LONDON — Aardman Animations (www.aardman.com) recently teamed up with Nokia to create the short film, Gulp. The project was captured entirely on Nokia N8 smart phones and is credited with the Guinness World Record for using the “World’s Largest Stop-motion Animation Set.”
WATCH THE VIDEO
The minute and a half video is part of an on-going campaign to present amazing and authentic use of mobile technology. Wieden + Kennedy conceived the project, which was directed by Aardman creative team Sumo Science directors Will Studd and Ed Patterson.
The film explores the life of a little fishing boat when the tide goes out. As the sea ebbs away fishing elements come to life manifesting a lone fisherman, out to find his catch. An ocean vista of waves, clouds and fish were all created using giant sand animation, carved in the beach itself. The fisherman is later swallowed by a huge sea monster, but a chain of events catapults him back to the surface.
Gulp highlights the Nokia N8’s Carl Zeiss optics and its 12-megapixel photography capabilities. Three phones were elevated 36 meters above a beach in South Wales, UK. The canvas measured 42.71 meters x 24 meters. The phones were mounted in a custom built rig and operated remotely by the crew in order to capture the huge images. Sand In Your Eye director Jamie Wardley choreographed a team of sand artists and 30 art student volunteers to create gigantic sand drawings with precision timing that had to be smoothed over and re-drawn every 4 minutes. The shoot lasted for seven days and one night, and the team captured as many as 75 frames per day.
MAKING OF VIDEO