from the first time Xiaoen the sheep met with the audience, this lamb with high IQ has been twenty years old. After going through an Oscar statuette, 130 episodes of cartoons and 120 sculptures of the same name, the lamb from Bristol, England finally made her way to the big screen. "Shaun the Sheep Movie" first hit the Valentine's Day file in the UK, and now it's squeezed into the summer holiday file in China.
Stepping onto the big screen, the story of Shaun the Sheep is still not complicated: Shaun, who didn't want to start work, and the Lambs locked the owner into an abandoned carriage, but they didn't expect the carriage to slide all the way to the noisy city. The lambs then embarked on the road to find their masters and embarked on an urban adventure.
An 85-minute stop-motion animation with no dialogue throughout, because it directly overcomes the language barrier, children can understand it at a glance. For adults, this movie does not seem naive. From the Beatles to classic movies, the lambs have paid tribute over and over again. The whole film is full of well-paced baggage and jokes, not only has a strong taste of British humor, but also clearly reveals the mature production experience of Hollywood.
This animated movie that all friends of all sizes can have fun, received a lot of praise within two days of landing in the summer archive. Netizens commented that "Shaun the Sheep Movie" "surpassed 85% of cartoons." And the audience who was driven by the word-of-mouth marketing of domestic films finally saw a family-friendly popcorn movie that didn't put feelings and sincerity on their lips, but was really good-looking. This seemingly simple animated film probably shows two truths to Chinese audiences and animators: one is that in this fast era, patience and slow work are still commendable; the other is that you have learned the production experience of large companies and small workshops. Craft talents may go to the world.
Artistic creation is always associated with all kinds of unexpected connections, and this is probably the case with the birth of "Sean the Sheep". The high IQ and cool lamb from the UK first appeared in the "Super Invincible Head Dog" series. In 1995, in the third "Razor Edge" in the "Super Invincible Head Dog" series, the black-skinned, white velvet lamb Sean appeared. There is a bunch of rebellious mushroom cloud shape on its head, and it breaks into the home of Wallace and the head dog Gromit as an uninvited guest. It is a big appetizer and a veritable "trouble maker", but it has sentiment and meaning. When Wallace was falsely imprisoned, it took a group of other partners to launch a big rescue, and finally ushered in a happy ending.
This 30-minute stop-motion animation won the Oscar for the best short film that year-this is the third figurine of the British Adelman Animation Studio. In 2007, 12 years after the character was born, the "Sean the Sheep" series of animations was officially released. The story takes place on a farm outside the city of Bristol, England. A group of sheep headed by Sean takes a bath, plays football, and plays with instant photography every day. They try their best to listen to the cute host and listen to records and drink coffee. The literary and artistic watchdog is playing around.
Each episode of the "Shaun the Sheep" series has only 7 minutes, and there is no dialogue at all. Since 2007, "Shaun the Sheep" has been broadcasted for 4 seasons and a total of 130 episodes, broadcast in 180 countries and regions around the world. Even if you take the Beijing subway today, you can still see this little sheep. The short film and non-dialog setting pinch the travel pulse of urbanites precisely.
Because of the arrival of the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Goat, this cute British lamb has also become a messenger of friendship and culture between China and Britain. In March 2015, Prince William visited China. On the second day after landing, he came to the British Embassy and spotted a sculpture of Shaun the lamb. The lamb with the rice flag under the paintbrush is one of the images specially designed in the "Shaun's Into the City" event.
In order to raise funds for the Children’s Foundation established by Adman Studio, 50 sculptures of Sean the Lamb, redesigned by celebrities from all walks of life, have been placed in various places in London since the beginning of this year. In Sean’s hometown of Bristol, this number has reached 70. This black-skinned white little sheep has become another cultural signature of Britain.
Nowadays, "Shaun the Sheep" has changed from a 7-minute short film that everyone is accustomed to to an 85-minute movie. The characters in the play still communicate in simple single syllables, and the progress of the story depends entirely on Chaplin's body movements and facial expressions. Today, when computer animation occupies the mainstream market, stop-motion animations that consume a lot of manpower and rely on hand-made have become increasingly rare. In 2009, "Mary and Marx" moved many people to tears. This animation has a surprisingly perfect script, and insists on completely hand-made clay dolls to convey a rustic and slightly awkward texture. After sweeping the major film festivals, the film's five-year production and shooting stories have also appeared in major media and forums.
The filming of "Shaun the Sheep Movie" also took a long time. On the eve of the film's release, the British media went to the Adman studio to interview the investigators. The hand-made, frame-by-frame stop motion animations extremely test the patience of creators. When the progress is gratifying, a week is only 2 minutes in length. For an 85-minute movie, the filming time alone is more than a year.
The main creative team regards "authenticity" as the first rule of production. Whether it is the warehouse where the lambs live, the farm or the big city where the adventure takes place, all are full of various details. The posters and guns in the office of the animal shelter, the group photos and furnishings in the farm owner's house... all of these were done by hand by the staff bit by bit. There is a scene in the movie where lambs steal clothes from a second-hand clothing store, walking upright and pretending to be humans. The retro bright yellow sunflower patterns on the second-hand dresses are all hand-made by the staff and glued to the model one by one. It is natural to imagine how time-consuming and labor-intensive the whole movie is.
Although it is also slow work and meticulous work, but unlike "Mary and Marx", which focuses on adults, "Shaun the Sheep" initially targeted not picky adults, but children. The target audience set by Adelman Studio for the series of cartoons is young children aged 4-7. Beyond their expectations, audiences of all ages were attracted by this lamb. British media claimed that the "Sean the Sheep" "actual audience group is 4-87 years old". So in 2009, the studio produced and released Timmy the Little Sheep, featuring Sean’s nephew Timmy, which was broadcast on the BBC channel dedicated to children aged 4 and under.
"Shaun the Sheep" can be loved by audiences of all ages, perhaps because this series of animations target children, but they don't underestimate the audience's IQ. In addition to telling various coincidences and stories, it also brings a simple truth in life. The lambs are often lazy and play tricks on their owners and watchdogs, but they never want to cause them practical troubles. Compared with the three pigs under the same roof, which are unpredictable and profitable, the lamb can always reverse the situation and restore the original calm of the farm.
This simple and bright logic is not only the trend of stop-motion animation, but also a reflection of Hollywood's typical storytelling method. In 2000, Adelman Film Studio cooperated with Dreamworks to launch the stop-motion animation film "Little Chicken Run". In addition to the manual texture that is very different from ordinary computer animation, the success of "Little Chicken Run" lies in the continuous jokes of the plot and the serious topic wrapped in it: how can individuals who desire to change their destiny overcome their inherent weaknesses?
The "Little Chicken Run" and "The Curse of the Rabbit" in the "Super Invincible Head Dog" co-launched with DreamWorks are all popular and popular cartoons around the world. In 2006, the CGI animation "Wandering Mouse Country", a collaboration between the two parties, was accused of "nondescript". In the second year, due to differences in cooperation, the two parties failed to complete the agreement on the five animations and terminated the contract early. However, Peter Lord, one of the studio’s founders, also admitted that the collaboration with DreamWorks has brought Adman Studios into a new era.
After that, Adelman signed a three-year cooperation agreement with Sony Pictures. The two animated feature films "Arthur Christmas" and "Fantastic Pirates" are the product of collaboration. As the mainstay of the current stop-motion animation industry, Adman Studio is naturally familiar with technology and techniques. What I learned from major Hollywood companies may be how to make animations with a strong independent taste closer to the taste of the public.
"Shaun the Sheep Movie" is the beneficiary of more than ten years of cooperation. The production experience of five animated feature films makes Adman Studios more handy in the production of "Sean the Sheep Movie". As a standard-length animated film, this work obviously takes care of both children and adults. The rhythm of the various jokes in the film is appropriate, and the funny easter eggs are interspersed from time to time.
The image of the lambs pretending to be humans crossing the road pays tribute to the Beatles’ classic record cover, the escaped dog in the animal shelter imitates "The Shawshank’s Redemption", and the animal shelter is angry and pays tribute. "taxi driver". Stringing up these fragmentary eggs is the emotional clue that "the master abuses me thousands of times, and I treat the master as first love", which is a thread, but it makes people's eyes hot. Although the actions of the lambs are full of the wit and cunning of the little people, they always pay attention to the partners around them, which is undoubtedly the most simple and intuitive education for the little audience. The good luck of the lambs turning things around and the "sheep" will finally make this movie have a happy ending, suitable for the whole family to watch.
Compared with the niche "Mary and Marx", or the "Little Chicken Run" produced by Adelman, "Sean the Sheep Movie" may not be very amazing, but it scores evenly in all aspects. , Blameless. Compared with the “overcoming important scenes and scaring away countless animators” that some domestic animations have always promoted, although the production cycle of "Shaun the Sheep" is not short, everything is clear and orderly, and it does not make the British Empire. The animation talents are in awe. From stop-motion animated short films to making popular and popular animated films, the development of Adelman Studios over the past few decades has never been a short period of fireworks. Respect for the laws of the market and absorb mature experience may be able to achieve a long-lasting and orderly development, and also to continuously produce animation works that audiences love to see.
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