A few months ago, I visited the set of the new feature-length Wallace and Gromit movie The Curse of the Were-Rabbit to direct a behind-the-scenes documentary short I directed for Moviefone. Nick Park is one of my personal writer/director gods, but I managed to keep my inner fanboy in check for the course of the set visit.
We ended up shooting enough footage for two shorts, and they’re both now up at Moviefone. The first one is on the history of Ardman Animation and Wallace & Gromit in general, and the second is a behind-the-scenes look at The Curse of the Were-Wolf in particular. As you’d expect from a detailed behind-the-scenes look, there are some minor spoilers in the second one, although they’re mainly limited to things like glimpses of new characters, and some hints about the plot. It gives away much less than, say, the film’s trailer; the focus is on how the animators work, rather than what story they’re telling.
Oh, and by the way: as part of the visit, I got to watch the first third or so of the film. It looks really, really, really good, but if you’ve seen any of the Wallace and Gromit shorts, you probably don’t need me to tell you just how brilliant Nick Park and his crew are. (And if you haven’t seen them–good God, man, go out and rent The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave this instant. Both of them are about as perfect as films can be.)
That must have been so freakin’ cool. I enjoyed the shorts. Makes me realize however much I appreciate what they do, I would kill myself if I was a claymation animator.
What a cool opportunity! Are the shorts up anywhere else? I’m reluctant to install the AOL plug-in it takes to view them because I’m AOLphobic.
Colin, the shorts work fine on my computer and I don’t think I installed any AOL plug-in (unless I did it so long ago that I’ve forgotten about it.) What are you being asked to install when you try to watch them?
The shorts aren’t up anywhere else–they were paid for by AOL/Moviefone, and belong to them.
“Ampx 2.4.6” from AOL, Inc. I’ll just bite the bullet and install it. It wasn’t worth it for me to risk a SPAM deluge and mountains of AOL CD’s for the Jessica Simpson/Daisy Duke washing General Lee video. But for two Jacob Weinstein shorts? Well, I’ll just have to bite the bullet.
Brilliant. Both of them. What neat projects. I’m hugely jealous, of course.
Now, about that Daisy Duke video…
This is great!
I can imagine how exciting the trip must be, looking at all the wonderful sets. I bet it must be inspiring!
rex
Wonderful job on the shorts!
Thanks for the compliments on the shorts. A huge amount of credit goes to Casey Dake, the editor, who did an amazing job of distilling a day’s worth of footage into such a short space.