Aardman Animations

Beyond Stop-Motion

Annabelle Honess Roe

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781350194946
• eBook ISBN: 9781350130302
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

The Bristol-based animation company Aardman is best known for its most famous creations Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. But despite the quintessentially British aesthetic and tone of its movies, this very British studio continues to enjoy international box office success with movies such as Shaun the Sheep Movie, Flushed Away and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Aardman has always been closely linked with one of its key animators, Nick Park, and its stop motion, Plasticine-modelled family films, but it has more recently begun to experiment with modern digital filmmaking effects that either emulate 'Claymation' methods or form a hybrid animation style. This unique volume brings together leading film and animation scholars with children's media/animation professionals to explore the production practices behind Aardman's creativity, its history from its early shorts to contemporary hits, how its films fit within traditions of British animation, social realism and fantasy cinema, the key personalities who have formed its ethos, its representations of 'British-ness' on screen and the implications of traditional animation methods in a digital era.

Index

Aardboiled here

Aardman (company)

box office returns here–here, here, here, here–here, here

brand identity here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here

brand licensing here, here, here, here, here

charity work here

commercials / advertising work here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here

company ethos here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here

‘cosiness’ here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

critical reception here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here

‘darkside’ here

employee ownership here, here, here

paratexts here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here (see also behind-the-scenes material)

sensibility here–here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here–here (see also ‘Aardman-ness’)

technical innovation here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here

typical visual style/ aesthetic here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here

Aardman:

Art That Takes Shape (exhibition) here

‘Aardman-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents 
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Understanding Aardman
• Section One Identity and Brand
• Section Two Cultural Contexts
• Section Three Process and Production
• Section Four Surface and Performance
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Imprint