Behind the scenes!

This weekend we were given the opportunity to see behind the scenes in Aardman animations, and the BBC programme Andy's Wild Adventures. This gave us the chance to see how a programme is made and the work that goes in to get each shot.

On Friday we got to meet the crew that filmed Andys Wilds adventures. We were introduced to John Miller who is the director, by the set designer Keith who was the one that arranged for us to join them for half a day. Whilst on the course we have seen how a director works on location but not in studio so it was interesting to see. The shoot we were there for was the filming of Marine Iguanas. Andy who is the presenter of the show had to do a lot of takes when using props that didn't seem to work, get sprayed by a water pistol to represent iguanas spraying him and put his hand in a tank of water to give a realistic representation of picking up seaweed from the water bed. It was interesting to see how much green screen was used, and even the props for him to walk on or touch were green. Whilst filming they put the backdrop that would be on in post production on the screens so the actor could see where he would be placed. Storyboards were used to help define what shots had been done, and computers were in the studio to play back the recorded material. All of this showed the organisation that had gone into the production to get the shots in time.

On saturday, we got a quick tour of one of the smaller Aardman studios. It was empty because no one was working, which meant we got to see the sets and where they make the characters without disturbing filming. Paul, who works in advertising there gave us the tour. She showed us the ship they had built to make the new film The Pirates In an adventure with Scientists. This ship was bigger than I expected, it's very hard to work out the size ratio of the props, it was a lot taller than us and width ways again taller than us. She showed us the details that go into making the set, from carpets painted green to represent grass, props made for everything you can imagine from bread rolls to clothes on a washing line. The one thing that surprised me was the amount of lighting they used for each sets, Paul explained that they had to use so much light because they needed to light small sets and characters to prevent harsh shadows.

The weekend has opened my eyes more to the professional environment of the studio, as this is something we haven't really covered yet on our course.