The cheese-loving English inventor Wallace and his loyal dog Gromit have been stars since the beginning.
In the 35 years since Nick Park introduced the world to his stop-motion creations and their eccentric, unapologetically British existence, they’ve won Oscars, appeared in commercials, video games, animated series and even the occasional bit of (unofficial) protest art. Feature films, however, have been few and far between. Part of the reason is the difficulty: Even a 30-minute short can take upward of two years. Besides, why mess with a formula that’s produced only classics?
After working on the pair’s first feature, “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” which was released in 2005 and won an Oscar, and “Early Man,” Park even doubted that he’d dabble in the form again. But sometimes inspiration requires a little more breathing room: That’s how the second “Wallace & Gromit” feature film, “Vengeance Most Fowl,” came to be. It debuts on Netflix worldwide, except in the U.K., on Friday.
Gnomes have always been part of Wallace and Gromit’s world. After “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” Park started kicking around an idea about a smart gnome, Norbot, built to help Gromit in the garden.
“There was something a bit missing,” Park said. “We tinkered around with the story on and off for years and it seemed to be lacking the more sinister element that’s often in ‘Wallace & Gromit.’ Why do the gnomes go wrong? Who was the motivated villain?”
Five years ago, the solution came to them: Feathers McGraw, the conniving penguin with a penchant for heists and simple disguises, who turned their lives to chaos in “The Wrong Trousers.”
“He was the answer to everything,” Park said. “The story got bigger and more exciting. Suddenly it became a feature-length film.”
Over the years, Park and his co-director Merlin Crossingham often heard fan requests to bring Feathers back.
“We’d been very noncommittal about it because characters haven’t in the past come back,” Crossingham said. “But when we did drop a little teaser trailer, we were completely bowled over by the response. At that point, we were still making the film and it kind of gave us a boost and that confidence that it was the right thing to do.”
They needed it too since Feathers McGraw, like a true diva, was by far the most difficult puppet to animate, direct and light — this in a movie that has chase sequences, special effects and an army of evil gnomes. The simplicity of his design, and the fact that he doesn’t speak, gave them no room to hide. In fact, in their world-class group of animators at Aardman, Park said only five volunteered to work on Feathers.
“All the filmmaking tricks have to come together very well to make Feathers have that screen presence that we needed from him,” Crossingham said.
Part of the charm of the “Wallace & Gromit” films is their unabashed Britishness, which the filmmakers have had to fight (politely) to preserve as their audience has become more and more global. While Netflix was largely supportive, they did have a bit of a back and forth over the turn of phrase “Flippin’ Nora!” (They ultimately kept it.)
“A lot of the stuff in the films is inspired by stuff we grew up with, the design of things, little products,” Park said.
He was particularly happy to include a “high-speed” barge chase on the canals and a joke about police at the Yorkshire border — melding uniquely British references with big Hollywood movie tropes.
“I think all of it is a sort of a lovely homage to Britishness and not in a patriotic way, just kind of laughing at ourselves culturally,” Crossingham said.
The starting point for all scenes was always the traditional: In camera, stop-motion animation like they’ve been using since 1989. It is, Crossingham said, fundamentally vital to the films to see the thumbprints on the characters and know that they’re handmade.
There have always been limitations, and the option to use more digital assistance, but it’s only been in recent years that computer graphics have caught up enough to blend in. Effects like fog and steam are possible in stop-motion, but, they explained, they never look quite right.
“The main thing we required was that if we were going to use a digital technique, could we force it to look right for our film rather than it just being bolted on and feeling like an accessory that was a bit of an unwelcome guest,” Crossingham said. “The visual effects department at Aardman worked very hard to get that stylizing so that it felt right in ‘Wallace and Gromit,’ in which and the sets and the props are characters in themselves.”
The tension between embracing technological innovation like artificial intelligence and preserving the old ways that still work was not just something they were thinking about off-camera. It’s at the heart of the film too, as Wallace’s well-intentioned invention turns against him (and wreaks havoc on the town).
“It’s a bit meta,” Crossingham said. “I think there’s something that resonates with audiences with stop-motion that they can tell it’s handcrafted, they can tell that’s the human touch.”
Park said he used to worry about the future of stop-motion, wondering how much time they had left. Recently, though, he’s seen a resurgence.
“As long as we’re telling good stories, entertaining and compelling stories with compelling characters, we’ll keep going,” he said.
5: Years it took to make “Vengeance Most Fowl”
10: Norbot puppets (with 20 interchangeable heads)
11: Feathers McGraw puppets
20: Years since the last “Wallace & Gromit” feature film
22.5: Hours of Wallace dialogue recorded by Ben Whitehead (who took over after Peter Sallis’ death in 2017)
32: Animators
127: Seconds of animation produced each week
200+: Crew members
600: Eyes made for all characters in the film
750: Norbot hands created (without spoiling too much … they get up to a lot …)
