Aardman’s Sir Peter Lord on his journey from a kitchen table to Hollywood, rocket packs and how the studio favours 'thumbiness' over AI
Aardman is celebrating half a century of cracking clay craftsmanship. As the studio prepares to release its 11th feature film, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, cofounder Sir Peter Lord and fellow filmmakers reveal their “magic” formula.
“This animation-lark might be worth pursuing.”
The year is 1972 and teenager Peter Lord is handing a £25 cheque to fellow student, friend and future cofounder David Sproxton. The pair have just been paid by the BBC for a piece of 2D animation they created about a hapless superhero: Aard Man. A combo of “Aardvark” and “Superman”, the name stuck ever since the duo hung it above their Bristol door in 1976.
“Aardman and the world have changed out of all recognition over 50 years,” a freshly knighted Sir Peter tells Shortlist.
“There were three terrestrial TV channels, no personal computers or smartphones. Two of us did just about everything in the studio, whereas now there are about two hundred of us.”
It all started with a borrowed 16mm clockwork camera at Peter’s kitchen table, where he says he couldn’t possibly have dreamt of the trajectory those early experiments in stop motion animation would take him on.
FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS TO THE OSCARS RED CARPET
Now a multi-academy award winning studio with globally recognisable IP like Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, Aardman is celebrating its 50th anniversary this September.
Pictured: Peter Lord
For Peter, those smash hits of the 1990s and 2000s must certainly be career highlights, but his favourite year from the stretch of fifty is 1986. It was a time when Aardman was starting to make a name for itself with projects like Creature Comforts and a plethora of TV ads and music videos.
It’s a lesser known and vibrant corner of the Aardman archive, but the studio’s credits include Viva Forever for the Spice Girls, Daddy for Coldplay and Peter’s personal favourite, a surreal music video for Peter Gabriel: “It’s got to be Sledgehammer, hasn’t it? Amazingly exciting to make and incredibly successful.”
Peter says that the studio’s first breakthrough into Hollywood followed in 1995 with Wallace and Gromit’s third outing from creator Nick Park. It was in this film, A Close Shave, where the world fell in love with Shaun the Sheep for the first time.
“It wasn’t designed for cinemas, it was made for TV, but we showed it at a festival in Venice and it went down a storm,” Peter says.
“It just proved to us that our films would work on the big screen. That led on directly to Chicken Run.”
Dr Caroline Ruddell, an animation specialist at Brunel University, says that Chicken Run’s attempt to appeal to an American market clearly paid off, but that the real secret to the studio’s global success has always been its playfulness with genre. “They draw on loads of different genres that people will be familiar with, like the thriller and noir-y aspects of The Wrong Trousers,” she explains.
“FINGERPRINTS IN THE CLAY”
Aardman’s forthcoming feature film sticks to this winning formula. According to chief creative director Sarah Cox, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom blends universal comedy with witty references to classic scary movies that will delight older audiences.
Visually, the Halloween movie takes cues from Hammer Horror and old film colour processing techniques. The palette is saturated with hot pinks and lurid greens that pair with the mad science storyline. It’s a “beautifully hand crafted, perfect cinematic experience,” Sarah exclaims.
Over the years, this craftsmanship has become synonymous with the Aardman brand and is sometimes referred to by the animators as “thumbiness”.
“It’s the visible humanity in our work,” managing director Sean Clarke tells Shortlist, “You can see the hand of the maker — sometimes literally in the fingerprints in the clay — and that imperfection is part of our warmth, charm and truth.”
Sarah, an executive producer on Beast, confirms that thumbprints are dotted throughout the new movie: “The expressive and more extreme facial moments are sculpted individually in clay so that’s where you can see the thumbs.
“On a large feature like this we make identical puppets of each character. We use a kit of parts that are mainly made from either wool, clay, silicone, or textiles.
“The biggest challenge in this film was the beast as he is so wild and hairy that it was difficult to create the ten identical multiples required. A lot of hairspray was used!”
Dr Ruddell says that the “thumbiness” holds a lot of cultural cachet that’s attached to society’s ideas of authenticity. Part of the appeal is that with stop motion you can almost imagine playing with the models as your own childhood toys, she suggests.
EMBRACING GRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY
All that being said, Aardman never shies away from experimenting with digital technology and emerging tools in its filmmaking. At the current exhibition at the Young V&A, the studio showcases its use of tech like VR headsets for pre-production set modelling and software that creates special effects for weather, fire and large crowds.
“The use of CG and technology generally enables us to use stop frame in a cinematically epic fashion, but it is always in service to the stop frame world and puppets,” Sarah explains. For Beast, the animators used Gaussian splat scans, a 3D rendering technique, to capture and expand real sets and create moving backgrounds.
There’s a line in the sand though when it comes to AI. “We don’t use generative AI in our films. There would be no point,” Sarah stresses. “The magic is in the handcrafted approach.”
“Our own research shows there is real concern around the use of generative AI in filmmaking, so our focus is on embracing useful tools without compromising the human creativity, skill and care at the centre of our work,” agrees Sean Clarke.
AARDMAN ON TOUR
In recent years, another tactic in Aardman’s quest for world domination has been its roll out of countless rides, trails and exhibitions.
Pictured: Ngaio Harding-Hill
Ngaio Harding-Hill, head of attractions and live experiences at Aardman, says these “real life interactions” are another way of telling stories and are a “gateway” to reaching audiences and flourishing fanbases in countries like Japan.
Flanked by dozens of classic archive models being dusted off for a hometown anniversary exhibition, Ngaio tells Shortlist that a grand finale for the 50th year celebrations is on its way to the capital. The immersive Lightroom show is set to drop later this year, designed to plunge Londoners into a mix of classic nostalgia and completely bespoke Aardman footage projected at an "epic scale."
BACK TO THE KITCHEN TABLE
Sir Peter reflects on the studio’s legacy while watching young people tinkering with DIY “animation stations” at Aardman’s current exhibitions in both Bristol and London museums. As if at their own kitchen tables, children and big kids alike can direct their own stop motion masterpieces.
“It’s really important to spread the message that animation is exciting,” he says.
“Just about anybody can experiment with animation, with no experience, and enjoy the thrill of bringing something to life. An animator is like a little god: you make a world, you populate it and you bring it to life – that’s a pretty powerful idea!”
Looking ahead, he playfully envisions a Back to the Future version of Aardman HQ where “kindly and friendly” robots ferry cups of tea to employees. “Outside the studio, the animators are treated like superstars, adoring fans with rocket packs are always waiting outside offering tribute and thanks to these people for continuing to do something real,” he imagines.
Daydreams aside, Peter promises that Aardman will always place hand-made animation at the heart of everything it does.
“As long as people value it, we’ll keep pioneering it.”
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