The film studio behind Shaun the Sheep holds 5 world records!
Are you a fan of Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep? ๐
Or maybe Chicken Run and Arthur Christmas? ๐
All of these were created by Aardman, an award-winning animation studio based in the UK.
Aardman are seen as champions in the world of claymation - a form of stop-motion animation in which adjustable clay characters are shot in different positions and made to look like they can move when the frames are played back in quick succession. ๐ฅ
The company currently holds 5 world records!
Let’s find out what they are…
Highest-grossing stop-motion animated film
Aardman secured their first GWR title in 2000 after releasing their debut full-length movie, Chicken Run. ๐
The film made $227,793,915 (£185,172,711) at cinemas worldwide, according to the movie statistics website The-Numbers.com.
Chicken Run has held on to this record for a whopping 25 years! ๐ฎ
How impressive is that?!
If you could make a film, what would it be about? ๐ญ
Most claymation feature films made by a studio
Aardman has released 8 full-length claymation movies, including:
- Chicken Run (2000) ๐
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) ๐
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (2012) ๐ดโ ๏ธ
- Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) ๐
- Early Man (2018) โฝ
- A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019) ๐
- Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) ๐
- Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024). ๐ง
Have you seen any of these films?
Due to the intricacy of claymation, projects require a lot of time and patience. โฒ๏ธ
During the peak production periods of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, a team of 30 animators would only be able to make up to 127 seconds of the film each week.
It took them 5 weeks to create the 17-second shot of Police Constable Mukherjee on the telephone - the longest scene in the movie. ๐ฌ
Most clay used in a feature film
Do you enjoy playing with clay?
The talented animators who work for Aardman get to do this every day. ๐คฉ
They have such a cool job!
For Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, 2,844.9 kg (6,272 lb) of clay was used - that’s equivalent to the weight of 4 adult polar bears! ๐ปโ๏ธ๐ปโ๏ธ๐ปโ๏ธ๐ปโ๏ธ
It’s really no surprise that it took Aardman 5 years to make this film!
Highest-grossing stop-motion film studio
Since 2000, Aardman has released 6 stop-motion films that have been shown in cinemas all over the world. ๐ฟ
These movies have grossed $756,529,838 (£494 m) altogether.
Imagine how much clay you could buy with all that money! ๐ต
This record doesn’t include their films that were created with computer-generated-imagery (CGI) – Flushed Away (2006) and Arthur Christmas (2011) – or their releases that went direct to TV or Netflix, such as Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
Fun fact – for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, the clay chickens were dusted with icing sugar to give them a matte effect and make sure they weren’t too shiny on camera. ๐
Largest stop-motion animation set
In 2011, Aardman teamed up with the phone brand Nokia to produce a record-breaking advert.
It was filmed on a sandy beach in Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK. ๐๏ธ
The set measured 1,025.04 m² (11,033 sq ft), making it even bigger than a football pitch! ๐ซจ
The commercial tells the tale of a fisherman who gets swallowed by a sea monster.
Fun fact – the advert was filmed on a Nokia N8 phone. ๐ฑ