“Dawn of the Bloc” and “Immigration” – The Hollywood Reporter

Characters in Aardman and Netflix’s Chicken Run.

Courtesy of Netflix

As 2023 comes to a close, a pair of animated films have been released – Aardman and Netflix Chicken Run: Blast the block And lighting/global Immigration – Delivered Stories features carefully designed chickens and mallards, respectively, that tend to be simple to be expressive.

He blew the block It is a sequel to the popular 2000 British stop-motion animated film Aardman Chickens runningwhich was directed by studio co-founder Peter Lord and four-time Academy Award winner W Wallace and Gromit Creator Nick Park, who designed the original Flock. He came up with this very simple aesthetic idea. And if you look at Wallace and Gromit Then I look at chickens, they have this thing in common. They are not very mobile. “Chickens are kind of like a bottle shape with arms and legs,” Lord says. “Then they have this completely exaggerated mouth. Nick came up with the idea that lip syncing is best served by being very strong and exaggerated and big. The combined effect of the goggle eyes in the middle of the head and the big, wide mouth, makes you laugh.”

Lord who produced the executive He blew the blockand directed by Sam Fell (Academy Award nominee). Paranormal), I found that this recipe not only supported the humor, but allowed the puppets to be very expressive for more dramatic moments. In the sequel, the story once again focuses on the strong-willed Ginger, who along with Rocky Rocky now has an equally strong-minded daughter, Molly. There were several new characters to be designed, including Molly, who is undoubtedly Ginger’s daughter in appearance but is not just a copy. “I wanted her to have great energy and great athleticism,” Phil says. “That’s what babies are like. I gave her longer legs than most chickens.” They also made minor changes such as her coloring being closer to Rocky’s.

Immigration Featuring a family of mallard ducks, it is directed by French cartoonist and director Benjamin Renner (received a 2012 Academy Award nomination for French Animated Feature Film). Ernest and Celestine), which began by focusing on the natural look. “At some point we did a little research. We decided to forget naturalism and go back to simplicity,” explains Renner. “I have a style when I’m a bit lost, where I use a very simple method of drawing, and I force myself to draw a character with only free lines or Very quickly within five seconds, so I could really get the essence of the character.”

For the daughter, Gwen, for example, Renner used a single drop of watercolor and let it dry, then added eyes and feet—“just to get an idea of ​​the character who was a little ball of emotions who couldn’t express herself, a little shy.” “We kept the idea of ​​this little ball of fluff that we kept designing. There’s often a tendency to make the character too cute,” he points out, “but remember your little sisters and your little brothers, (they can be) really annoying.” She asked that I give her big big eyes with pupils in the middle so she would be funny too.

This story first appeared in the Jan. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.