A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman

Your programme's starting, Gromit.

I know you've been looking forward to this one. Hmm?

Lost your chair, lad?

Let me introduce the Relax-O-Matic.

WALLACE LAUGHS

Are we sitting comfortably? Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

Let's go.

Aardman Animations.

No cheese, Gromit.

For 40 years they have filled the world with pure plasticine joy.

Creating unforgettable moments.

Every single frame is just full of stuff.

Aaah!

In all honesty, I really do like the silliness of them.

We don't like potatoes, we like meat.

Goodness me! How are they going to do this?

Good grief! It's you!

We have to rip that off from The Simpsons.

And characters we fell in love with.

Weren't you the voice of a plasticine chicken?

I don't want to be a pie.

-I remember kind of going...

-HE GIBBERS

And it was the most bizarre audition.

Let's go plundering!

I sounded rather marvellous.

I had this idea of this English guy who builds this rocket.

And who may have a cat.

This is a story of how very big things can happen -

one tiny move at a time.

They changed the game entirely.

We did it! Ha-ha!

The only thing you can say is that you feel proud of it.

Welcome to the Aardman world. Look at it, isn't it lovely?

Bristol. Home of Banksy, Bananarama, and the inventor of the blanket.

But most excitingly, it's the home of Aardman.

You may not know the name but one thing is certain -

you will know their creations.

In fact, it's hard to imagine life without them.

What Aardman do so brilliantly is that they appeal to every

generation, actually. So you will very happily sit

and watch an Aardman movie with your kids.

Hang in there, Gromit.

It's not only really, really fantastically executed,

but it's proper comedy writing.

I'm a pirate captain and I'm here for your gold!

Personally, I regard them

as the people who kind of revolutionised animation worldwide.

I think their impact can't be overstated.

We'll either die free chickens or die trying.

I think Aardman is hated by all of us.

Because they are so damn successful.

And so wonderful. Brilliant. Yes, I mean, sheer hatred. Utter.

It all began in the 1970s.

David Sproxton and Peter Lord, two long-haired dreamers,

had a crazy idea -

to bring still images to life.

I was always interested in photography

and my father had a wind-up cine camera.

And I said, "Why don't we get that out of the cupboard

"and set it up and just play around on the kitchen table?"

And we made a film. Was it called...did we call it Trash?

-Was it that one?

-Godzilla.

-Godzilla. Godzilla was the first one.

We had chalk drawings. It was complete rubbish really.

But it was great fun.

In 1972, they got their big break.

Their kitchen table antics were going to be seen in

living rooms across the country.

We had been making these very short films for Vision On

with the character we called Aardman.

Aardman was like a superhero

but absolutely incompetent.

So, simply, the Aard of aardvark and the Man of Superman.

They were very old-school drawn animation.

But the BBC liked it so they bought it and they said,

"Who should we make the cheque out to?"

We then discussed all the options. Pete and Dave Animations.

Lord Sproxton Animation. You know? And we just...

So we went for Aardman.

Then something magical happened.

A discovery that would change their lives forever - plasticine.

In 1977, Aardman's first star was born.

Ooh.

I loved Morph.

Anything in plasticine used to make me very happy.

'There you go, all back to normal.'

Morph was an animated comedy sidekick for Tony Hart cos

Tony Hart was a brilliant artist but maybe not very funny.

Ooh.

Meow!

It was quite ground-breaking as well when you think of it.

This little blob of plasticine that could become whatever it wants.

But it also seemed to have a personality.

-MUSIC FROM SHELL

-Huh?!

I remember it very vividly as a child.

But I would have had no concept of the fact that this was

the start of a kind of bold, new era in British animation.

I just really enjoyed it. Thought it was funny.

It was the bit in Take Hart you always looked forward to.

Sorry, Tony.

Morph went on to have his very own series,

he received a Blue Peter badge and made some new friends along the way.

Uh!

Well, I say friends...

They have just a wonderful innocence about them.

There is a little bit of slapstick comedy violence,

there's a bit of magic, there is a bit of surrealism,

but ultimately, it comes down to two...you could call them

brothers, friends, whatever they are, just having a laugh.

HE GIBBERS

There's a lot of fun in slapstick.

THEY LAUGH HAPPILY

Uh?!

But the real fun is character-based,

like when Chas comes on wearing an outrageous tie.

Mmm. Ah. Hmm.

Eh-uh!

HE GIBBERS

Uh-uh-uh.

MORPH LAUGHS

Huh.

And Morph just laughs at him for like 30 seconds.

And in the end, he pats him on the shoulder and thanks him.

You know, thanks for giving me such a good laugh.

MORPH LAUGHS

CHAS SHOUTS ANGRILY

Grandmorph's home movies. I like very much

when some old black and white film comes to light.

LAUGHTER

And it allows us to play a playful homage to Charlie Chaplain.

But then later in the same sequence, there is

some footage of Morph as a baby.

And what I love is Morph being embarrassed in front of his friends.

LAUGHTER

'He was a very sweet and contented baby,

'quite unlike Morph as he is today.'

I do own a Morph.

I made the mistake of showing it to

one of my children about a year ago,

who reduced Morph to really a...a sausage.

Ten grand's worth just gone.

But luckily, Peter says he can reconstruct him in about 14 seconds.

Morph has actually been around for 39 years, I guess,

which is extraordinary.

PHONE DIALS

HE CHUCKLES

-Huh.

-Huh.

'Please hold. Your call is currently being held in a queue.'

DISCO MUSIC PLAYS

Phones may have changed a bit, but Aardman's longest-running character

is still making us smile today.

And finally, a cheerful smile.

And the funny thing is, he's always handmade like this. Every time.

When I think that when we started out there was Dave and me,

the studio was probably about as big as this little box we are in now.

We had the modelling clay and the 16mm camera

and three or four lights. You know, that was the whole company.

It's just quite amazing how the whole business has

just sort of grown from him.

Uh?

Uh. Eh?

HE GIGGLES

Bye-bye-bye.

He said you could come in when you'd like.

-Get your meals.

-Yes.

-But he said there is no beds.

-I see.

Right.

Meanwhile, as Dave and Pete's plasticine empire started to grow,

little did they know,

a young student from Preston had taken inspiration from their work

and was about to embark on a fairly ambitious college project.

I had this idea about an English guy who builds this rocket.

And the joke was he builds it in the basement of his house.

I was thinking he may have a pet. Probably a cat.

Started drawing a cat but as soon as I started making the clay model,

a dog just was easier to make.

I'd animated some of the film before I did any dialogue at all.

When it came to voices, Peter Sallis was the first choice I had.

I wrote to him and he agreed to do it for about 50 quid, I think.

And I was really surprised that he didn't have a Yorkshire accent.

-MIMICS PETER SALLIS:

-"Hello, Nick. Thank you for sending me the script.

"I wonder if this is how Wallace may sound like."

Up until that point, Wallace has got quite a straight face.

And it was only when I started animating talking like "Cheese"

and the way he stretched his vowels, his face changes.

HE GULPS

Gromit, that's it, cheese!

We will go somewhere where there's cheese.

I'd bitten off more than I could chew with Grand Day Out.

The script was about 20 pages long.

And there was one paragraph that just said,

"There is now a sequence where a Wallace and Gromit build a rocket."

That paragraph took me a year and a half film.

Keen to meet his animation idols, Nick invited Dave

and Pete to come and visit his college.

Pete had a Morph badge on his lapel.

And I was thinking that is the bees knees,

to actually have one of your characters on your lapel.

I was impressed by that kind of thing.

He was building the sets, making the puppets, doing the animation,

just kind of doing everything,

cos that's how it used to be back in the day.

I'd got very disillusioned at times.

I had absolutely no money at all.

I was living in a grotty little bedsit in Cricklewood.

But I had to fulfil this vision, this film I had in my head.

We said to the film school,

"Look, Nick is going to take forever to finish this.

"Can we bring Nick's sets down and indeed his camera

"and we'll help him finish it?"

Nick moved to Bristol and joined Aardman.

And finally finished his first animation - A Grand Day Out.

At the time, when I did it,

I didn't think this is going to make cinema history.

But six years later in 1989 when the phone went and he said,

"I've finished it."

You know, I thought, "Oh, it's only taken him six years."

The film not only launched Nick's career

but two of animation's greatest characters.

They've had their own Night at the Proms,

they've appeared on stamps,

they have a ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach,

they've met the Queen,

and they even helped to save the Wensleydale Dairy from closure.

CYMBALS CRASH HUGE APPLAUSE

I think we're about to go up in the world, lad.

It's not obvious pitch, is it? Old bloke and a dog do stuff.

A dog, and a funny-looking dog to boot, and this kind of suburban man.

You think, "Oh, his life must be dull."

But what Aardman do with him, they take him to the moon.

Wallace and Gromit have got to be up there with Eric and Ernie.

They are in love with each other. They need each other.

And they both get just so irritated with each other. That's perfect.

Sorry, Gromit. That was a bit thick.

The very kind of mundanity Wallace and Gromit's existence.

Porridge today, Gromit.

Tuesday.

Set against the extraordinary

kind of Thunderbird lifestyle that they lead.

Geronimo!

A great poster that was done for Were-Rabbit.

By Wallace it says master. And by Gromit it says mind.

And I think that really sums them up perfectly.

Gromit is one of my favourite characters ever

created in animation. And he never speaks.

CARD TINKLES

CARD PLAYS FOR HE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW

Yet there is so much expression in him.

It's all about body language

and the way his face presents itself to the camera.

And making your audience understand

what he's thinking without

saying a word, it's so difficult.

Come on, Gromit. A bit more...you know, alluring.

MUSIC: The Stripper

Ho-ho-ho. Very cheeky.

I've seen less capable comedic human actors than Gromit,

do you know what I mean?

What he can do with a look.

I say he, or the 15 people who have made him have that look,

is sort of Stan Laurel-esque, you know? It's...

I would say it's approaching genius if not actual genius.

Set coordinates for 62 West Wallaby Street.

A Grand Day Out earned Nick an Oscar nomination.

But, sadly, it didn't win.

And there was only one person who was good enough to beat Nick Park...

Nick Park.

'Sound's running. When you're ready.'

I remember the first time I saw an Aardman animated film.

I was sitting there in this big auditorium

and Creature Comforts came on.

And I was amazed.

Well, sometimes you can't...you can't get out

and about as much as you would like to.

You are stuck in for some reason,

like I'm stuck in today.

Then yes, you get bored.

And you get fed up with looking at the same four walls.

There has always been stop motion work going on but nothing like that.

Nothing that had that sense of character.

Well, most of the cages are a bit small and...

grotty and everything.

I thought, "God, who wrote this stuff?

Who are the actors that said it?" But it wasn't. It was real people.

That's what was the magic.

Yeah, well it's reasonably comfortable I suppose, this place.

But...

Me and a journalist went out trying to find people who were not

that happy with where they are.

If you try to compare the situations

and the environment that you live here with the environment

that you live in Brazil, there is a big difference.

Here you live in a very small place

with all the technological advances possible...

The Brazilian jaguar guy and he hated the food and the weather.

He's got a little flat and... He stole the show really.

I miss the fresh meat, you know?

Because in Brazil we are predominantly carnivores.

We are not, you know, vegetarian.

And we don't like potatoes, we like meat. And we like fresh meat.

The polar bears always made me laugh.

They were a family that ran the corner shop

around the corner from the studio.

My favourite food is, I'm afraid to say, steak.

We told the youngest one, Andrew,

"Don't be shy, say what do you think."

And so he felt this obligation just to say anything.

He just started talking about lion steak.

Do you like lions as well, then?

Do you like steak and chips with lions with it?

Not with lions, Andrew. No.

When you look at the success of programmes like Gogglebox, it's

just that people are so wonderfully funny in their own world.

It was just basically knockout scene after knockout scene

in a row for several minutes and then it's done.

And it's like you practically feel Nick Park dropping the mic

and backing away going like, "That's animation." You know?

Despite taking a fraction of the time to create,

these more vocal animals pipped Wallace and Gromit to the post

and scooped Nick Park and Aardman their very first Oscar.

It's really weird to be against yourself in the same award.

So you're not knowing whether to be happy or cry at the same time.

And having...

Just being there for doing these plasticine animated films

but you're sat there with Sofia Loren and Dustin Hoffman

and you know, all these...

Everybody I've ever heard of is around.

I'm thinking, "What am I doing here?"

-LAUGHING:

-You know?

# Hoots mon

# There's juice loose aboot this hoose... #

And just when you thought it was safe to put the kettle on,

Aardman start popping up in the commercial breaks!

# Re-record not fade away

# Re-record not fade away. #

# I'm so excited

# And I just can't hide it

# No, no, no, no, no... #

# The taste of Lurpak butter is the uppermost... #

Every Tom, Dick and advertising Harry wanted a slice of their

unique combination of animated wizardry and humour.

SHE SCREAMS

ROARING

London's under siege.

But beware, this gobbling brute is a master of disguise

# You could have a steam train... #

And back in 1986,

they were behind one of pop music's most iconic videos.

# ..testimony

# I'm your sledgehammer... #

How about some refreshments, eh, lad?

Hee-hee.

Now for a soothing massage.

The first time I saw The Wrong Trousers,

that was mind-blowing.

It was so funny, it was such a great story and that penguin

I think is one of the great villains of all time.

DOORBELL RINGS

Oh, there's someone at the door, Gromit.

I wonder who that could be.

Oh, it's about the room then. Well, that's grand.

Eh, would you like to come this way and inspect?

DOOR CLOSES

I'm asking 20 a week. That would include your breakfast.

He doesn't do really anything before you know that he's sinister.

It's almost just the camera angles and just a little look that he does.

And, you know, uh-oh. There is something animal inside you that

goes, "I don't trust this penguin."

It was Hitchcockian. You'd never seen Hitchcock in clay animation.

Come on!

SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC

Gromit hiding in the box and the penguin looking at him...

Oh, my God, that was the best.

In fact, I... To this day, I say, "We've got to rip that off.

"We have to rip that off for The Simpsons."

What a... What a shocking calama...calama...

Calamity.

HE SNORES

When he comes back and puts Wallace in the bed and he goes off to

do the heist at the museum, he puts the rubber glove on his head

and he just brushes it with his hand.

That just gives him a slightly dangerous kind of humanity,

you know, like a sort of, a slight bit of vanity.

And I think it's just adding those little, subtle things

are what makes them really.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

In terms of the music, Nick wanted some threat, jeopardy,

that kind of thing in the story

that wasn't there in Wallace and Gromit before.

SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC

Wallace was asleep and was upside down, hanging in the museum.

Nick wanted that sense of threat to come out.

So we used a sort of Bernard Herrmann chord.

You know, the...

HE PLAYS HAUNTING NOTES

DRAMATIC MUSIC

And when he takes it off and it's like...

Wallace goes, "You!"

Good grief, it's you!

HE LAUGHS

Like he didn't recognise him.

Now, let me out of these trousers this minute.

The dramatic finale is one of animation's most memorable moments

and one of the most impressive feats of stop-motion ever seen.

I can't see a thing.

What's happening?

DRAMATIC MUSIC TRAIN WHISTLE TOOTS

When Nick actually presented us with the idea of a train chase,

we were thinking like, "Wow, that's great. But how do we achieve that?"

I still have no idea how they finished it by now, you know.

They would have had to start that in about 1900

if I was in charge of that.

Catch me, Gromit!

We tried really fast-paced chase music

but somehow it didn't have any sense of fun and it needed it.

So we broke the rule for the train chase

and actually did out and out comedy music.

This sort of thing.

HE PLAYS JAUNTY MUSIC

JAUNTY MUSIC

Get it, Gromit.

Owwwww!

Gromit, we're doomed.

Whoaaaaaa!

The whole of the cinematography is an illusion,

it's like a magic trick. If you analyse the train chase, it is

ridiculous how long that room would actually be.

But it was a 20ft-set used in some shots over and over again.

If you analyse when he's putting the tracks down,

the animator was having an arm there and there, and going so fast

that sometimes he'd have to put three arms in there.

All yours, Gromit.

I love a chase.

Even though we do use a lot of sophisticated equipment now,

we're always trying to emulate that train chase.

Well done. We did it! Ha-ha!

The Wrong Trousers became an instant classic, earning Nick Park

a second Oscar and making Wallace and Gromit a household name.

But navigating a round trip to the moon and foiling a sinister

penguin's diamond heist was a mere walk in the park

compared to what they would face on their next adventure...

HE GASPS

Oh.

Romance!

They said, "We wanted a female version of Wallace."

Thank you for coming so quickly.

AWKWARD CHUCKLE

Hmm.

So I said to Nick, "Why did you choose me?"

And he said, "Well, we saw you on television

"and we thought your voice sounded like it came out of a puppet."

I said, "Oh, really? I'd never thought of that."

SHE LAUGHS

Won't take a minute.

-Oh.

-Oh.

Wallace's love interests. He keeps on trying, bless him.

Piella.

Oh, crumbs.

She was a bad apple.

Gromit!

Lady Tottington. He was besotted by her amazing produce.

He's never shown any interest in my produce.

Ohhh. His loss, Lady Tottington.

But it wasn't to be, you know. She was aristocracy.

But Wendolene, she was great.

Ohhhh!

How would I describe Wendolene and Wallace?

Same time next week?

It's like talking about Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

I want no more of this rustling. Oh!

It wasn't so bad when it was just the wool, but this is evil.

But, like many of the classic romances,

there was a third person in the relationship.

In this case, an entrepreneurial sheep-murdering cyber dog.

A bit cliched, I know.

But in the end, it was a much more serious matter

that came between them.

Won't you come in? We were just about to have some cheese.

Oh, no. Not cheese. Sorry, it brings me out in a rash.

Can't stand the stuff.

HE GULPS

Not even Wensleydale?

No, no, no. They'd never get on if she didn't like cheese.

-Goodbye...

-DOOR CLOSES

..chuck.

I think it's one of those extra layers in the writing of Wallace

and Gromit that just makes them firstly, really funny,

but actually quite touching.

It doesn't always have to be a super happy ending into the sunset.

But, you know, while there is eternal hope that you will

always find the one, Wallace will keep on going.

What's wrong with Wensleydale?

I've done a lot of interesting things in my life,

but that is so special.

And when I was recording the voice, Nick turned my script

over on the back and he drew Wallace and Gromit and Wendolene.

This is it. Right.

Isn't that wonderful?

It's one of my treasures.

Wallace and Gromit have won their creator, Nick Park,

a record-breaking third Oscar in Hollywood.

Whilst Nick Park was probably considering investing in a

longer mantelpiece - Aardman received an invitation

from Hollywood Animation studio DreamWorks.

I, over the years, have been a great fan of Aardman.

I sort of had this secret admiration and ambition that maybe

someday there would be a way to work together.

I remember flying on DreamWorks' private jet.

I had to kind of pinch myself.

I never thought plasticine would lead to such a glamorous lifestyle.

We were invited to a dinner and Steven Spielberg

and Jeffrey Katzenberg were there.

I just remember being so excited about them, you know,

in their quiet sort of Bristol, British way.

Jeffrey turned to me and said,

"So, guys, do you have any ideas that you'd like to pitch to us?"

And in Hollywood, the Hollywood pitch is a sacred moment.

I'd drawn a picture of a chicken digging its way

out of a chicken coop.

We are going to do the Great Escape with chickens.

I remember Steven Spielberg saying, "The Great Escape is

"one of my favourite films and I have 300 chickens on my ranch."

HE LAUGHS

And the pitch went great.

The little team of animators from Bristol

had become hot Hollywood property.

But embarking on their first ever full-length movie

was to prove quite a leap.

The budget grew from a million pounds to 30 million.

A team of six grew to over 80.

Two actors became a whole cast of stars.

And a small studio in Bristol became...

Well, a small studio in Bristol.

Aardman insisted that this Hollywood blockbuster

was going to be home-made!

They had just 18 months to create poultry in motion.

It was a punt. It was a daring punt.

We were shown around and saw this massive crew of people.

You know, there was a sense of, "Goodness me."

There is a sense of risk here. How are they going to do this?

Jeffrey Katzenberg is a sort of stereotypical Hollywood movie mogul.

He speaks his mind about everything.

But I felt enormous respect from him at the same time.

I asked them, "What's it like working with Jeffrey Katzenberg?"

And they said, "Oh, my gosh. That man is a genius.

"We hear from him with a new idea all the time.

"He's just a wonderful partner and collaborator. It's fantastic."

Then a production assistant walked in at that moment and said,

"Jeffrey Katzenberg is on the line." And all three of them

turned simultaneously and said, "We're not here."

HE LAUGHS

Jeffrey was sort of like Mrs Tweedy.

GLOVE SNAPS THEY GULP

He would come in to the coop and open up one of the roofs

and catch us all...

HE LAUGHS

..messing around. No, no. It wasn't like that at all.

It was a rocky road but they did it

and Aardman's first ever feature film

was about to be seen by the world.

That opening scene of them running through that chicken coop,

and all of a sudden you're transported to

a stalag in the Second World War. It's just, you know,

it's just joyful.

I'm stuck!

SHE TUTS

-DOG BARKS

-Get back.

BARKING CONTINUES

You know straight away you're in safe hands.

You're in their world. Welcome to the Aardman world.

And look at it. Isn't it lovely?

No chicken escapes from Tweedy's farm!

Chicken Run is still the highest grossing

stop-motion film of all time.

And the reason why the category of Best Animated Feature

was introduced to the Oscars.

A person in a shop once said to me,

"Weren't you the voice of a plasticine chicken?"

I thought, "That's my claim to fame now - a plasticine chicken."

Morning, Ginger.

Back from holiday?

I wasn't on holiday, Babs. I was in solitary confinement.

Oh, it's nice to get a bit of time to yourself, isn't it?

They are such great characters. They are well written.

The amount of times I've had to say,

"I don't want to be a pie. I don't like gravy."

CHICKENS GASP

Chicken pies?

THEY SHRIEK

Yes, but...

I don't want to be a pie.

I don't like gravy.

Chickens in a prisoner of war camp,

with prisoner of war camp characters.

-You called? Nick and...

-Fetcher.

-At your service.

There are people who are slightly dodgy, who can supply things.

We need some more things.

Right you are, miss. How about this quality hand-crafted tea set?

-Er, no.

-Or this lovely necklace and pendant?

-It's...

Or this beautiful little number.

All the rage in the fashionable chicken coops of Paris.

Simply pop it on like so and as the French hens say, voila.

-That is French.

-That's two hats in one, miss.

For parties.

For weddings.

Madame, this makes you look like a vision, like a dream.

Like a duck.

No, thank you.

I like the escape at the end.

SWELLING MUSIC SHE GASPS

I think that's fantastic. And it really does get you going.

THEY SCREAM

Great Scott! What was that?

A cling-on, Cap'n.

And the engines can't take it.

SHE GROWLS

Aah!

You find yourself really wanting these characters to succeed.

SHE GROANS

Nooooo!

And you think, "What am I doing? These are made of plasticine

"and I'm crying." You know what I mean?

Uh.

Huh?!

-Bye-bye.

-SHE SCREAMS

Bombs away!

Mr Tweedy!

THEY CHEER

Years and tears and joy all go into this.

Like, you know, these people are serious, serious craftsmen.

The process is pretty similar across everything we make.

We start with the idea which is worked into a script.

We then take that script

and we start to visualise it in the storyboarding process.

And then those line drawings are taken into an edit suite,

where we start to actually build the film.

We'll record the actual voice artists.

We'll start commissioning sets. We'll start making puppets.

And then we will animate it in stop motion.

An example would be is if, you know,

Wallace was to just roll his fingers like that.

First of all, you'd have to take the little finger

and move it just a little bit

and then take a picture of it.

You might need to move it just a little bit more

if it wasn't quite right.

Then you would have to take the next finger

and put it into the position so it was just right.

And then it might need an adjustment.

And you'd take another picture of that.

To be an Aardman animator,

I'd think you'd have to be slightly...bonkers.

In terms of obsessiveness.

They are shy performers. That's a very special category.

There is a kind of oddness to them all which I heartily approve of.

And then you would probably have to move them both just a little bit.

You have to be passionate about it. You have to be obsessed by it.

Half of your life on your knees moving, you know,

moving a little hand from there to there.

You have to be able to go "eee" and then back up, click, eee, back up.

And you have to make that noise too. Eee.

It's like some weird sort of torture really.

I think I'd go, "Oh, come on.

"We've been doing this for two and a half years now.

"Let's just put a brick wall up."

But no, every single frame is just full of stuff.

None of it would be advised in the careers office. None of it.

The trouble is with animation, you start to work on a film

and then five years later you finish it.

"Yeah, I am an experienced animation producer. I've got two credits."

Then you probably need to start on the middle finger.

Move it just a little bit.

I mean, to make that look realistic at all seems to me impossible.

To make it look realistic and funny with perfect timing and to get

the plasticine lips moving in sync to the dialogue,

that's just pure genius.

I like seeing the different fingerprints and shapings.

And it makes it feel alive to me in a way,

quite honestly, that CG does not.

And this is from a guy that's doing CG.

Human beings are able to be very expressive,

but a lump of plasticine isn't.

How do they do that? I don't know. That's a lot of work.

By this time, this finger's reached the top and probably needs to be

coming down. So you move it down just a little bit.

But this one is still going up,

so you need to move that one up just a tiny amount...

HE GROANS

Animation, it looks like pure torture to me, lad.

Shall we see what's on the other side, hmm?

BEEPING AND WHIRRING

I think this remote's on the blink, lad.

Ohhhh.

But whilst American audiences loved the antics of some heroic chickens,

what would they make of the quintessentially English escapades of

a hapless cheese-loving inventor and his long-suffering canine companion?

CREAKING

They love the Britishness.

I think they probably think it's a documentary, to be honest.

I think they treat it as a documentary.

HE LAUGHS

Jeffrey said, "Why's his truck rusty?"

We understand why his truck would be rusty.

Jeffrey expected him to have a brand-new, shiny Chevrolet.

TYRES SCREECH

That's the British humour, I think.

Things are cool because they are not.

I mean, I was going to call Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

The Great Vegetable Plot.

But they did a lot of marketing research and came back with,

"I'm afraid vegetables are a negative with kids."

PHONE RINGS

Anti-Pesto humane pest control.

How might we be of assistance?

Ah, yes. Lady Tottington here. Of Tottington Hall.

'Your ladyship.'

This is an honour.

Oh! Ow!

It's a disaster. I have the most terrible rabbit problem.

Just stay right where you are, your ladyship,

and we'll be with you in a...

Ahhhh!

In an hour? I can't wait an hour. I have a major infestation.

We saw the world differently. For example, I mean, a simple example.

Think of Aladdin. Beautiful hero, beautiful heroine with huge eyes.

That's what they are used to.

Instead of which, you've got Wallace and Lady Tottington,

who are both pretty damn weird-looking.

Sometimes in the conversation you just got the idea that they

just wish it was a bit less British. That's all.

"We love it...

"but it's just a bit British."

We have wrought a terrible judgment upon ourselves.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Eh, give over!

You're mental.

It is very British. They've never tried to be anything else

and I always think that's a good idea.

And the great thing about the British sense of comedy, it

will show you as it is but it will always say,

"Aren't we ludicrous? Look how we carry on."

You stupid English with your Yorkshire puddings

and your chips and fish.

We apologise as soon as we walk into a room

as a national characteristic.

-Sorry, can I just...?

-Oh, sorry. Sorry.

I'm sorry. It's not my fault.

Oh, would you awfully mind, if it's possible,

if you could see your way to... You know?

I think I need a cup of tea after all that.

Of course, you can't have a British story

without some good old British drama.

'Six o'clock this morning.

'A day Aardman was meant to be celebrating.

'Its latest movie top of the US box office,

'but in Bristol,

'much of the company's entire archive was going up in flames.'

I got a phone call to say that there'd been a

fire in our warehouse, where we kept all the archive,

all the models had burnt down.

A lot of the original Wallace and Gromit sets sadly went up in flames.

And all the Chicken Run models. The whole cast really.

It was sad because there was a lot of...

There were memories that were lost.

But it would take more than this to stop our plucky animators.

Music, Maestro.

MUSIC: Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol

The following year, Aardman broke their own

mould by making their first film without a lump of clay in sight.

When we started out doing puppet animation, that was the only way

to put good three-dimensional character animation on screen.

Bon voyage, me old cream cracker.

But gradually, another youthful strand came up alongside us,

which is CG animation.

Which actually is kind of doing the same thing.

But in a very different way.

HE SHRIEKS

THEY SCREAM

I know. I'm no fool.

I know that everyone loves the handmade plasticine animation,

the thing that we do best.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

Goodnight, Roddy.

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

-CRUNCHING

-Ahhh!

BUG LAUGHS

But telling a good story with good characters,

that's the most important thing. Some people say,

"Oh, they've lost something in going away from what they know best."

Um, I don't really care.

You know, I'm into us being brave and eclectic

and trying different things. That's important to me.

In 2007, Aardman's partnership with DreamWorks came to an end.

We declared that we were going to go our own way,

because us making British films is terribly important to us.

Of course, you know,

of course I would say I want it to play everywhere in the world.

But what I want is, I want the American public to love

a completely British film, that's what I want.

Not to change what we do.

But Aardman bounced back with yet another - wait for it -

award-winning Wallace and Gromit adventure.

On my way, Gromit.

TYRES SCREECH

We're on a roll, lad.

And boy did it deliver.

Good day's work, lad.

A serial-killing fruitcake...

..an explosive finale...

Gromit, it's a bomb. The cake's a bomb.

..and some puppy love.

# And they called it puppy love. #

-Let's go plundering!

-CHEERING

In 2012, with the wind firmly beneath their sails,

they set off on their most ambitious venture ever.

Everything I was watching was CG and suddenly I saw Pirates.

I sat there and I was just amazed at how beautiful it was

because it wasn't computer-generated.

It was a real light hitting real materials.

'And welcome to the 59th annual Pirate of the Year Awards.'

Initially with Pirates, we thought we'd have to do the whole thing CGI.

Because of the number of characters and the water and so on.

But in order for us to understand what it was going to look like,

we built the cabin set. And it was so beautiful.

As soon as we saw this set, we just thought,

"Oh, let's just do it like this."

I'm a pirate captain!

And I'm here for your gold.

Gold? This is a plague boat, old man.

I'd give my right arm for some gold.

Ah!

Or my left. Ha!

It was based on some children's books.

And the books themselves are very, very funny.

Brilliant. Anarchic.

The script's quite peculiar when you first read it.

You think, "This is Charles Darwin but he's not Charles Darwin.

"and he's also in love with the Queen,

"who is trying to murder a dodo and is also a sort of Ninja."

Steady on.

In all honesty, I really do like the silliness of it. I really do.

I'm a big fan of stupidity.

Ah-ha!

-Oh.

-BIRD SQUAWKS

I had to do some acting, which I try to avoid in life.

But I really had to give a performance. And I thought,

"If I'm going to do that at least no-one can see my face."

By nephew, where's that ship?

Oooh!

-DEEP VOICE:

-I sounded rather marvellous

because of a big, beardy voice.

Mind out, captain coming through.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

My only slight regret is that no-one believes it's me.

Least of all my children. They say, "That's not Daddy."

That sequence where the bathtub goes down the stairs.

How you'd think that sequence up in the first place,

and then how you start to break that down and to physicalise it,

I can't conceive of how long.

It's just... I mean, it's just...delightful.

DOOR CREAKS

Ah!

Sweet Neptune on a bike!

I love Mr Bobo.

There is a bit where they are up to their dastardly plan.

He holds up a little card saying "BUT..."

Shh!

Again, very silly and brilliant.

My favourite joke in the whole film -

it made me laugh every time we had to record it -

is the bit about the sea monster on the map.

When the pirate captain said, "We aren't going that way."

There is this dirty great sea monster in the way.

Um, yeah, ah... Ah...

I think they just add those onto maps for decoration...Captain.

And then, of course, what's even more delicious is that

right at the end of the film it gets paid off.

ROARING

See? I told you. Just added on for decoration, my foot!

When something is as good as their films are,

of course, you want to be involved in that. It's not...

They don't have to beg actors to sign up.

Actors are begging them.

So very wise, Captain.

I wanted to be part of that process.

Actually, no, that's a lie. Not the process.

I just thought, "I want to be in an Aardman film."

You can't just say "Aaaarrr" at the end of a sentence

and think that makes everything all right.

Directing the actors is a huge pleasure and a privilege,

but I have to admit that we are such control freaks in animation

that actors do end up doing a lot of takes.

And sometimes it's frankly embarrassing.

On take 72 of "Avast!" I did slightly

feel like running my cutlass through Peter Lord occasionally.

You think, "How many more ways do you want me to say captain?"

You know, there aren't any more ways to say it.

And it turns out there were more ways.

Captain! Captain. CAPTAIN!

Cos I did 'em.

-Captain...

-HE SIGHS

I apologise to any actors that we've driven mad in the process.

Oo-ooh!

Sweet Neptune's briny pants!

Then we had Aardman's unique twist on a Christmas classic -

answering all those age-old questions.

Ho-ho-ho.

That's a ho-ho-ho, Aarhus.

Field elves jingle. Jingle, jingle.

Drop time - 18.14 seconds per household.

We actually set out to answer how Santa does it.

So we are here for the parents, to help you...

-SHE LAUGHS

-..help you explain to your kids,

"Here's how it can all be done in one night."

Isn't this the best bit of Christmas?!

And we got to meet the whole Clause family.

It certainly is, Arthur. The whole family together.

It was a very witty idea to have

Father Christmas as a completely bemused and bewildered chap.

Um, well, uh... Here's to me doing an even better job next year.

And then there is his old dad who's going,

"Oh, it was much better in my day."

Christmas 1941, World War II, I did the whole thing

with six reindeer and a drunken elf.

Then the younger son, Arthur, who is the kind of goofy misfit.

He's terrified of heights, a fear of flying, he's allergic to snow,

he's frightened of reindeer.

I'm not really good with big animals!

But he absolutely is passionate about Christmas.

Yes, do believe in Santa.

I particularly liked Steve, played by Hugh Laurie,

who was addicted to espresso and technology,

which was a very nice idea for Father Christmas's son.

Forget Techno Tommy. He texting on his calculator after another job.

It's a hand-held operational and homing organiser.

The Hoho-3000.

Wooo, whoop-de-do. Aren't you the fancy nancy.

And the thing about it is, is the dialogue actually does resemble

the way in which people speak, which is very rare in any form.

Whether it's movies or even the theatre.

But of course, some of Aardman's funniest,

scariest,

and most lovable characters have never uttered a single word.

Including the most successful character in their 40-year history.

No, no, not you, Gromit, love.

We'll call him Shaun, eh?

When we did A Close Shave, Shaun has a very small role.

I think he has six minutes on-screen.

We had no idea that it would take off.

It was partly due to Baby Spice wearing a Shaun the Sheep

rucksack in a photograph.

Suddenly, Shaun the Sheep, you know, just rocketed.

In typical Aardman fashion, another ten or 12 years later

we eventually got round to making a series.

# It's Shaun the Sheep

# It's Shaun the Sheep

# He even mucks about with those who cannot bleat. #

His character was so obvious right from the start,

that he was a lovable, friendly but naughty type of sheep.

Oh-ho!

We chose not to do dialogue. I really wanted to make silent comedy.

You don't see a great deal of it in the modern day.

BUZZING

Slapstick comedy needs to look effortless.

Ooooooh!

It's hard enough to do it in live action,

but to do it animated has to be even harder.

Huh?

I remember the audition very clearly.

I had to do things like

I had to vocalise Shaun being

pulled along by a lawnmower.

-And I remember kind of going...

-HE GIBBERS

And it was the most bizarre audition.

After 130 episodes, the time had come for Shaun to step up

to the big screen, leaving the farm for the big city,

where not everyone is as friendly.

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

I like noises. When you get older you make noises.

It's a cliche, but we all make noises.

Like when you drop your phone you kind of go...

HE GROANS

And then when you reach, you think, "Oh, I'll buy another one."

With Shaun the Sheep it's dialogue interpretation.

You are interpreting as an actor what the sheep are hearing

when the humans speak.

HE CLEARS THROAT

SHAUN GULPS

Eh...

The laughing baa. I used to kind of do this...

HIGH-PITCHED BAA

THE SHEEP LAUGH

But the whisper.

That was quite a challenge, where you had to bring it right down.

-It's kind of...

-HE WHISPERS

SHAUN WHISPERS

SHEEP BAA IN AGREEMENT

It's a weird thing to direct cos you're kind of asking

somebody to make a little squeak and then you're saying,

"Can you put a little bit more fear into that squeak?"

HE BLEATS

We take it seriously though.

You may as well be making Apocalypse Now, The Godfather.

It wasn't always smooth.

You know, they'd say, "Can you just give us a simple hmm?"

I went, "Well, yeah. Hmmyuuuh."

They went, "No, no, no. It's just a simple hmm."

I went, "But I don't think my character would do that."

They go, "Well, just give us a hmm."

I wouldn't do it. "Shall we take five?"

I said, "All right, fine, let's take five."

And I'd sit there and there'd be tension.

But that's the kind of forensic look at the creative process.

You really do have an argument about hmm or hmyuuh.

HE LAUGHS

You've got masses of comedy, but it's sometimes very subtle.

DUCK QUACKS

DUCK QUACKS

DUCK QUACKS

DUCK WHISTLES

If you get physical humour right, then you can't really beat it.

Ha-ha-ha!

-LOUD THUNK

-Oh.

-LAUGHING:

-I thought, "No messing about. He's up, he's down.

"Off. Finished."

But you've also got some really poignant moments that are lovely.

Huh? Eh!

The last sequence, where it looks like it's game over.

And then the farmer put his arms around the entire flock.

And it just...gives me a lump in the throat thinking about it.

THEY ALL SHIVER

What I love about it is there is no language barrier.

Anyone in the world can sit down and watch Shaun

and know exactly what's going on and enjoy it.

# La oveja Shaun

# Es singular... #

Shaun and his pals are now global superstars.

And today, Aardman's creations are enjoyed by families in over

170 countries around the world.

HE SPEAKS POLISH

-AMERICAN ACCENT:

-What a lot of people don't know about zoos, um,

that there is a whole world that goes on there

when they are not there.

They have no idea what goes on.

-LAUGHING:

-I can't tell you more than that. Sorry.

And I must say these two look vaguely familiar.

Crumble will soon have your

garden gnomes back in tiptop condition.

Willis and Crumble has nothing to do with the Wallace and Gromit

and I don't know why people think that.

You must come in for a spot of tea and a home-made Marmite sandwich.

Home-made Marmite!

No, of course! It was our loving tribute to Wallace and Gromit.

And my favourite part is having Nick Park playing himself.

And it was his voice on The Simpsons.

Good luck, Mr Park. There'd be no shame in losing to you.

That's very sweet of you. Thank you for saying so.

Ah! HE LAUGHS

No worries, I'll just stick them back on.

I'm more clay than man now.

It's nice to be spoofed and sent up.

It's...it's an honour.

Oh. Oh...

BEEPING AND WHIRRING

Eh?

Oh. Stop fooling around, Gromit.

Argh!

-FIZZING AND BUZZING

-Oh!

CHAIR CRACKLES

CHAIR RATTLES

Aardman and Nick Park are now working on their next film.

200,000 years in the making.

That's slow, even for them.

Wow. Come in here

for a sneak peak of my new project.

This is Doug, who is the main character from Early Man.

He's a plucky little caveman and he is the hero that

leads his tribe against the superpower of the Bronze Age.

There is going to be a lot more treacherous

and dangerous-looking places, and prehistoric creatures.

We've taken a bit of licence with history, I guess.

I feel at home now that I'm back with clay characters.

It's going to be quite exciting couple of years. Slow but exciting.

Looking back, where we are now is miraculous.

I mean, it's incredible, frankly.

Nobody was making animated feature films virtually except Disney.

The fact that we made six British

animated feature films is astonishing.

For me now to be at festivals and wherever and have students

and people in their 20s coming up to me saying,

"I was inspired by your work,"

and, "Aardman is the reason I got into animated films,"

it's a lovely thing.

That's a fantastic thing to be able to do, actually.

To come up and dream up those worlds and actually tell stories in them

and let people sort of immerse themselves in them.

What's to complain about?

40 years, over 500 awards, and more unforgettable moments

and characters that you can shake a clay stick at.

Isn't it amazing what can be made with some patience,

plasticine and a little imagination?

As someone who loves animation, and as an animator,

I'm so thankful that Aardman has been around these last 40 years.

You know, there aren't many things that move me to patriotism.

The Rolling Stones, obviously, Harold Pinter,

Crystal Palace Football Club,

but they are just really, really good film-makers.

And they make big, and I know this is another cliche

and you just put your fingers in your ears,

but big-hearted and full of humanity and humour.

And we can use some of that.

It's a celebration of the medium of animation.

It's great entertainment.

It's great storytelling. There is a lot of laughs.

But ultimately, you come away with the feeling of joy.

Without Aardman, the world would be slightly less silly

and slightly less fun.

I don't care whether you are six or 16 or 66,

they are funny and they make you laugh.

I love them for staying British and staying Bristol

to make these films that embrace the world.

We need magic. We need magic more now than we ever have.

Aardman continue to produce it.

And my God, does magic take a lot of work.

I passionately hope that they continue what they are doing

because I'm not even kidding when I say that I think

they make the world a slightly better place to be.

Well done, old pal!

Oh, I love a happy ending.

Ahhh.

THEY LAUGH

You came. I knew you would.

Really what they've done is make everyone happy.

And that is surely...the only legacy anyone who works in that

world could really wish for.

Oh, guess what's next, lad. It's live churning from Wensleydale.

Oh, eh! Eh.

Whew! He-he!

Bye. He-he.