A couple of weeks ago, I headed off to Bristol in the West of England to visit a place oozing with creativity and a dedication to work in a way that has never been done before. As I’d been to Pixar previously, I was expecting the UK equivalent for Aardman; a purpose built building with all the trimmings but instead, I arrived and saw a rather drab looking 30 000 square foot warehouse! It was later explained to us that this building isn’t ‘Aardman’ but was acquired when they began making Chicken Run back in 1997 and the moral of the story – don’t judge a book by its cover because inside is a place of magic!
After being given an intro to Aardman and meeting the legendary Peter Lord (our interview with him will go up in a separate post nearer the film’s release), we were escorted around various section of the studio including model making, set design, poster design and then onto the huge sets themselves. I had no idea that the sets would be so big with each model being around 12 inches tall and worth a fortune! The first challenge with the models is getting the look right and after building multiple different versions, they ended up with what we now have today. As Production Desginer Anne King was talking us through the models, on the table were most of the cast of characters from the movie who all looked absolutely spectacular, standing tall with a large pile of concept art and a huge box of 48 different types of faces for all the different syllables ready to go for when they’re needed.
These clever people will look at the script to see which characters need which words to say. So they’ll actually look to that before making the mouths and which words will need to be said to match the dialogue they’ll require! It’s astonishing how clever it is. Background characters will only have expressions for example where as main cast will have a full set of mouths. For the Pirate Captain’s beard alone, Aardman had to devise a unique way that his beard could attach to his face! There’s actually an allen key which you can inset into his face to adjust how high or low his beard sits on his face! Again, amazing!!
The build of a puppet from start to finish can take up to three months and then second one will take six to eight weeks which was still quite a long time. For the Pirate Captain , there are around 25 models for him alone for all the different shooting that they’re doing on the 40 different sets and each one has to be identical. We were told that a ‘simple puppet’ can cost around £6000 and something ‘more complex’ can cost £10-14k! EACH!
Matt describes Pirates! as a bit of a departure to what they’ve done before in sense of scale and also with the use of CG. Stylistically, it’s very different with a much more ‘hard edge’ than the likes of Wallace and Gromit had. Matt works in a team of four art directors working on the drawings and then passing them to the builders who then go away and build what they ask for.
You’ll also see in the video below, the way in which they have to design sets to get all the lights etc in and the animator and have to devise ways they can enter. An example is the theatre scene where the animator has to go up through the floor to be able to move the characters. Keep your eyes peeled in the video below and in the photos on this post for all the amazing set dressing that you’ll see. It really is blink and you’ll miss it type of film-making. There are cannon balls in walls, funny posters, odd names and so much more that you need to look out for.
One of my favourite sets has to be the Pirate ship which is absolutely massive! The whole thing doesn’t actually fit in the studio so they’ve had to build two thirds of it and then any wide show will be completed using CG. The ship actually sits on a gimble to give it the movement required to be on the sea. The rigging is all completely real and has aluminium wire running through each of the ropes to give it that sturdy feeling to it so they can be positioned as gravity would move in the real world. Literally every single aspect of this movie has been thought out to perfection. Even the lights are on trackers so that when the boat moves, the sense of the sun moving too is evident!
To put this amazing feat of film-making into perspective, one of the animators was working on Blood Island at the time we visited and he showed us 2.5 minutes worth of footage that he’d been working on. He then told us that those 2.5 minutes had taken seven months to achieve! The attention to detail and patience required to work on this amazing kind of film-making is simply amazing. There are so many hidden easter eggs. A tip from me, keep your eyes peeled for the Aliens in a jar in Darwin’s cabin to see a familiar face from the Alien movies!
We’ve been provided some brilliant B-Roll footage which I wasn’t 100% sure what to do with so I decided to narrate the entire thing. It’s 17 minutes long but will give you an insight in the making of Pirates! that I could never explain in words without putting some imagery around it.
I’ve placed all the concept images below which you can click to enlarge. I hope you enjoyed my set visit report. Aardman really is an amazing place and thank you so much to Sony and Aardman for inviting us along for one of the best experiences ever!