Animation is a powerful storytelling form that extends into many different pockets of time with a potential to mine the vastness of visual making. No one will know this more than our Animated History participants and awardees who all played with the depths of imagination, creativity and sources of inspiration for the stories they hold in their personal, local and nationwide histories. Seen from full-fledged puppets, lino cutouts, and the reuse of toy blocks, to the eerie glimpse of capturing a monster’s eye. Our young filmmakers have used animation to explore a range of comedic views, informative cultural videos and touched on sensitive intimate themes, all captured in their approach to design and story.
As a Shout Out Loud Young Producer, and as an animator and storyteller, it was a pleasure to aid in judging these films, and an even bigger pleasure to meet the faces behind these creations at a celebration at Aardman Studios in Bristol with the Aardman Academy Team on March 22nd.
The day, for many, started with early travel to the South West of England, with attendees travelling in from across the UK. On arrival we completed check-ins in the main office space, welcomed by the carefully curated display of trademark characters. The space was vivid and full of charming colours, with many pieces that can be spotted by eagle eyed fans of Aardman’s extended work, covering the walls with recent production promotion and concept drawings for visitors to absorb. Aardman is a studio that clearly takes pride in their stories with iconic characters, from large-size statues of Wallace & Gromit, set posed scenes from short films like Robin Robin (2021) and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023).
Our young filmmakers enjoyed taking in the different displays, spotting visible armatures (stop motion puppets) can be identified from what film or TV show, and getting in a few selfies with the displays on show. We then made our way up to the Aardman Cinema screen to get an introductory talk by the animator and facilitator of the national summer tour of workshops, Zoë Hutber. Zoë talked us through their project as well as their path into stop motion animation, showing stills from recent work as well as screening their undergrad film Short Changed (2018) which has had a terrific round in the festival circuits and was previously nominated for the BAFTA Scotland Award. This was a glance at potential education and career pathways for our young makers considering training in animation, or in the process of graduating and breaking into the animation industry.
Wrapping up the talk we made our way down to the café for an animation workshop where all attendees were invited to get working with some plasticine (one of Aardman’s signature ingredients) puppet making and animation principle testing. From little blob creatures, penguins and snakes, makers got working with timing and weight with overhead shots and makeshift sets. Most participants used their phones or provided tablets to work with stop motion studio apps, capturing their small scenes that focused on simplicity and guided sheets with demonstrations from Richard Williams’ “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. The Shout Out Loud team and Aardman Academy members sat down to get to know each filmmaker, talking through their films, journeys into that day’s space and how to make the most out of animating in the workshop frame.
I enjoyed taking the time to learn the approaches used by different filmmakers for their work, watching family and friends try their hand in animating, all whilst I built my own slippery snake character and attempted to get him to uncurl into a slither across the table.
As lunchtime arrived, our makers were invited to visiting slots into Aardman studios, getting a behind-the-scenes peek, whilst others in the downtime helped themselves to a variety of lovely fresh sandwiches, and sweet and savoury cookies served in between a continuation of animation testing. The Studio tour allowed creatives to see what goes into setting up a professional stop-motion space, looking into both preproduction and production work. This included getting a peak at materials and frameworks, bringing sketches into tangible puppet forms, to the types of gels and lights used to capture the desired atmosphere before it all (puppet, lighting and staging) comes together in the sought-out harmony. These important elements led to discussions of how to set up a stage for the appropriate accessibility of your animated assets, materials that make the work durable, as well as securing a confident (and reliable) set-up that won’t get knocked over after many long hours of patient work.
After all the tours were completed, and many sandwiches snacked on, we returned upstairs for the final segment of our celebratory day- watching our filmmaker’s award-winning films and hearing the feedback from both Shout Out Loud and Aardman Academy, discussing the strengths and unique qualities of the final productions.
For the ‘Most Creative’ category, we watched the mixed media illustrations of Heather’s ‘Black Poplar’ showcase – an interesting vision of this rare tree, before watching the glamour of poodles in Ella’s short film ‘Nellie & Poodles’, focused on Orleans House in London, and then discovering the interesting ‘Life and Times of Dolly Shepherd’ by Eliza. From the ‘Most Inspired’, we saw a comedic lip sync follow ‘Caesar Trapped at Sea’ by Eleanor and the mythical realm bleeding into the on location visit at ‘Houghton House’ by Ben. Focusing on animated making we saw how a personal story can be captured with 2D cut out stop motion frames from Sam in ‘The Big Bang’, and from the comedic mind of Maica we followed ‘The Time Travel Twins’ in their attempts to discover their family tree. Lastly, looking towards the overall winner of this competition, the receipt of the commission prize, George’s reflections in the aftermath of Icarus’ fall was perfectly encapsulated in ‘From the Sun, You Fell’.
Each of these filmmakers were called up on stage to receive a certificate and be awarded a special goodie bag of animation tools to support them to continue making stories and uplift their productions onto a further level. I also teamed up with The Shout Out Loud team to learn more of the interests, intents and development of these films, as we talked to the makers across the day, finding out details of their work and what they believe stop motion animation offers (which can be found on our socials).
After a long joyful day, our attendees got to take some final snaps in the front desk before parting from Aardman studios, which may become a familiar space for our potential future animation experts. Do check out the Animated Histories hub on the Shout Out Loud website to learn more about the national tour of workshops, the festival, and to see the winning films from our creative bunch.