Aardman stop-motion films are built in a chain of decisions: drawings become an animatic, an animatic guides sets and puppets, animators move those physical elements a fraction at a time, and post-production turns the captured frames into a finished film. The studio’s documented projects show that the tools differ from production to production, but the work always joins planning, handcraft, controlled photography and finishing.
The production journey in one view
Stop motion is not simply a puppet placed in front of a camera. It is a staged production in which every department prepares the next department’s decisions.
- Story and planning: ideas are drawn, edited into storyboards and animatics, and tested before expensive physical work begins.
- World design: locations, camera positions and scale relationships are explored, sometimes with virtual-reality sets.
- Physical fabrication: puppets, props and sets are made as controllable objects rather than illustrations.
- Animation and capture: an animator changes a pose or object, captures a frame, and repeats the cycle hundreds or thousands of times.
- Post-production: compositing, rendering, alignment and colour work turn the frame sequence into a presentation-ready film.
Aardman’s Young V&A exhibition announcement describes this progression as running “from idea development and storyboarding to model making, filming and production, and post-production.” That sequence is a useful map, while individual productions choose different software, cameras and planning methods.
1. Develop the idea before anything moves
Drawings become an animatic
For the Battersea Power Station projection project, director Gavin Strange described the starting point this way: “All our films start out as drawings stitched together on a timeline to make an ‘animatic’. The animatic is then the blueprint for the entire film.” In practice, an animatic lets a team test the order of shots, approximate timing, screen direction and transitions before building every physical asset.
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The phrase “blueprint” describes Strange’s account of that project, not a rule that every Aardman production uses an identical pipeline. Its practical value is clear: changes made to a drawing or edit are cheaper than changes made after a set has been dressed or a puppet has been animated. Storyboards and animatics also give model makers, layout artists, camera teams and animators a shared reference for what each shot must accomplish.
Previsualization protects the physical schedule
Once the planned shots are understood, teams can determine which sets are needed, how large they must be, where a camera can fit and which characters require special versions. Previsualization may be built from drawings, digital assets or a combination of both. The purpose is to answer spatial questions early: will a character fit through a doorway, can the camera see the intended eyeline, and can the required movement be performed safely?
2. Design the world with virtual and physical tools
VR on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Director and designer Darren Dubicki described using virtual reality for early set and location design on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. The virtual sets allowed the team to explore scale and iterate before constructing the studio sets. This was not a replacement for physical stop-motion stages; it was a planning layer that helped several departments make decisions.
- Story: used the virtual environments to scout shots and build animatics.
- Previs: used the virtual sets as a starting point for previsualization.
- Art department: treated them as sketch-like three-dimensional blueprints for constructed and dressed sets.
- Colour planning: selected shots informed the film’s colour script.
Scale was a production-specific problem. Dubicki said the first Chicken Run used two character scales, while Dawn of the Nugget used three and occasionally four. Those counts belong to the productions he discussed; they should not be treated as a standard number for every Aardman film.
Why scale changes the build
A change in character scale affects more than the puppet. Doorways, furniture, tools, camera distance, replacement parts and the amount of movement an animator can make all have to work together. A shot may therefore require a differently sized character or a set element built for a particular scale. Virtual exploration can reveal those conflicts before a physical workshop commits to a final version.
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3. Build puppets, props and sets as working objects
The range of physical assets
The Young V&A exhibition announcement lists puppets, props, set models, concept art, character bibles and scripts among the materials that show how an Aardman production is assembled. A character bible and a script carry narrative and design information; a puppet and a prop must also survive repeated handling; a set model must provide the surfaces, openings and depth required by the camera.
Morph and the expressive potential of clay
Aardman’s history of Morph records that Peter Lord and David Sproxton made a simple terracotta-coloured figure from modelling clay. Morph could change back into a lump of clay, making the material transformation part of the character’s identity. That origin documents one character’s design; it does not mean every Aardman puppet is made entirely from clay. Productions select materials and construction methods according to the character, required movement, durability and scale.
For a home project, modelling clay for stop-motion projects can be enough to create a simple figure, but the clay itself is only one component. A stable surface, replaceable details and a way to keep the camera fixed are equally important once animation begins.
4. Animate by changing the physical world between frames
The frame-by-frame loop
- Place the puppet, prop and set in the starting pose.
- Lock the camera and lights, then capture one frame.
- Move the relevant parts by a very small amount. This may be a hand, head, eyelid, prop or piece of clay.
- Capture the next frame without changing anything unrelated.
- Continue the sequence, checking the previous frames to keep the motion smooth and the character grounded.
Playback turns those still images into apparent movement. The smaller and more consistent the changes, the more controlled the motion can appear; larger changes create faster or more stylised movement. The animator must also preserve continuity in the set. A fingerprint, shifted chair or altered light can become a visible jump when the frames are played in sequence.
A locked-off camera matters
Once a set is “hot”—already in active animation—touching the camera or disturbing the set can introduce a mismatch between frames. That is why a production may use remote controls, camera supports and careful set discipline. The exact equipment is a project decision, not a universal Aardman specification.
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The tethered-phone setup for Wallace & Gromit: Shot On iPhone
Gavin Strange’s account of Wallace & Gromit: Shot On iPhone describes an unusual capture arrangement. The iPhones were tethered by cable to animation towers and ran the Dragonframe tether app. This allowed the team to adjust exposure and focus remotely instead of touching the cameras after the set was active. The project was captured in Apple ProRAW.
Those details belong to that project. They demonstrate the underlying principle—remote control can protect continuity—without establishing that every Aardman production uses iPhones, Dragonframe tethering or ProRAW.
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5. Finish the captured material in post-production
From frames to a completed presentation
After capture, the frame sequence still needs finishing. Aardman’s process description includes post-production, and the Battersea account gives concrete examples: previsualization, compositing and rendering work, followed by final in-situ alignment and colour-grade tweaks before the public projection.
Compositing can combine separately captured elements or adjust how layers sit together. Rendering produces the final image from the working files and effects. Alignment is especially important for a projection mapped onto a real location, where the image must fit the physical architecture. Colour grading brings shots into a controlled visual relationship and can compensate for differences that become apparent when a sequence is viewed as a whole.
Home animators may complete a simple film with editing and basic exposure correction, while a large production can involve many specialised finishing steps. The captured frames are the foundation, not the end of the pipeline.
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How the documented approaches differ
| Production example | Planning or design method | How the method was used | Capture detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battersea Power Station projection | Drawings edited into an animatic | The animatic served as the blueprint for the film; the account also describes previsualization, compositing, rendering, alignment and colour-grade work. | Not stated in Gavin Strange’s 2025 account. |
| Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget | Virtual-reality sets for early design | Story used them to scout shots and build animatics; previs used them as a starting point; art used them as 3D construction blueprints; selected shots informed the colour script. | Not stated in Darren Dubicki’s 2024 account. |
| Wallace & Gromit: Shot On iPhone | Not stated in Gavin Strange’s 2025 capture account. | The account focuses on protecting an active set during filming. | iPhones tethered by cable to animation towers, Dragonframe tether app, remote exposure and focus adjustment, Apple ProRAW capture. |
The comparison shows why there is no single “Aardman setup” to copy. Planning can be primarily drawn, digitally spatial or both; physical construction remains essential even when virtual sets are used; and capture hardware can be selected around the risks of a particular production.
Try stop motion at home with everyday materials
A practical first exercise
The Young V&A exhibition announcement says visitors would be guided to make animation at home using everyday materials. A first film can use modelling clay, paper, cardboard, toys or household objects. Choose one object and one simple action—such as a ball rolling, a figure waving or clay changing shape—so that continuity is manageable.
- Plan a short action. Draw three to six key poses and decide how the action begins and ends.
- Make a stable stage. Use a table that will not wobble. Mark the positions of the main object and any important props with small pieces of tape.
- Fix the camera. A phone on a firm support is preferable to hand-holding. Keep the lens, distance and framing unchanged.
- Control the light. Use one consistent light source and prevent daylight from changing during the shoot.
- Capture small changes. Move the object a little, capture a frame, and repeat. Keep hands and loose materials clear of the set when the image is taken.
- Review frequently. Play back a short section before continuing. If the motion jumps, undoing a few frames is easier than discovering the problem at the end.
- Edit and export. Trim unwanted frames, add sound if desired, and export a copy before making further changes.
This approach reflects the exhibition’s everyday-materials invitation. It does not require the equipment listed for a formal course.
What a formal course adds
Aardman Academy’s online stop-motion course lists a stop-motion armature or puppet, an armature rig, Dragonframe and a compatible computer or smartphone among its requirements. It describes basic lighting—including a household lamp—and a basic tripod as optional but useful. Course materials include modelling clay, replacement mouth shapes, an armature head and eyes.
Those items support repeatable, instructional exercises; they are not a minimum kit for a first experiment at home. A beginner can start with an everyday object and a stable phone setup, then add an armature, rig or dedicated software when the limitations of improvised materials become the problem to solve.
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Training routes and changing course details
Aardman Academy also offers an in-person 32-week filmmaking programme covering scriptwriting, story development, pre-production, modelmaking, art department work and directing. The course page checked on 10 October 2026 listed January 2027 course dates, in-person study from February 2027 and a £16,550 fee. Dates, fees and availability can change, so applicants should verify the current listing directly before making plans. The Academy’s online training page describes a 12-week programme.
Formal study is most useful when a learner wants feedback across the whole production journey rather than only a camera exercise: developing a story, designing a workable character, building a set, directing performances and finishing the edit.
A note on speed and expectations
Aardman’s undated Morph character page displays an average of six seconds of animation created per day. Because the page does not give a publication year or define the scope of that figure, it should not be treated as a dated studio-wide production statistic or used to predict the time required for another film. A home test, a short course exercise and a feature shot have different levels of complexity, crew size and finish.
Why the finished films still feel handmade
The handcrafted impression comes from the connection between physical decisions and photographed frames: a puppet has a surface that catches light, a set has real depth, and an animator’s incremental adjustments remain visible in the performance. Digital planning and post-production can expand what the team tests and refines without removing the physical craft at the centre of the shot.
Alex Newson, Chief Curator at Young V&A, captured that continuity in the exhibition announcement: “Even though Aardman is now one of the most successful animation studios in the world, its films still have the same handcrafted feel.” The documented workflows explain how that feeling is achieved: plan carefully, build objects that can be controlled, protect the set while it is active, capture one change at a time, and finish the resulting frames with equal care.
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