An English inventor who loves cheese. A dog who stumbles into misadventures. They’re famous characters from a form of animation rarely seen today. Now they’ve returned to the screen—along with their signature stop-motion style.
Animator Nick Park introduced Wallace and Gromit in his 1989 short film A Grand Day Out. They’ve since appeared in feature films, commercials, and even video games. Their last feature film debuted nearly 20 years ago.
The world of animation has changed since 1989. Computer animation rules the day. But Park and co-director Merlin Crossingham are bringing back an old-school style. Their latest film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, debuted in December 2024.
Claymation is a form of stop-motion animation. Other types of animation use drawings or computer models. Stop-motion uses actual photos of real objects. Creators animate everything from LEGO minifigures to fruits and vegetables. Park and Crossingham use clay figurines with posable metal skeletons.
Every film consists of still images called frames. Most movies display 24 frames every second. That’s fast enough to trick our eyes into seeing motion. When you record a video on a phone or camcorder, the device puts those frames together.
Stop-motion animation works differently—and much more slowly. The cameraperson snaps one frame at a time. Click! Then animators move the clay figures just slightly. Click! The figures move a little more. Click!
Repeat that process 24 times and you’ve made one second of video. Vengeance Most Fowl took five years to complete.
“In a good week, we might hit a minute of film,” Park told BBC.
On a live action production, filmmakers have time to experiment and make mistakes. But when one second of film takes a whole week, you can’t afford a redo! Stop-motion animators map out the whole project beforehand. They draw storyboards. They turn those storyboards into an animatic—a hand-drawn rough draft of the entire movie—before their fingers touch the clay.
And they do touch the clay. Look closely. You’ll see smudges and prints from the animators’ fingers. That’s part of the charm.
“I think there’s something that resonates with audiences with stop-motion that they can tell it’s handcrafted,” says Crossingham. “They can tell that’s the human touch.”
The result is movie magic (as one might expect from a director named Merlin). The clay figures move smoothly on screen. Of course, it’s not actually magic. It’s hard work, patience, and skill.
Claymation bears the fingerprints of its makers. In the same way, Creation bears God’s fingerprints. He gave us His image—and He gives us the ability to create. When we make things, we glorify the God who made us! What can you create with your hands today?
Why? There’s no substitute for hands-on hard work, patience, and skill—even when modern technology offers easier paths.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by the numbers
5: years to make Vengeance Most Fowl
10: puppets of Norbot, the robotic gnome (with 20 swap-able heads!)
11: puppets of Feathers McGraw, the villainous penguin
20: years since the last Wallace & Gromit feature film
22.5: hours of Wallace dialogue recorded by actor Ben Whitehead
32: animators
127: seconds of animation produced each week on average
600: eyes made for all characters in the film
750: Norbot hands created
(abcnews)
