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A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020)

 
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Eadie
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 22, 2019 2:42 pm    Post subject: A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020) Reply with quote

Netflix is poised to be an animation powerhouse with an eclectic slate of features, including the Shaun the Sheep sequel and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/netflix-aardman-a-shaun-the-sheep-farmageddon-to-animation-slate-exclusive-1202191017/

Animation

Netflix has picked up U.S., Canadian, and Latin American rights to Aardman’s latest stop-motion feature, “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon,” the sci-fi/comedy sequel to the Oscar-nominated “Shaun the Sheep Movie.” Co-directed by Aardman animators Richard Phelan and Will Becher, and revolving around a martian toddler, “Farmageddon” (from StudioCanal) will stream in early 2020; Netflix will support an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run next season.

This bolsters Netflix’s ambitious slate of nearly a dozen animated features, coming on the heels of this month’s initial two, Oscar buzzy, releases: Klaus, the charming Santa origin story with innovative 2D, and I Lost My Body, the acclaimed French existential mystery about a severed hand that’s the most original animated feature of the season. After only two years, Netflix has quickly established itself as a viable alternative to the Hollywood studios and a direct competitor to indies GKids and Sony Pictures Classics.

Led by Melissa Cobb, vice president of original animation (including both features and series), Netflix functions as a front end studio with an eclectic mix of passion projects aimed at a diverse audience, but which outsources the actual animation. Several productions, though, are partner-managed, which makes it an unconventional, global pipeline. Klaus, directed by Despicable Me creator Sergio Pablos, was made at his animation studio in Madrid, Spain. Netflix’s next feature in 2020, The Willoughbys, a 2D comedy (from director Kris Pearn, formerly with Sony) about siblings getting revenge on their ruthless parents, was produced at Bron Studios in Vancouver. My Father’s Dragon (2021 or 2022), a 2D fairy tale from director Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), is being made with Cartoon Saloon in Ireland. And Escape From Hat (2022), a CG fairy tale about inclusion from director Mark Osborne (The Little Prince), is in production in New York.

“When I first got here, there were two big ‘what ifs?’ about making our own animated features,” Cobb said. “What if we took the Netflix model of supporting the creator and allowing them to do great work, but not micromanaging them, and giving that to animation filmmakers? And then what if we built a slate like a live-action studio with different budgets, styles, tones? Now that we’ve been doing this for a couple of years, we’re able to do earlier development and really look at stories in their more germination stage, as well as moving forward on projects that came with a script and some art.”

Other upcoming releases include: Over the Moon (2020), the CG musical adventure about a girl who journeys to the meet the Moon Goddess (directed by Disney legend Glen Keane, produced by China-based Pearl Studio of Abominable fame, and animated at Sony Pictures Imageworks); Wendell and Wild (2021), the stop-motion feature from director Henry Selick (Coraline) about two demon brothers (voiced by Jordan Peele and Michael Key and animated in Portland, Oregon); Guillermo del Toro’s adult-themed, stop-motion Pinocchio (2021), set against the backdrop of Mussolini’s fascist Italy in the 1930s (animated at Portland-based ShadowMachine of Bojack Horseman fame and at a studio set up by del Toro in his home of Guadalajara, Mexico); and Jacob and the Sea (2022), the CG tale of an unlikely alliance between a seafarer and a sea monster, from former Disney director Chris Williams (co-director of the Oscar-winning Big Hero Six).

Additionally, there’s the untitled CG musical about the life of Fugees founding member and Haitian-born Wyclef Jean, produced by Greg Silverman and Jean, and scripted by Justin Marks (The Jungle Book); Thelma the Unicorn, the CG musical about a pony that becomes a pop-star Unicorn (from Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared and Jarusha Hess, with Jared directing); Pashmina, the graphic novel-turned CG musical about a first generation American of Indian descent who explores her family heritage, directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham); America: The Motion Picture, an R-rated, revisionist comedy (with Channing Tatum voicing George Washington), produced and animated by the Floyd County Archer team in Atlanta, in collaboration with Phil Lord & Chris Miller (Oscar-winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse); and Tunga, the CG musical about a young African girl who enters the spirit world to save her village from drought, from first-time Zimbabwean screenwriter Godwin Jabangwe, a participant in Imagine Entertainment’s inclusive Impact 1 program.

For Cobb, inclusion and diversity are crucial at Netflix, both in terms of content and its creators. And that includes empowering female directors such as Twomey and Chadha, as well as signing directing deals with editor Clare Knight (the Kung Fu Panda sequels), VFX supervisor Wendy Rogers (Puss in Boots), and animation supervisor Trisha Gum (The LEGO Movie 2).

“It’s incredibly important in terms of diversity of storytellers,” Cobb said. “Some have different experiences and different backgrounds, not only demographically but also coming from different parts of the business. I also just feel that we have the opportunity to work with newer creators, and that it gives us the chance to hopefully see more female voices and diverse voices in the animated feature space. It’s time for that to happen.”

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Eadie
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 1695

PostPosted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I saw it today!

Aardman’s Stop-Motion Sequel Goes Sci-Fi

Netflix was smart to pick up Aardman's sequel to the Oscar-nominated Shaun the Sheep Movie.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/a-shaun-the-sheep-movie-farmageddon-aardman-stop-motion-sci-fi-sequel-1202211384/

Aardman couldn’t resist embracing sci-fi for the first time. And for newbie feature directors Will Becher and Richard Phelan, it was a rare opportunity to take a deep dive into the genre, especially the beloved films of Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial).

When a cute yet free-spirited alien child, LU-LA, crash-lands near Mossy Bottom farm, Shaun, normally the troublemaker, becomes a responsible buddy on a quest to find Lu-LA’s lost spaceship and return home, fighting off a secret government agency bent on capturing the alien.

“The idea of Shaun being the rebel and always pushing boundaries changes when he meets this alien who has no limits, who has no boundaries,” said Becher. “And he has to grow up a bit, learning what it’s like to be an older brother. We talked a lot about the days we started school or meeting new people or foreign exchange students, where we realize there are cultural differences. So we learn and grow as people.”



“Once the idea of doing of sci-fi film had been agreed, we went to town on watching and getting a feeling from all those films that we grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Phelan. “And then we went further back as well, and got all the crew enthused about science-fiction as a genre.”



That meant exploring new frontiers for the legendary stop-motion studio from Bristol, England. They created larger and more ambitious sets, made the largest puppet with a two-foot robot, and played with different lighting, camera lenses, and compositions. At the same time, they planted plenty of sci-fi nods, from an H. G. Wells sign to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey to the TARS tactical robots from Interstellar. They even stocked an entire supermarket with references, including Matt Damon’s character from The Martian, Mark Watney.

The work began with concept art of the familiar “Shaun the Sheep” farm, redesigning the yard to provide an old-school look, and adding corn fields for the iconic image of a crops circle. “We had these great ambitions,” added Phelon. “A sinister underground base, which was a Bondesque lair, the biggest set we’ve ever built.” It’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb meets Moonraker in a Ken Adam production design mashup. “We gathered photos of underground bunkers and it became a mixture of dynamite blasted caves and poured concrete,” Phelon said. “It was like a harsh dragon’s lair with jagged rocks and cold, scientific, hard angles throughout with white light.”

By contrast, LU-LA’s planet contains very bright colors and UV paint that glows in a really odd way under the light. Not surprisingly, LU-LA, the fastest creature earth has ever seen, posed the biggest character-design challenge. How to find an alien version of Shaun that’s just as iconic? “Lots of designs came in,” said Phelon. “Spiky, slimy, but one of the artists drew the shape of a classic ’50s UFO and underneath it a rocket thrust coming out, which formed this triangle body shape. And even some of the jet thrusts became these flecks on her body.” It was simple but expressive, with blue and purple as her signature colors.



To complete the sci-fi aesthetic, Aardman used wider lenses and camera movement to build a sense of mystery and excitement. And the studio used a lot more lighting than before, with wide angle fallout and lots of tiny LEDS that they could fit inside parts of sets and vehicles (constructed with the same technique of rapid prototype printing made famous by stop-motion studio Laika). “We had a spaceship with 2,000 different light combinations that would come on and off whenever we want,” said Becher.



“We like problem solving using every technique,” Becher said. “Matte paintings, miniatures within miniatures to give a sense of scale and perspective, projections on cameras, every trick in the filmmaking book, and then as much cutting edge technology as well.”

Trailer #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DH8TShEgdA (You have to suffer a commercial first.)

Trailer #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RecHCOkgOvI (No commercial.)

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