"Wallace and Gromit" Contrast between cheese and rocket [Mizumaru Kawahara's CINEMONOLOGUE Vol.3]

Index

• The appeal of the British-born clay animation “Wallace and Gromit”
• Contrast of textures seen in “Cheese Holiday”, the origin of the series
• A delicious cheese moon and a lonely robot

The appeal of the British-born clay animation “Wallace and Gromit”

I love the stop-motion animation series `` Wallace and Gromit ,'' created by Aardman Studios and directed by Nick Park.

This is one of Britain's leading clay animation works, in which the goofy inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit go on adventures each time using home-made inventive machines. Despite the cute clay-crafted atmosphere, it has a power and thrill that rivals the movies. It's a hit series.

Recently, many people may have been exposed to the worldview of Shaun the Sheep, a spin-off series featuring a sheep character from the series as the main character. Also in the summer, Nick Park's latest work `` Early Man Doug and Friends Kick Off!'' ” is also scheduled for release.

There's Wes Anderson's new film `` Isle of Dogs ,'' and I'm glad that stop-motion animation seems to be getting more and more popular.

And when I think of stop motion with dogs, I think of ``Wallace and Gromit.''

The first thing that comes to mind is the cuteness of the characters living in the miniature rooms and the warm atmosphere.

I like the idea of ​​a ``British living room'' where you can drink tea, eat toast, and read the newspaper in a room with patterned wallpaper.

Besides, it has the atmosphere of clay work.

Recently, stop-motion animation has become very beautiful due to advances in technology, such as 3D printing of puppets and digital image correction, but there are many works that are so beautiful that it is difficult to distinguish them from CG animation. I feel like it.

Stop motion, which has the smoothness of CG, and CG animation, which has the same texture as the real thing, are like tunnels dug from opposite directions colliding. Of course that's also amazing.

Although the sculpting of ``Wallace and Gromit'' has become more beautiful with each successive production, it still has the feel of clay (strictly speaking, the dolls are not made of clay, but a putty material called plasticine), and have a rounded shape. The characters and their soft movements are the characteristics of this work.

It's fun to see the fingerprints left on the doll's surface and the small dust particles that flicker in each frame, as if to convey the animator's breath.