Featured Image Credit: Aardman Animations Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images
Topics: Film
Anish Vij
Topics: Film
You won't believe how long it took to film 2005's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
The stop-motion animation film follows inventor Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his loyal dog Gromit as they try to save their town's annual Giant Vegetable Competition from a mysterious creature who is ravaging gardens.
Wallace and Gromit's pest control business, Anti-Pesto, gets them in trouble after Wallace's newest invention accidentally creates the monstrous Were-Rabbit.
Incredibly, the DreamWorks film produced by Nick Park and Steve Box picked up a whopping 39 awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
It also received multiple BAFTA Awards, cementing its legacy as an animation classic.
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"It took a while to come up with an idea we felt was expansive enough to suggest a full-length movie. Steve Box and I sat for hours on end with the other writers and we suddenly hit on this idea about a were-rabbit," Park said to BFI Southbank Programme Notes.
"But instead of devouring flesh and blood, we made it vegetables. It’s a vegetable-eating monster so, in effect, this is the world’s first vegetarian horror movie."
However, according to Box, the film took five years to make because it was a stop-motion picture - for context, there are 24 frames per second of film time.
This means that each scene is shot one frame at a time, with the models of the characters being made from plasticine.
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"Making a 30-minute Wallace & Gromit movie is time-consuming and requires a lot of patience and care," he said. "Making an 85-minute feature is like making the Great Wall of China with matchsticks.
"It’s a monumental feat, actually. It was five years of solid work, because every tiny, little thing matters so much."
Producer David Sproxton added: "It is very, very slow motion. The animators have to know every step of the action before they start.
"They may even act it out themselves first… whatever it takes to get it into their brains."
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Over on Reddit, viewers were stunned after learning how long Wallace & Gromit took to make, as one person commented: "I wish all filmmakers shared Aardman's passion and dedication for making movies."
Another added: "On the DVD they had an interview with Nick Park, the director and he said it took an entire year to do the sequence where Wallace transforms into the Were-Rabbit on camera."
While someone else said: "And it definitely shows as well, this is one of my favourite animated movies."