes that
has been created by Aardman. The animations were directed
and created by Nick Park.
The first Wallace And Gromit episode ‘A Grand Dat Out’ was
released 25th december, 1989 and ran for 24 minutes. The
episode was directed by Nick Park and starred Peter Sallis
as the voice of Wallace.
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4. Wallace And
Gromit
In this episode, Wallace and Gromit are deciding on where to go for their upcoming bank
holiday. Wallace, who loves cheese and crackers gets up to prepare tea with the cheese and
crackers only to discover that Wallace and Gromit are out of cheese. Wallace decides they
should go somewhere where there its lots of cheese ultimately choosing the moon since
everybody knows that the moon is made from cheese. The two characters set off to construct a
rocket in their basement which will fly them to the moon. On completion, wallace lights the
fuse to the rocket and with only a minute countdown, They realize they have forgot to pack the
crackers. Gromit rushes out the rocket and into the kitchen to get the crackers where he
makes it back to the rocket with a few seconds to spare.
Once apon arrival to the moon made of cheese, they set up a picnic where they try out the
cheese where they realize its something they have never tried before. They move their picnic
to another spot where they encounter a mechanism which has strong resemblance to a cooker.
Wallace puts a coin in the machine only to find out that the cooker grows robotic arms and
comes to life. The cooker discovers the picnic which wallace and Gromit have left behind as well
as their rocket. Agitated by Wallace’s actions of illegally parking the rocket and littering, the
cooker approaches wallace to bludgeon him, just as the cooke is about to strike wallace,
Gromit notices it runs out of money and it shuts down.
When Wallace and Gromit decide to depart from the cheese planet, The cooker comes back to
life only to discover that the rocket is leaving for earth in which he would like to go to fufil his
dream of skiing. The cooker breaks into the rocket and wanders around the dark interior of
the rocket where it lights a match near the fuel tank causing an explosion, The cooker gets
thrown across the planet as the rocket launches and throws of two pieces of discarded metal
which the cooker realizes they can be used as skis where he happily skis down to surface of the
cheese planet waving goodbye to Wallace and Gromit on their return to earth.
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5. Chicken Run
Chicken Run was a stop motion animation that was directed by
Peter Lord and Nick Park. The film was released 30 June, 2000
in the united kingdom and starred Julia Sawalha as the voice of
ginger, The ring leader of the chickens, and Mel Gibson as the
voice of Rocky, an american rooster who crashes in to the farm
whilst trying to escape from a circus.
Mrs. Tweedy operates a chicken farm, where most of the birds
have resigned themselves to a short and uneventful life of
producing eggs and ending up as the main course of someone's
Sunday dinner. But when Rocky, a rooster from America,
arrives on the farm, things begin to change. Rocky soon finds
romance with a hen named Ginger who longs for a better life
and has been trying to find a way out of the farm for some
time; together they devise a plan to escape to freedom.
However, Rocky and Ginger soon find themselves racing
against the clock when Mrs. Tweedy decides it's time to turn
the entire flock into chicken pies.
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6. Key Character
A key character in Aardman studio development is Morph, who is a
animated plasticine model that first appeared in 1977 in several
english television programs including Take Hart and The Amazing
Adventures Of Morph. Morph has made appearances in several
televisions programs from 1977 to present day. Television
programs Morph appeared on included Hartbeat, SMart, On Your
Marks, Ashes To Ashes and Ricky’s Radical reinventions. The
importance Morph brings to the animation studio is that it was the
first animated character to be produced for the BBC which then
made Aardman animation later famous for Wallace And Gromit.
Morph’s appeal to the audience is that he is very entertaining for
all ages, he was animated with a very jolly and exuberant
personality. Morph’s looks are very basic and minimal but very
iconic.
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7. Key Technology
Aardman use an identifiable animation style,
They are most famous for clay stop motion
animation. Clay stop motion is an animation
technique used to manipulate an object moving
on its own. This technique is created when the
object is moved very slightly between a
photograph, which then played back at full
speed gives the illusion of the object moving by
itself.
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