Hawker News

'Wallace and Gromit,' 90% Alone

animationobsessive.substack.com

210 pointsby vinhnx25 comments

davnicwil[hidden]
This is just incredible, I had absolutely no idea of the context of 'a Grand Day Out' being a solo school project.

There's no way I'd imagined it wasn't done in a professional setup by a full team.

A real standout part is how he commuted by bus to the studio for years, to work on it mostly alone. Truly amazing dedication to a passion project.

I haven't watched it in probably 25 years but I'll find it now and appreciate it all the more for knowing this!

codeulike[4 comments hidden]
And then for his next work to be The Wrong Trousers, a near perfect film with the ending train sequence widely acclaimed as one of the best action sequences ever put to film

https://youtu.be/jrmZIgVoQw4?feature=shared

mk_stjames[2 comments hidden]
Theres a scene there that's one of my favorite comedy bits in any film, the breakfast scene where you see a buzzer and light going off repeatedly, like they have some sort of computer system to indicate it is breakfast time... but then it cuts to Wallace in bed and he is just repeatedly pressing a button next the the bed, with the same specific cadence, to make the buzzer sound. I don't know why I find that so hilarious.
codeulike[hidden]
For me its gromit cutting eye holes in a box which turns out to coincidentally have a face drawn on it
vanderZwan[hidden]
To prove your point: here's the Hollywood Reporter's "Directors Roundtable" video where Danny Boyle mentions it's one of the greatest action sequences of all time and everyone else (Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Alejandro Inarrito, Tom Hooper, David O. Russel) immediately agree. David O. Russel even says it was an inspiration for him for the final action sequence in Three Kings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7qKKQrSBY&t=581s

"The Wrong Trousers" also has one of the best heist scenes in cinema imo, up there with Rififi. It gets overshadowed by the action sequence though.

sohkamyung[hidden]
I first saw "Creature Comforts", "A Grand Day Out" and "The Wrong Trousers" in the local cinema in Singapore as a feature film many years ago.

When "The Wrong Trousers" got to the part where Gromit was frantically laying tracks for the train, the entire audience was laughing and clapping, including me. :-)

danielodievich[hidden]
I have a nephew who is in stop motion animation, since he was in his early teens and now getting close to his 3rd decade, doing movies now. Amount of work he had to do in early times all by himself was absolutely astounding. The people who have passion for it have PASSION in capital letters and then some. I and your entire family are so proud of you Willy, even though I am pretty sure you don't read HN.!!!
VCFundedGenYer[hidden]
I love the atmosphere of the original 3 features. A Grand Day Out especially, it makes great use of pauses and sweeping ethereal wide shots to give a great sense of scale and isolation.

As great as the post-A Close shave features are, something was definitely lost when they started adding more characters and expanded the universe.

WalterBright[hidden]
My favorite gag is Gromit reading a book entitled "Electronics for Dogs".
jminnl[2 comments hidden]
The humor in those is so perfect. "Have you seen this chicken?"
jclulow[hidden]
"Good grief, it's you!"
foreigner[hidden]
I always thought Wallace was a self-portrait of Nick Park. If your find a video interview with him, the way his mouth moves when he speaks is totally Wallace. It's uncanny.
c10o[hidden]
Wow, this sparked some good memories watching Wallace and Gromit with my dad almost 30 years ago. Thanks for sharing!
andai[hidden]
Enjoyed this, especially seeing the sketches.

I saw a poster for a new Shaun the Sheep movie recently, so they're still making them! And it looks like they're still doing it "properly", old school stop motion? That's fantastic.

voncheese[hidden]
Amazing dedication and very inspiring. It's so awesome to read about what great things people can do when they are so focused on accomplishing something. And as other commenters have said, had no idea it took so many years of (mostly) one person.

Grand Day Out is a fantastic watch, the animation, characters and story telling are so fun for really anyone of any age.

p0w3n3d[hidden]
I always thought that Shaun the sheep is 3d animated. Learning that those shows are made the old way is so interesting!
andai[6 comments hidden]
> Asked about his preference for stop motion, Park once explained:

> I think it’s because I’d been brought up on a diet of children’s 3D animation.

What is 3d animation referring to here? This guy grew up in the 60's.

JoeDaDude[hidden]
It's just a guess, but he could be referring to the stop motion animation movies that were popular in the 60's. Ray Harryhausen famously made a career out of the technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkLEZSWe5u4

NetMageSCW[hidden]
Gumby and Davey and Goliath come to mind.
posh_somme[2 comments hidden]
Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor The Engine, Trumpton, Camberwick Green. The UK was full of this stuff in the late 60s and early 70s
qingcharles[hidden]
Postman Pat too!

He also mentions Morph who was Aardman's existing claymation character:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morph_(TV_series)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Der9xbuVJs

ButlerianJihad[hidden]
Cel animation was vaguely limited to 2D scenes due to the flatness of their canvas, while stop-motion could be actually 3D, even if it wasn't filmed with that effect.

Early experiments with live animation shows unfortunately were discontinued entirely, after encountering grievous injuries and labor complaints from the animator artists.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701245/characters/nm0534134/?i...

Axsuul[hidden]
Exceptional results come from the things that people do when no one is looking.
moomoo11[2 comments hidden]
i watched wallace and gromit as a very small kid, so i didn't really understand anything.

but it made me miss my dad a lot and i'd cry the whole time. we had it on vhs and there were like 4 or 5 of them, so i'd watch them over and over. i was like 3 or 4 or something.

its weird to say but even as an adult i cannot make it through more than 10-15 min of the movie.

psadri[hidden]
This is a touching sentiment. Thanks for sharing it.