Shaun The Sheep: Real animals or cartoon?
All cartoon enjoyers might remember this show from childhood. Ever wondered how it looked so real??
I just had paneer. I mean yeah, v tasty. Who would not like a meal like this and be satiated with life? I would say “Satiation point” (econ 101) in my life comes at a point when I’m eating something good. Whatever the situation, I can’t feel anything but peace. Meditative. Exercising is equally fun (only when you can get your lazy ass up off the chair).
Anyways, back to the topic. Yes, so while eating my dinner I was watching Shaun the Sheep on Netflix. I had no idea they had launched a smol series there. It was fun, and while watching it I couldn’t avoid but wonder again at the beauty of the show, not just the funny and cute stories but the whole production level is off the roof.
When I was a child, a lot of my time watching Shaun The Sheep was spent wondering about the realistic scenes. It all looked so real, like in 3d. Just to let you know, back in 2011 or 12 there used to be no 3d characters like today. All cartoons were like 2d or 3d designs but not this clean. What made the difference tho? Stop-motion, I’d call it an art form. However, here’s your general definition:
Stop motion is a cool way of making movies where you move objects a tiny bit at a time and take pictures of them. When you play these pictures quickly, it looks like the objects are moving on their own. You can animate all sorts of things, but people usually use puppets with joints that can move or clay figures. Sometimes, they make models with a frame inside for support. When people use real actors for stop motion, it's called pixilation. If they use flat stuff like paper or fabric, it's called cutout animation, more like 2d stuff.
So, when I was a child, I used to ask everyone but no one around me knew about it, also, the internet wasn’t available like today as well. I don’t know how I got to know about it but I’m aware of this since school days. A fun fact I always shared with everyone haha.
Behind the scenes, it's a thumbs-up frenzy! The Aardman team(The design studio that makes it) moves Shaun bit by bit, taking pictures to make him move. Inside all these clay structures there’s a movable skeleton that keeps each character stable while each new motion is made. You can see how the inside of the farmer looks here:
You’ll also notice that his face is missing. Well, each part of the face can be removed. There’s a replacement for each kind of eye movement, facial movement, and lip movement. For every frame, each part of the face is replaced with another to make a seamless animation (even I was amazed). Stop motion is a hard, time-consuming, and costly business. But it’s beautiful. (short prayer- god ji bless me with time and money to indulge in it someday.)
And the tech stuff? They build tiny sets and characters that express themselves. No character speak but they use sound to interact. Especially the clever Shaun knows how to write lol. He uses his board to explain all his plans to the whole sheep family.
Here’s a vid that will take you to BTS of the show:
Shaun's story began with an idea from Nick Park and the Aardman crew. He quickly became famous, winning awards like Emmy and the British Academy Children’s Award. And the biggest award in the 20th century is etching your name in memory of a child and adults. This show did it perfectly and they’ve surely won hearts. Here’s a small art gallery on their website, some kids have made beautiful art.