Wallace and Gromit creators playing around with AI incase fans lose interest
Wallace and Gromit’s creators are considering generating future shows by AI over fears telly viewers may “lose interest” in the claymation characters.
Aardman Animations, the studio behind the stop-motion puppets, has revealed it has been “playing around” with the fledgling tech. Its co-founder Peter Lord said there is a magic in making clay puppets like the inventor and his dog – but it is exploring using the new technique in case AI becomes popular.
He said: “If the world moves on so far that nobody cares about stop-motion, we’ll adapt. "But we will keep doing what we do so well, as long as people want it. And we’ll still offer it up to them, even if they don’t know they want it.” Although he admitted his studio is exploring using the technology, he thinks folk will always love stop-motion because they “can see how it’s done”.
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He said: “Perfection doesn’t interest me much. It’s nice, sometimes, that animation can perfectly imitate real life. But I much prefer it when it gives us the essence of real life and simplifies it.” Peter said the Bristol-based company has “ten, possibly more” projects in the pipeline including the new Wallace and Gromit film, which is due out in 2024.
The studio is expected to use up the last clay it has always used since the early 70s to make the film, after the one company that makes it, Newclay Products, closed its Newton Abbot plant this year. Aardman announced the clay stock is running out this week in a statement but reassured fans of its animations that it had plenty of other clay in stock. A spokesperson for the company said there is “absolutely no need to worry”, adding: “We have high levels of existing stock of modelling clay to service current and future productions.”
The studio’s sequel to smash hit film Chicken Run is out next month, 23 years after the original came out. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has taken six years to make and features 200 models. The Wallace and Gromit comedy film series has been a huge hit with audiences for more than 30 years. The animated productions by Aardman Animations about an inventor and his dog were created by Nick Park, with their first outing coming in 1989 in A Grand Day Out.
Each of the characters are made out of plasticine and filmed using a technique called stop-motion, which involves moving each model a tiny amount and filming each bit at a time – meaning films can take hours to make. The original versions of Wallace and Gromit looked a bit different from how they did in Park's original sketches of the pair.
The original versions of Wallace and Gromit looked a bit different from how they did in Park's original sketches of the pair. Park changed Gromit into a dog because he thought it was easier to animate dogs. Gromit can't speak in any of the films, but Park created him with a mouth originally and in his early sketches was depicted as larger and rounder. Gromit can't speak in any of the films, but Park created him with a mouth originally and in his early sketches was depicted as larger and rounder.
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