Oh! Need some emotion here!
Ah here's a bucket!
There we we go!
In 1972, Peter Lord
co-founded what would become one of, if not the,
most famous homegrown studio in Britain.
From their home base in Bristol, they've given plasticine life,
shaped childhoods and won Oscars.
But
it is not easy work,
it's taken over 5 years for their latest film
"Early man"
to come to life.
And Peter has allowed us to get our fingers and fingerprints,
all over those very delicate models.
This guy,
is Doug
Hello Doug.
Doug the caveman.
What do you make the hair of- I'm gonna give it back because I can not be trusted with that.
What do you make the hair out of?
It's kind of like, fun fur is what it is.
But it's got in it some
it's got some wire in it so-
-Oh so you can control it. -So you can control it.
"The age of stone is over do you know?
"Long live the age of bronze."
When was that moment that you first realised that
you could animate, you could bring something to life and it had personality and it had heart?
Was there a moment when you realised oh wow, we can create characters that
that feel alive in front of you?
Yeah that is a actually good question. That is a good question because that
that is the most important thing, isn't it?
Character, is the thing that you're reaching for.
The first discovery was that you could animate clay at all,
because that wasn't obvious, we didn't really know that and we had to find out for ourselves.
And there was a period in the 70's
when we believed, as far as we knew we were the only people on earth that were doing it.
I've since learnt, we weren't.
-At the time we thought we were -Where are those people now I mean
And then after about 5 years really
we landed on the, well this, Morph who is made of clay about that big.
And with him, through telling stories we found character
and once you had him
and you put him in a situation, what does Morph do if it's very cold,
what does Morph do when the other guy has stolen his cake, y'know.
You found the character through action.
And I will say
just to blow my own trumpet
that with Morph, if you turn the sound down
you can see, by the look on his face,
the shape of his body and the things he was doing you could see what he was thinking.
That was the great thing, that was the big breakthrough moment actually.
With Wallace and Gromit
was there a moment when you realised that they had become
icons?
Yes, the actor Peter Sallis, the guy that did the Wallace voice
"Sorry Gromit!"
15 year ago
we were with him when they opened a cartoon art gallery in London
and
he was there as the star guest of course
and he didn't do a speech
his party piece, was just to do...
Did he do the voice?
He did the voice.
He just did ten lines. Wallace's best ten lines.
"That went as well as can be expected."
"Cracking toast Gromit!"
And these things.
And it brought the house down. I thought wow,
that is the best cheapest act ever.
The audience loved him and he didn't have to do anything. Just read out his lines.
So there's an interesting thing I heard you say in an interview a couple of years ago that
Aardman sort of struggle to crack certain aspects of the American market.
What is it you think about
what you do, that doesn't work there?
I do not know. What's wrong with these people?
I don't know.
Seriously
I'm arrogant enough to think
it's nothing with what we do.
It's not me, it's you.
I do think
Yeah that's how I think.
I mean think that we tell
really good stories
cleverly, charmingly and I think that we generate more
genuine emotion than most of the Hollywood movies where they...
Is that you throwing the gauntlet down to Pixar there?
They're pretty good, they're pretty good at motion I must say.
But most of them they sort of turn it on like a tap,
oh need some emotion here!
Oh here's a bucket.
There we go.
You know? I think a lot of American animation, not the best
but a lot of it's quite cynical in that sense.
What's the biggest change you've seen in audiences?
In terms of what audiences will accept from animation.
Toy Story
was magnificent and stood alone.
But then when you started to get into sort of Shrek and Ice Age territory.
They're good, but this mass production
I find slightly dismaying.
They found the formula
that's how it seemed to be, they found the formula.
This many fart jokes,
wild close-ups,
bright bright colours
throws it in the audience and they'll be happy
and they kind of are which rather annoys me.
There are those films that
you can buy the component parts of the shelf and just
pour them in and you'll get a good movie.
So how do you know when your movies good?
That's a tricky question. I don't know when you know that.
When enough people have told you you might start to believe it.
Takes a long time actually I think.
What's the most misunderstood thing about claymation?
I think the most, the common misconception
they think that it's like some
ordeal.
"Oh god that must be, that must drive you crazy."
"God you must be so patient."
That's what people think but it's not at all.
Isn't it? Because it's very meticulous and fiddly.
It is meticulous and fiddly but I mean honestly those animators
that are doing Early man today,
Not one of them goes in in the morning and thinks, "Oh god I've got to get through this?"
They might think,
"This one is so difficult, how am I going to do this?"
But they've got to be
as imaginative and ingenious and creative as they can be
to make it work.
Do you still get your hands dirty?
Not much actually no.
Not really.
Do you miss it?
No.
You can say no. No is an acceptable answer.
I don't miss it,
but I will say
that if I have a plan, which I don't,
it doesn't involve retirement but it does involve
just sneaking away to a quite corner of the studio
gimme six months just to make something of my own. That would be
That would be a very nice chilled thing to do.
And don't contact me about all the other stuff.
Leave me alone.
Just to do that.
Does your bank manager know that you have such a cavalier attitude towards running a business?
He'll never know.
I have great fondness for that time, when all you have to do is just perform.
Just animate, that's all you've got to do.
I just love when you retire there's like, "Where's Peter?"
"Oh he's in the playdoh corner."
I'll be there with the radio on, a cup of tea.
Pint of beer.
-Peter, thank you so much. -Great pleasure
And good luck with your plasticine corner retirement plan.
That's where you'll find me.
Lovely to meet you, thanks so much.