SHAUN THE SHEEP: THE BEAST OF MOSSY BOTTOM sees the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm looking forward to Halloween – until the clumsy Farmer trashes the Flock’s beloved pumpkin patch! When Shaun turns MAD SCIENTIST to fix the problem, things rapidly spiral out of control… With The Farmer missing and a wild beast roaming the woods of Mossingham, all the ingredients are in place for a monstrously fun family adventure.
As this latest Shaun the Sheep adventure heads to Australian cinemas in time for the September school holidays, Nick L’Barrow spoke with one of the film’s animators from Aardman Studios, Sammy Lewis, about how they first got into the art of stop-motion animation, and some of the insane old school movie references that made it into the film!
Nick: I read that you grew up watching classic stop-motion shows like Fireman Sam and Postman Pat. Can you pinpoint a time in your life where that creative spark first ignited to pursue stop-motion animation?
Sammy Lewis: Yeah, funnily enough there’s a few key points. I was six years old and obsessed with plasticine, and a family friend gave me a book by Barbara Reed on how to make little creatures like snails and stuff. That was the initial spark. Then when I was about 12, I had been watching those shows like Postman Pat and I was obsessed with Aardman. I got to use a family friends video record where I would press record really quickly, capture a few frames, and that was my first time doing animation. Then I studied in at the Queensland College of Art, and just have stopped making silly little clay things!
Nick: What I love about this Shaun the Sheep film is the many homages to old school monster movies. What were some of the visual inspirations you were told to follow when it came to creating scenes or little Easter eggs for the film?
SL: Yeah, so a lot of the references came through the writers and directors. I do like horror, but I’m not a horror history sort of person! So there were probably a lot of references that went over my head [laughs]. But, I do know that there is a Texas Chainsaw Massacre reference! On the chainsaw that Timmy uses to carve out the pumpkin, and you look at the text on the blade of the chainsaw… just check it out!
Nick: There is so much detail to the animation in this film. It’s truly astounding to watch on a big screen and considering how much of this is handmade. How many discussions are there about how intricate you must go into the details as animators?
SL: It’s a constant battle or even consideration as an animator. You want to do the best job you can and be really detail orientated. But on the other hand, there’s schedules and timelines. The producers get stressed if you take too long. Sometimes the little things you fret over, once you see them on the big screen, they don’t even register. And you start thinking that you shouldn’t have taken three hours perfectly aligning that bedsheet. Even worse is when it gets cut out of the film [laughs]. But the thing about the details when you’re working on a big production like this is that you’re surrounded by so many other talented people. I was working with animators who have worked on Shaun the Sheep for longer than I’ve had a career! They’re so good, and you kind of want to impress them or even show them how inspired you are by their work by matching that level of detail. I want to do something cool. But it’s not in a hyper competitive way. It’s like a creative community, right? You’re all trying to achieve this one fantastic thing. And I think you can definitely see that through the finished product.
Nick: Are there still things about the technical side of stop-motion that surprise you? And how has the artform evolved over the time you’ve been doing it as a career?
SL: It’s funny – there’s things that haven’t changed. But I guess things like the materials we use change a lot. Some of the processes have improved. We use 3D printing. Puppets can be made of silicon and clay. All of those things help speed up the process a bit. But when it comes down to posing the puppet, not much has really changed. The way we animate is pretty much the same.
Nick: One of my favourite movies of the last few years was Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail, which of course you worked on too. Apart from the actual content and tones of the two films – what were the differences in working on that film and then working with Aardman on Shaun the Sheep?
SL: I think one of the main things I learned working with Adam was to not be so perfect. You can get caught up being flawless with your animation or sculpting. But with Adam, his whole philosophy is to be chunky and wonky. It’s okay to be “good enough”. It was kind of like an undoing of the perfectionist traits that I used to have on a lot of previous jobs where the goal was to be perfect. I think it’s so interesting to see how different studios approach things, or learn different tricks of the trade. There’s always something new you can learn. We had such a good crew on both Memoir and Shaun where everyone was just sharing ideas.
Nick: Something that I feel is exciting about animation is that it’s an artform where nothing is creatively off limits. Is that something that excites you about this artform?
SL: Oh yeah! The joy of animation is you can kind of make anything. The trouble is when you can do anything, how do you decide what to do? What stories do you want to tell? I think I want to start focusing on writing and creating my own stuff. But I constantly just wonder what I would even do. There’s so many things that can be made! But on a technical level, I will say, actually making anything that needs to fly, or water, or smoke – that’s all really hard to make. So I guess there is a small limit to the creativity [laughs].
Thank you to Sammy for their time, and to StudioCanal Australia for organising the interview. Shaun the Sheep and the Beast of Mossy Bottom is in cinemas now.
