Shaun The Sheep Movie Set Report

It’s to Aardman Animation’s great credit that when Cineworld is introduced to Shaun the Sheep on the set of his long-time-coming first movie, we almost expect him to proffer his front leg and shake our hand hello.

Except he doesn’t. That’s because Shaun is - psst, look away now if you don’t want your dreams ruined - eight inches of plasticine and silicon. Indeed this model is one of 21 Shauns they’re using here (that’s alongside 110 other sheep and 107 humans), depending on what’s needed from him in any particular scene. In any case, we’re very honoured.

Cineworld is at Aardman Animation’s HQ on the outskirts of Bristol, and being granted an exclusive peek behind the production curtain of Shaun’s big screen debut. Its release date is still seven months away at this point, yet the atmosphere here is startlingly calm. Aardman, it appears, don’t really do pressure.

Shaun has been an integral member of the Aardman family since making his first appearance in the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit short, A Close Shave, in 1995. The Shaun the Sheep telly series - which started in 2007 - has chalked up 140 episodes (and counting), and Shaun was recently voted the nation’s favourite BBC children’s character by readers of Radio Times. Given all that, awarding Shaun and his farmyard pals a cinematic upgrade was a no-brainer. “The DNA of Shaun is so strong, we’re not changing anything,” stresses Richard "Golly" Starzak, so-writer and co-director, alongside Mark Burton, of the big screen Shaun. “We’re just pressing in deeper.”

Whereas Shaun’s adventures on the small screen amount to only seven minutes each, this feature version tells a lavish 75-minute tale. That meant Golly and Burton cooking up a story that would feel suitably cinematic, while still remaining true to the cosy and very British spirit of the TV series.

“The first thing you have to do is give your characters an emotional life and an emotional story,” says Burton. “Not that the TV series doesn’t have that, but we have it in a more profound way. We’ve taken them out of their comfort zone. That’s another thing you have to do, you take them out of their world. We haven’t stapled ten episodes together, we’ve taken them right out of their world and given them an epic adventure!”

The movie takes Shaun and the flock out of the farm and deep into the Big City, and introduces two brand new Aardman characters; Trumper the animal warden who rules the city’s animal shelter with a rod of iron and Slip, an inner city orphan dog who helps Shaun save the day. And, like the series, the movie will be totally dialogue-free.

“I kind of trusted it would work without dialogue,” says Golly. “We did discuss other ways of getting information across, whether it was music or words, but it hasn’t been an issue.”

“Theoretically you can watch a good film with the sound turned down,” adds Burton. “The images should be strong enough and the storytelling strong enough that you can watch it without dialogue.”

“With the series, the original idea for not having dialogue was purely a practical thing, because lip-sync is so difficult to do and so time-consuming,” says Golly. “But not having any dialogue means you tell the story more cinematically. With the TV series, some of them were mini films and so upping this story to 75 minutes wasn’t that big a leap really.”

Burton says that in order to inspire them, the duo immersed themselves in silent comedy, prior to writing the script.

"We watched lots of silent comedy," says Burton. "To be inspired by them. We were very influenced by Jacques Tati, and what’s so great about him is that uses sound as a mechanism in the film. We’re not totally silent, like The Artist, we have sound effects, we just don’t have dialogue, so in a way the sound effect becomes a character in the story."

As we’re chaperoned around just a few of the 30 miniature sets Aardman have built for the movie, we’re struck by the flabbergasting attention to detail. All have been loving crafted by a team of the industry’s finest model-makers and it’s not hard to see why Aardman have become one of Britain’s most cherished brands.

Here, at Aardman HQ in sun-drenched June, numerous scenes are being filmed, in the company’s typically meticulous way, simultaneously, with individual animators working in small, closed-off sections of the studio on their designated shots. It’s a time-consuming process though, and only advised for the super-patient - each animator will only manage about two to three seconds of film per day.

“Animators are great performers in their own way,” says Burton, “so you work with them and as you would with an actor and that’s when you get a bit of gold.”

“One of the themes of the film is to appreciate the ones you love,” says Golly. “That sounds corny but it’s true. I walk around the studio thinking, ‘These people are bloody brilliant!’”

And so what’s the future for Shaun the Sheep? Will these “bloody brilliant” animators get another chance to tell a big screen Shaun story? Golly smiles. “Oh, I’ve got a sequel in mind,” he says, teasingly.

Shaun the Sheep

6 February / Cert: TBA

BOXOUT

Aardman’s Finest

Just some of Aardman’s other great creations.

Morph (1977 – present)

Since first appearing with artist Tony Hart in 1977, this shape-shifting, loveable plasticine character has delighted subsequent generations. With Morph, Aardman announced themselves to the world, first introducing him in a series of one-minute shorts on Hart's programmes Take Hart and Hartbeat. Later on, Morph was joined by the more mischievous character, Chas.

Wallace and Gromit (1989 – present)

Almost certainly Aardman's most beloved characters, cheese-chomping inventor Wallace and his ever-loyal, mute canine companion Gromit first enchanted TV audiences in 1989 with their trip to the moon in A Grand Day Out. Since then, they've appeared in two more show-stopping shorts, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, and even their own feature-length movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Chicken Run (2000)

The company's first feature-length cinema release saw Aardman stick proudly to their homegrown roots, being a story of a group of chickens who plot an escape from a terrifying battery farm. With its homely northern locations, stellar British voice cast (plus one Mel Gibson) and trademark wit, Chicken Run proved to be an outstanding feature debut for Aardman, and helped announce them to the wider world.

Arthur Christmas (2011)

The company's second full-length CGI feature (after 2006's Flushed Away) divided opinion for that very reason. Lacking the plasticine and rough-hued charm of their more distinctive work, it's undeniably more conventional, but still heartwarming. James McAvoy voices the eponymous Arthur, Santa's bumbling grandson who gets a chance to prove himself when he sets off to deliver a present to a young girl in time for Christmas.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (2012)

A return to the company's hand-crafted roots, this amusingly off-the-wall animated comedy about adventure on the high seas is adapted by author Gideon Dafoe from his own book. Hugh Grant brilliantly voices the swashbuckling Pirate Captain in a beautifully animated, thoroughly British story that places just as much emphasis on dry, quirky wit as it does on knockabout slapstick. Watch out for the inspired lampooning of Charles Darwin.