Stop-motion animation is a prospect that is challenging enough for any studio, even Aardman, which is pioneering form for decades at this moment. But what happens when you decide to bring back a villain who’s famous for not being able to say a word, barely able to move any part of his face, and mostly getting by by standing and blinking?
“That was actually one of the most challenging aspects of the whole movie,” Nick Park said recently Inverse about the decision to bring back Feathers McGrawvillain of Wallace & Gromithis second TV appearance, Wrong pantsdecades later for Revenge Most Fowlnow flowing worldwide on Netflix. “At least Gromit has an eyebrow to raise. He can understand thoughts more clearly. It’s all about the simplicity of the way Feathers moves, with deliberate and small movements. Look here, blink. Minimalism, really.”
As Park explained, Wallace & Gromit taciturn characters are no strangers, given that the titular other half of the duo is a dog who cannot speak. But Gromit is still surprisingly articulated: his ears can move, his eyes are similar to any other human character, he can move different parts of his face and he has full hands, feet and even a neck to move his body and express his emotions clearly to the audience . Feathers, on the other hand, is a tiny stylized penguin (occasionally disguised as a rooster). His eyes are small balls, his whole body has the shape of a bottle. If Feathers wants to use body language, he has his fins, which are limited in their own way, and then he has to move his whole body at once. And yet, in both Wrong pants and Revenge Most Fowlhe remains utterly charming, occasionally sinister, yet completely communicative to the audience.
Despite more than three decades between his screen appearances, Park’s technique (and now his Revenge Most Fowl co-director, Merlin Crossingham) used to make Feathers “feel” similar to any other character in the Wallace & Gromit have remained the same. “We use camera movements, sound,” Crossingham explained. “He’s a very cinematic character because we rely, as filmmakers, on all those tricks to make him a hero/villain that you see and love to hate.”
The more things change, the more some things stay the same. But for Wallace & Gromitand Aardman in general, speaks to the timelessness of the craft involved in this type of traditional hand animation. “Once Toy story first came out in the ’90s, a studio like us, we’re like, ‘Oh man, how much more do we have left?'” Park concluded. “But we continued. As long as you’re telling good stories, compelling stories with compelling characters, then it’s really just a technique.” All these years later, Feathers is still as compelling as ever – and still up for those same cinematic tricks.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl now streaming on Netflix.
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