The Brothers Quay, Tim Burton and Aardman Productions

1. The Brothers Quay
Stephen and Timothy Quay are American identical twin brothers famously known as the Brothers Quay or
Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are also the recipients of the 1998 Drama
Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.
List of some of the films the brothers had been involved with:
Nocturna Artificialia (1979);
Punch And Judy (Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy) (1980);
Ein Brudermord (1981);
The Eternal Day Of Michel de Ghelderode (1981);
Stravinsky – The Paris Years (1983);
Leoš Janáček: Intimate Excursions (1983);
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer (1984);
The Epic of Gilgamesh, or This Unnameable Little Broom (1985) aka Little Songs of the Chief Officer of
Hunar Louse;
Street of Crocodiles (1986);
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (1988);
Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies (1988);
Old Piano (1988) – an ident for MTV;
Ex-Voto/The Pond (1989);
They found their inspiration in Eastern European literature and classical music and art, their work
recognised by its dark humour and an uncanny feeling for colouring and texture. They create films that are
surreal and typically involve inanimate objects coming to life. One of their influences includes Jan
Švankmajer, whereby they named one of their films after him, The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer. Masters of
miniaturisation, they transform their tiny sets into extraordinary worlds suggestive of long-repressed
childhood dreams. These 3 Quay masterworks, chosen by director Christopher Nolan, feature broken
pencils and lead shavings up IN ABSENTIA (2000; "a dazzling piece of work" – The Guardian); a porcelain
doll's explorations of a dreamer’s imagination in THE COMB (1991; " most beautiful of their recent films "

2. – The New Yorker); and the nightmarish netherworld of STREET OF CROCODILES (1986; "t their
crowning achievement " – Film Comment); and interestingly, QUAY (2015), Nolan's new short film
uncovering the inner workings of the Brothers' studio. All four films in 35mm.” -Film Forum.
From this screenshot, it is evident that the film
is produced with a greenish-grey filter, in order
to highlight the dark nature of the film. The clip
contains disturbing animation, and with the use
of dolls creates a tense and creepy atmosphere
through the animation; very similar to Jan
Švankmajer’s style.
They moved to England in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1980, they came across a
man that went by the name Keith Griffiths and the 3 of them founded Koninck Studios in Southwark,
London. The Quays are recognised for their puppetry, animation and feature-length films but they are also
known for their intense engagement within theatre and opera, working on stage designs, set and projections
for productions and shows all over the world.
Idols
Their influences extend from animators; Jan Švankmajer, writers; Franz Kafka, puppeteers; Richard
Teschner and composers; Zdenek Liska. They have only made two feature-length live-action films and the
greater part of their movies have no spoken content at all and depend exceedingly on their musical scores.
Previously, they have likewise made music videos for 'His name is alive', 'Michael Penn' and '16
Horsepower'. The greater part of their movies includes puppets made of an assortment of materials both
organic and man-made, frequently made incomplete to make a dark moody atmosphere. A case of this style
of animation is Street of Crocodiles'.
Street of Crocodiles excerpt

3. Tim Burton
Tim Burton was born on August 25, 1958, in Burbank, California. After majoring in animation at the
California Institute of Arts, he worked as a Disney animator for less than a year before striking out on his
own. He became known for creating visually striking films that blend themes of fantasy and horror,
including Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
As a child, Burton was charmed with the exemplary horror films of Roger Corman - a large portion of which
features quintessential screen villain Vincent Price. Burton likewise built up a fondness for drawing and
enlisted at the California Institute of Arts, where he majored in animation. In 1980, upon his graduation, he
started working as an apprentice animator for Walt Disney Studios. Inside a year, Burton became tired with
his work at Disney and chosen to strike out all alone. In 1982, he released the award-winning short Vincent,
which paid praise to the persisting work of his childhood idol.
Vincent Malloy is a young boy who pretends to act the
character of Vincent Prince (narrator of the film) and is
obsessed with the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. His
detachment from reality made him suffer the delusions of
the tortured artist and spirals deeper and deeper into
insanity, and the question is whether he can save himself
before he believes himself to be dead and sleeps forever.
This film was shot in the style of German expressionist
films from the 1920’s and was captured in sombre black
and white.

4. Burton is also massively recognised for his substantial amount of cult films, work with all-time super star
Johnny Depp and classics such as ‘Planet of the Apes’. Tim Burton has always had a passion for creating
films which single different or have a cult fusion on things, for instance, this is reflected in his stop-motion
projects. His work was different in the sense of his contrasting blend of light and shadows, including the
dark themes, typically obtaining 2 opposing ‘worlds’ fusing into one, a case of this would be his recurring
theme of death and the mix of living and the undead living together or interacting in some way. This can be
witnessed in Corpse Bride, a human who is married to a zombie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, a
friendly ‘happy go lucky’ skeleton. The opposing nature of these character is really what made his work
stand out in such a way to project what is conventionally seen as ‘the bad guy’. His animation techniques
greatly embody these themes making them also exceptional,
Burton favours Claymation, he models themselves, in any case, they are extremely one of a kind, utilizing a
blend of dark dull hues, heavily joining whites, blacks and browns he makes exceptionally creepy topics.
The extents of the models are exceptionally intriguing, using real life proportions yet with odd turns, scaling
parts, for example, the midsection and limbs and enlarging the head give the impression of a powerless,
spooky figure. Until Burton, no other filmmakers figured out how to get this level of profundity into models
and such feeling. All things considered, Tim's stop-motion method is less about the physical use and more to
do with the outline, capacity and procedures utilized.
In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloween town was created in the theme of German expressionism
with dark shadows and twisted buildings, and Christmas town was meant to create a stark diversity and was
made in an outrageous Dr. Seuss style with multi-coloured childlike buildings and people, yet when they
travelled to the “Real” world which was created to look boring; with everything in plain simple shapes and
at right-angles in dull pastel colours. The filmmakers generated 227 puppets to represent the characters in
the film, Jack Skellington alone had around 400 different heads.

5. Sally’s mouth movements on the other hand, couldn’t be altered by
changing her head as it would have moved her long red hair out of
place, so a mask was made for her to swiftly change her facial features
and took the shots in 24fps. Disney decided to release it under their
Touchstone Pictures banner since they believed Nightmare Before
Christmas would be “too dark and scary for kids”. The film won
several awards including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects,
the Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award
for Best Fantasy Film. This film is aimed towards children, yet the
young adults appreciate the effort this film took.
‘Mars Attacks!’ is a 1996 American
Science Fiction Comedy Thriller film
approximately 106 minutes long.
When Martians surround Earth with
an armada of flying saucers,
President Jimmy Dale organises an
initial contact with them. People around the world followed the story and when the Martians arrived they
claimed that they “come in peace”. They then shoot down the peace dove and massacred the army standing
guard and the large crowd that had formed. The Martians then inflicted chaos on Earth and began
desecrating the famous monuments of the world; The Eiffel Tower, London Eye, Mount Rushmore etc.
Tim Burton initially intended to utilize stop-motion to feature the Martians, viewing it as a homage to
Harryhausen, mainly ‘Jason and the Argonauts’. However, Warner Brothers persuaded Burton to utilize
computer animation to bring down the cost of the film to £80 million. This film utilizes elements of black
comedy, surreal humour and political satire throughout the feature. Warner Brothers made the scenes of total
destruction using practical effects and scale models of several landmarks. The demolition of Art Land’s
hotel was shot in real life when they destructed the Landmark Hotel and Casino, a building Burton wanted to
immortalise. This film is aimed towards teenagers and adults.

6. "Frankenweenie" is a 2012 IMAX 3D black and white stop-motion sci-fi comedy horror film and is roughly
87 minutes long. Victor Frankenstein lives with his parents and dog, Sparky. One day his dad urges him to
play more sports and Victor goes to his first baseball game, on hitting a home run his dog chases after it and
pursues it and consequently gets killed by a car. Victor's depression combined with his interest of re-
animation conveys him to make a science lab in his attic and breathe life into his dog back. In the wake of
being discovered and compelled to bring back some of his colleague's pets that threaten the town the
townsfolk go out of control pointing the finger at him for everything that has happened. Sparky and Victor
gets chased all over town get caught in an old windmill, will the townsfolk ignore their mistakes to spare
their lives? This film is a remake of Burton's prior film of a similar name from 1984, which similarly was
based on Mary Shelley's book of a similar name however reworked for children viewing. This film could be
to educate and additionally entertain, the works of Mary Shelly ought to never be lost all through the ages
and this film is a simple approach to get children of today to know the story.
Comparable to the original version of this film, it was to be shot in black and white, to connote the fact that
it is an old story and additionally a dreary one. A considerable amount of the animation artists and crew
from ‘Corpse Bride' were included as "Frankenweenie" is of the same sombre scene. Burton additionally
obtained heavily the design of Sparky from his prior character from 'Family Dog'. The filming started in
Three Mill studios in 2010 and the team needed to make goliath sound stages; Victor's attic, a graveyard and
a high school. Which were altogether constructed separate from each other to accompany the handmade
frame-by-frame style of filmmaking. The sets had to be substantial in light of the fact that Sparky must be
dog-sized next to the other human characters additionally sufficiently large to keep together the mechanical
skeleton with more than 300 distinct parts which are still very small and sensitive and in some cases needed
Swiss watchmakers to make tiny nuts and bolts. Around 200 separate puppets were utilized and
approximately 18 distinct versions were of Victor.
This film got the Boston Society of Film Critics, Florida Film Critics Circle, Saturn Awards and many more.
It had already grossed $11.5 million in the first 3 days of the release. This film is aimed towards a younger
audience and whoever admire Tim Burton’s work.

7. Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations is an animation studio recognised for films made utilizing clay animation, especially
those for Wallace and Gromit. Aardman is an animation producer based in Bristol and was initially founded
by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in 1972 and created many low budget shorts for major companies like the
BBC and Channel 4. Aardman was inspired to create ‘Morph’ after 5 years of continuous short projects, and
produced it for the BBC as children programming and became very trendy. This was only the beginning of
something remarkable.
October 28th, 1999, was a very special day for
Aardman studios as they had been signed a $250
contract to produce 5 feature films with
DreamWorks (DreamWorks Animation) which
included ‘Chicken Run’. 1st October 2006, prior to
the release of ‘Flushed Away’, The New York Times
reported that because of creative variances
DreamWorks animation and Aardman would not be
stretching their contract and the deal was officially
ended on January 30th 2007. Aardman’s
spokesperson, Arthur Sheriff stated “The business model of DreamWorks no longer suits Aardman and vice
versa”.
April 2007 Aardman signed a 3-year deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment which was renewed in 2010.
Aardman co-founder Peter Lord stated "We are all very excited by the potential and have a number of
projects we are keen to bring to fruition with this new relationship”. In June 2007 these ideas were released:
 Arthur Christmas
 The Pirates!
 The Cat Burglars
 And an untitled project involving Nick Park.
Aardman mainly produces Claymation and Stop-motion
animation. The Claymation procedure involves creating
clay models at times around wire or hinged frames,
placing them onto a set, taking pictures of them slowly
and stringing all together in a series at roughly 24fps.
The illusion makes it seem like the images are moving.
These sorts of animation typically rely on persistence
vision in order to create the illusion of movement and
expression of the screen.
An example of Claymation by
‘Alexsnowskate’

8. ‘Creature Comforts’- First Oscar
‘Creature Comforts’ a short comical Claymation/stop-motion
animation film produced in 1989 featuring animals about their
lives in a zoo for comic effect. These were narrated by non-actors
of the British public and were mimed by the appropriate animals in
the film. The film then got an Oscar in 1990 for best animated
film, much to Aardman’s delight. The film was initially created by
Nick Park and later became an episode series for regular viewing
on Channel 4 and was aimed for all audiences to be entertained.
Not after a long time ‘Wallace and Gromit’
which was also made by Nick Park as a
Claymation/Stop-motion animation. Wallace; the stereotypical British man with the green jumper and
tendency for a bit of DIY who lives with his best friend Gromit; a mute dog who’s a lot smarter than he
appears to be. The first film was released in 1990 with ‘A Grand Day Out’, which was nominated for an
Academy for Best Animated Film yet lost to ‘Creature Comforts’, also by Nick Park. His later films, ‘The
Wrong Trousers’ (1993) and ‘A Close Shave’ (1995) both won Academy Awards for Best Animated Film
the years they were produced. These short 30-minute-long films were aired on BBC 1 and BBC 2 as well as
other children programs at the time and aimed towards children, however, adults also usually enjoyed the
comical pair.
At last Aardman animations put together their first feature length film of 84 minutes ‘Chicken Run’.
Another Claymation/Stop-motion animation film but the first where Aardman teamed up with DreamWorks,
this was made in the year 2000. On Tweedy’s chicken farm the chickens are plotting for escape before Mrs.
Tweedy turns on her mysterious contraption and cranks out the pies, could Rocky the ‘flying rooster’ be the
answer to their prayers? ‘Chicken Run’ was made on a goliath scale by Nick Park and peter Lord having
15ft long sets, over 100s of characters and only 180 pairs of hands to complete it.

9. ‘Chicken Run’ won several prestigious awards for Best Motion Animation and was also nominated for Best
Motion Picture in the Golden Globes. This film grossed over 180 million dollars and is recognised around
the world by both, children and adults as a comedic and a legendary animation.
The film has a 24fps frame rate, resulting that every second has 24 images within it, and it took a week in
the studio to create one minute of film. The Chicken Run characters are made around an armature. An
armature is a metal frame that bends and moves giving you the freedom to control it, this makes it feasible to
make the chicken move around more realistically. An example of an armature, as you can see in the
illustration it is in the shape of a body, and each bodily joint can bend, like elbows and wrists, near enough
all bodily parts that can move by the human body, can be moved by an armature. The characters are made
out of clay, and the clay is casted around the flexible metal structure (armature).
Creation of speech- The speech in Chicken Run is mirrored in the characters by utilizing several various
mouths for each character, (one being surprised and saying the letter “O” etc.) and this is what creates the
illusion of speech from the characters in Chicken Run.
Stop-Motion to CGI
A completely computer-generated feature called ‘Flushed Away’. Still partnered with DreamWorks;
Aardman extended their horizons by producing a CGI film in 2006, and completely shifting away from stop-
motion. ‘Flushed Away’ features Roddy; a pampered mouse who doesn’t know the world past the comforts
of his own cage is flushed away, down in the underbelly of his home town that lies city run by mice in the
Aardman Film ‘The Pirates’

10. sewers, where he comes across Rita; a street mouse who knows the town like the back of her hand. Roddy is
stuck in between going back home and helping his first love out of trouble.
The primary reason for Aardman switching from Stop-motion to CGI in this film is due to the fact that it is
based around water, which is tricky to render in stop-motion and utilizing real water could potentially
damage the models, thus Aardman opted for a computer generated based film. Though the characters in the
film still resemble Aardman’s traditional model design as the CGI representation came straight from the
models he created. This film was classified as a ‘U’ so is suitable for family viewing but it primarily aimed
towards children. ‘Flushed Away’ was an expensive creation and didn’t gross much money, this led to
DreamWorks and Aardman splitting studios in a rather messy way a year later in 2007.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
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