The Reel Rejects - MEETING THE DIRECTORS OF WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL!!! Interview | Aardman | Netflix

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

CHEEESE, GROMIT!! With the iconic stop-motion duo returning to the big screen, John was lucky enough to sit down & chat with Wallace & Gromit creator / director, Nick Park, along with co-director Merlin Crossingham to discuss the new movie, its origins as a half-hour short, the return of iconic villain Feathers McGraw (The Wrong Trousers), favorite cheeses, what invention Wallace & Gromit might come up with to create their very own movie, & MORE!! Vengeance Most Fowl is the second feature-length outing for Aardman Animations' beloved claymation characters following up 2005's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit! Vengeance Most Fowl finds Wallace readying a brand new invention to help Gromit in the garden -- a Smart Gnome by the name of Norbot! But when an old foe rears his be-gloved head once more, Wallace & Gromit spring into action once again to stop the zoo's greatest jewel thief from striking again!! PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/thereelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Google built-in, and advanced safety features for all your precious cargo. The new Volvo XC90, designed for life. Visit volvocars.com slash us to learn more. At Sierra, you'll always find apparel footwear and gear for 20 to 60% less than department and specialty store prices. But right now it's clearance time, so you can save even more on everything you need to get active and outside. Visit your local Sierra store today. Nick, Merlin, thank you so much for taking the time out.

I'm really excited to talk to you guys. Hi, hello. Thank you. Cheers. Well, I mean, to start, I wanted to start off with something a little fun because, you know, I've grown up with these movies and I've been, you know, watching Wallace's inventions and Gromit cleaning them up for so long. So I wanted to know if you had any ideas on, you know, if Wallace and Gromit were attempting

to make a film themselves, what would Wallace invent? to streamline the process and would Gromit as the de facto producer AD wind up ghost directing the entire thing. Blimey. Well, if they were going to make a stop motion filming. They'd invent

an auto director or something like that. True. Automated glove puppets. On those gloved hands, you know, that appear in all the machines. Oh, yeah, exactly. He says that Wallace could enjoy the hospitality at his leisure is probably... It would be a good cheesy craft services department, I would have to imagine.

Facts it cheese. I've heard you guys say that this, you know, began at Venge's the Most Fowl, which I got to, you know, attend the premiere of. I really enjoyed the film and you said it... Oh, did you? Oh, great. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It was a blast. You had the, you had a ring of the blue diamond. It was great. It did? Yeah. I was curious, you know, you said this started off as a short. And, you know, I wanted to know basically what aspects comprised that original short and at what point in the process do you go from needing to kill some darlings, perhaps,

to leaning into the fact that this is now a feature. Yeah. Well, it was more a case of fantastic happening chance for it in a way, because you're right, it started as a half hour short. And that was just Wallace inventing a robot gnome to help gromit in the garden. And it was really, we didn't have to really kill anything because it was really a, and a fantastic lightning strike kind of idea

of, because it was really lacking. The idea was really lacking, over the years, realized it was really lacking in it, like the sinister element and a motivated villain behind it all. And it was really, what a perfect opportunity to bring feathers back. Because we've resisted all this time because there's never a really good reason to do this.

so and this was like perfect he had a history with wallace and grommet and a personal you know personal vendetta it came to all of oh yeah it really kind of up the ante and really made the idea suddenly sizzled it just unlocked it and it kind of grew and matured at that point yeah and became a feature film by default really didn't it because it's a much bigger idea and when feathers mcgraw became that sort of you know expansion and solution to some of those issues uh you know is that where the film noir element kind of came heavily yeah i mean i think there was a there was a film not influence from the wrong trousers that came with feathers okay um but but it was very much part on our radar as it needing to be an influence this sort of a darker film noir

yeah style and the joke that we were making a gnome noir which the world's first nom noir most nom noir as soon to be a thriving genre That's right We probably don't copyright on it as well Not too late I couldn't help but notice too Speaking of feathers and everything And you know

Obviously Gromit doesn't really speak either I couldn't help but notice that Oftentimes it seems like the characters That don't speak are the more clever The more cunning while the characters who do Are often the bumble You know Wallace is always talking up his invention Until something goes wrong

And then it's Gromit, do something Is that a conscious element That you make effort to bring into something like this You know, like a Sean the Sheep is dialogue-free for the most part by design. But is that something you wanted specifically here for, you know, that tradition of animation to be represented? Yeah, it is. And I guess it comes from wrong trousers where there's only one speaking characters. And you do have to be quite careful, though, when you do have speaking characters not to use them for easy exposition.

Sure. And just to not be sort of telling the audience what they need to know without actually remembering that we have very powerful storytellers in our silent characters and to sort of not lean on dialogue unnecessarily so it's yeah but they are the they are the ones that drives a story and it's grommets's our hero and you're right the feathers and grommett are the clever ones yeah it's almost like a discovery isn't it that that in having a silent character like feathers see they have an attraction and a wait by being silent yeah it's like you stop and listen to them yeah yeah they have that screen presence they command your attention yeah right villains have you

yeah where they don't do anything they just observe and calculate and you know it's quite um it's the art of subtlety the power of subtlety isn't it the nuance well and is there a captivating. Oh, absolutely. And is there a key, you know, because you're filming these, a frame at a time, how do you go about really capturing the subtlety of those motions while also getting, you know, the communication out of them that you need? Yeah.

We use a technique that's, I think, probably fairly common in the animation industry, but we use it a lot, which is, as directors, we, when we're talking to our animators, who are essentially our actors, We video ourselves, we rehearse in front of a video camera. We don't use that for the animators to copy it because kind of eliminates the reason for animating in first place. But as performers, what that means is that there's elements of timing of the way when a shoulder drops, a look, all of the sort of the specific gold that makes a shot meaningful. That's what we find in us performing it.

And it's a great communication tool with the animators who can then, and then we don't just go for the shot straight off. We will test the shot in a sort of lo-fi, we call it a block. So in a blocky fashion, so it's not super refined, but in a way that gives us enough information so that we can then give notes to our animators who will then go on and do the shot. Oh, wow. So there's like a bit of previous essentially.

Yeah, it's a chance to just massage it in the right direction. Yeah, you kind of discover when you're acting through, you discover things that are important. It's like a rehearsal period, isn't it? Yeah, often you don't realize what the problems are until you've tried on it acting through it. And then you discover, oh, maybe we need to simplify this down even more. Yeah, because there's something difficult that's throwing its head up. Then you need to sort of keep doing it so you've got it right. Yeah, absolutely.

You see it. Goodness. There's so many more questions I would love to ask you guys. My time is up for right now. But thank you so much for everything over the years. I mean, I've been a fan of Armin since I was a child. To wrap this up, favorite cheeses? A very strong cheddar for me.

Excellent. Come on there. No, I don't know why I said that. You've made Wednesdaydale fans out of everyone in my house, so. Not even Wednesdaydale. Wednesday, I've sought it out because of Wallace and Gromit and have tried it myself. So you've kept Wensleydale alive and well. Thank you guys so much for chatting. This has been a real joy for me. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you so much. Cheers.