Among the few imported films released in July, there is a stop-motion animation with a good audience, and its protagonist image has become one of the important cultural exchange links for this year's British Prince William's trip to China. This movie is "Shaun the Sheep" produced by the British Aardman Company.
In fact, Shaun the Sheep is already the third Aardman animated film to be released in China (the first two are "Chicken Run" and "Magical Pirate Group"). Founded in 1972, Aardman has grown to become the world's top stop-motion animation production company, and its works have accumulated many fans around the world because of their rigorous production attitude and British humor. Today, Xiaobian will take you to see the animation works of Aardman Company.
First, the "Super Invincible Dog" series
The protagonist, Gromitt, has gone beyond the capabilities of pet dogs: doing housework, repairing houses, driving cars, flying airplanes, growing vegetables, knitting sweaters... It's like an open-ended posture. It was also very literate, even if he was wrongfully imprisoned, he still read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment in prison. Wallace, in contrast, is an out-and-out troublemaker, always relying on a cool Gromit to clean up the mess for him when a crisis comes. The pair of living treasures have accumulated popularity through the "Super Invincible Dog" series of animations and have become Adman's "boss boys". I recommend three of the anime in this series.
Super Invincible Dog: A Moon Picnic (1989)
It was the first appearance of Gromitt and Wallace. They are in a hurry because of the cheese stock in their home and plan to go to the moon to replenish it. Due to the early production time, you can still see hard anthropogenic traces in the animation: the chin that is large and small, the fingerprints on the character's body, and so on. But "Moon Picnic" set the tone for the British style for the subsequent "Super Invincible Dog" series. The film won the 1990 British Academy Film Award for Best Animated Film.
Super Invincible: Razor's Edge (1995)
One of their female clients, Windlin, who started a cleaning company, Started Bygrit and Wallace, was in fact a wool shop with hidden secrets. This time, Gromit was in jail for a mistake, but fortunately, the rescuers arrived in time, who? It won't be Wallace who gets into trouble, right? The rescuer is Sean! Yes, Sean debuted in this anime. It uses its brain to join forces with the "little sheep companions" to carry out rescue operations. The film won the Best Short Film Award at the 1996 Academy Awards, the Audience Award at the Ansi International Animated Film Festival in 1997, and the British Academy Film Award for Best Animated Film in 1996.
Super Invincible Dog: Bread and Death (2008)
This time, Gromitt and Wallace opened a bakery, relying on Gromit's invention, and the small shop attracted many customers. However, twelve bakers have been poisoned in the town, and the rumors of serial killers have put Wallace in crisis. The film won the 2009 British Academy Film Award for Best Animated Short Film and the 2009 Annie Award for Best Animated Short Film.
2. "Chicken Run" (2000)
The hen, Jin Jie, is intelligent and courageous, and has a lot of prestige in the flock. But the most powerful person in the chicken farm is the greedy owner Mrs. Tweeddi, and Jin Jie and other hens work hard like slaves all day long. Greedy enough to swallow the elephant, Mrs. Tweeddy wants to transform the chicken farm into a factory for the production of chicken pie, Jin Jie thinks that everyone can not stay and be slaughtered, and decides to flee with her friends! Xiaobian is because Jin Jie began to like Adman animation drops!
III. "The Wanderings of the Rat Country" (2006)
Starting with Toy Story in 1995, CG technology has become the basic equipment of animated films. In this environment, Aardman gave up the tradition of stop-motion animation and tried CG animation, and there was this story about "the city will play" and "more folk words" - "Rat Country Wanderer". Roddy the Pet Rat lived a lavish life until Stray Mouse Sid came over and flushed him into the sewers. Lucky Roddy meets Rita, a brave and clever, in desperation, and she promises Roddy to send him home, but the process is exhausting and dangerous. The animation's voice cast is strong, with "Uncle Wolf" Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McLean, Jean Renault and other A-list actors joining in.
Arthur Christmas (2011)
After experimenting with CG animation, Adman turned to 3D animation and launched Arthur Christmas. Santa Claus of the new era keeps pace with the times and rides advanced flying machines to deliver gifts to children around the world. But when the complexity of the work is always sparse, there is a little girl who does not receive a gift. Arthur, the youngest son of active Santa Claus, could not bear to disappoint the little girl, and decided to send gifts to England two hours before dawn with the disobedient retired Santa Claus, his grandfather. Can Arthur, known as the "TroubleMaker" by His Dad, complete the task?
V. The Magical Pirate Regiment (2012)
Aardman returned to stop-motion animation after "Rat Nation Rovers" and "Arthur Christmas". Peter Lord, one of Aardman's founders, went out on his own to direct the 3D stop-motion feature-length animation. The protagonist of "Fantastic Pirates" is a less successful pirate captain who wants to win the "Pirate of the Year Award". Since the protagonists this time are human and there are many characters, the mouth model becomes the biggest challenge of this stop-motion animation. There are more than 6800 mouth models in the whole film, of which 1364 are pirate captains. Using 3D technology, Fantastic Pirates became Aardman's first 3D clay stop-motion animation.
SHAUN the Sheep (2015)
Shaun the Sheep was originally a character in Super Invincible Dog: Razor's Edge, and in 2007 the lamb's extended animation Shaun the Sheep aired on the BBC. It is maverick, imaginative, young but very assertive, no matter what difficulties the "little sheep companions" encounter, it can find a solution. In the big movie "Shaun the Sheep", Sean and his friends are tired of farm life and plan to go to the city, but an accident occurs that the farmer and sheepdog Bitzer disappear, and the ownerless farm becomes chaotic, and Sean decides to take his friends into the city to find them. This big movie also comes with many scenes that pay tribute to classic movies, and interested Sean fans can look for them.
"That's all,lad."
Author: Su Ran
This article is a special article of the China-Singapore Youth Cinema Line, if reprinted, please indicate the author and source
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