Manchester Animation Festival Research: Will Becher - Masterclass

The stage of a "Shaun the Sheep" scene

The Manchester Animation Festival just ended, and I'm still exhilarated that I managed to learn so much from different animators and practitioners. Not only that, but I had watched a variety of animations with  different styles and techniques which inspired me and added to my comprehension of styles. However, among my favorite events was the Masterclass by Will Becher, the creator of Shaun the Sheep. Although I hadn't seen Shaun the Sheep prior hand (although I was aware of the series), the Masterclass had a didactic essence to it as I got to learn much about the process of stop-motion - the style of animation I "specialize" in. Will Becher started with stop-motion in the same manner as I did: pursuing it purely as a hobby, which then enabled him to develop his skills and work with Aardman. However, what intrigued me the most about the masterclass was the elaborate process of the creation of Shaun the Sheep The Movie. Among the plentiful stages of development comes the creation of the characters, which turned out to be an extremely meticulous process with clay statues being built for the incentive real-time design of the characters, the mechanized armatures beneath the puppets for support, the molds created on the surface, and finally the creation of different mouth sets. Never have I ever perceived the art of puppet-making for stop-motion to be so elaborate and time-consuming, for my animations had been created with Lego mini figures - already pre-made armatured characters. The puppets of Shaun the Sheep are made with different materials - glycerin, foam latex, etc. Furthermore, what baffled me was that the animation team binds every singular position of a character's legs with strings in order to immobilize puppets with the soul purpose of preventing unwanted movement. Placing this frivolous process of creation aside, what truly bewildered me and built upon my skills as an animator was the pre-productive and post-productive techniques of stop-motion animation that Aardman utilized - one being the Live Action Videos serving the purpose of animatics, and the rigs which are used to suspend characters mid air which are later on digitally removed from sight. I considered this masterclass to be extremely informative, as I shall use the techniques utilized by the Aardman crew in future stop-motion animations, as with every day my skills improve more and more.

Mouth and face pieces