Overfriendly_Kitten
Oct 8 2005, 12:58 AM
This is one of the oddest things I've heard...QUOTE
Wallace and Gromit spook island
In Portland, rabbits are called underground mutton or furry things.
Posters for the new Wallace and Gromit film on a south coast island will not feature the word "rabbit" because of a local superstition.
Because burrowing can cause landslips in quarries, residents of Portland, Dorset, instead call the creatures underground mutton or furry things.
Posters for the new film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, on Portland do not use the word, to respect local folklore.
Instead they simply say "Something bunny is going on".
Les Ames, mayor of Weymouth and Portland, told BBC News that the animals could cause dangerous landslips in the quarries the isle is famous for.
"If the word rabbit is used in company in Portland there is generally a bit of a hush," he said.
"In the olden days when quarrying was done by hand, if one of these animals was seen in the area, the quarryman would pack up and go home for the day - until the safety of the area had been reconnoitred.
"It is an unwritten rule in Portland that you do not use the word rabbit."
A spokesman for Aardman Animations said they
Calantyr
Oct 8 2005, 08:12 AM
Wow. A film promotion being considerate to the area it is advertised? Well I never.
Bit of a slap in the face to Guy Richie's Revolver who advertised the violent film at the site of deadly shootings.
Ashbless
Oct 9 2005, 06:13 PM
Wallace and Gromit looks like an excellent film. I started watching it last night. Loved the rabbit trying to bop one guy in the nose. Unfortunately my brother, we went together, has a tendency to just up and leave if he feels like it. As I'm the one giving him a ride to / from theatre it means I also leave the film. At least he paid for the movie this time. I still haven't seen the ending for War of the Worlds for the same reason.
Mata
Oct 10 2005, 01:24 AM
It's a great story isn't it? And, more importantly, it's another good reason to subscribe to the RSS feed of my blog,
http://www.matazone.co.uk/blog/?p=176 
CheeseMoose
Oct 10 2005, 03:50 PM
Have you heard about the
fire at Aardman Animations? Everything including sets, recordings and all the memoribilia that they had there from Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Wrong Trousers, Grand Day Out and others was destroyed.
It's terrible that all that memorabilia from all these great films has been lost. But, no-one was hurt so it's okay there.
Mata
Oct 10 2005, 05:12 PM
A squeaky voiced individual wearing white gloves and apparently with two black discs stuck to his head was spotted fleeing the scene.
CheeseMoose
Oct 10 2005, 05:38 PM
I heard it was a small black and white character with a red rubber glove on his head.
Daria
Oct 10 2005, 06:27 PM
You've both got it all wrong- they arrested a small underground mutton trying to dig away in it's getaway tunnel.
It is being held for police questioning.
JimiJimi
Oct 12 2005, 09:31 PM
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that warehouses have a strange habit of burning down?
/spam
Mata
Oct 13 2005, 12:20 PM
This one has the side benefit of not only being a good insurance scam but also promoting the film at the same time. The biggest shame is that they couldn't fit a few of Tracey Emin's works in there before they started it.
CommieBastard
Oct 13 2005, 01:08 PM
QUOTE (Mata @ Oct 13 2005, 01:20 PM)
The biggest shame is that they couldn't fit a few of Tracey Emin's works in there before they started it.
Oooh,
controversial 
I rather like Emin, myself, but that's a topic for another thread, should you care to start it.
Righteous
Oct 13 2005, 07:26 PM
When will this be available in the States? My brother, dad, little sister and I love Wallace and Gromit.
JimiJimi
Oct 13 2005, 08:56 PM
QUOTE (Mata @ Oct 13 2005, 01:20 PM)
The biggest shame is that they couldn't fit a few of Tracey Emin's works in there before
they started it.
Ooh, Mata, whoever said it was deliberate? I think you'd better come and answer a few questions at the station.
CheeseMoose
Oct 15 2005, 02:17 PM
I think it was put best by Mitch Benn, in this song braodcast today on the It's Been A Bad Week Show (The Worst Week of the Week Award, Awarded Weekly on a Week by Week Basis):
It was an ordinary day,
When the dreadful story broke.
How the greastest heros
In the land, went up in smoke.
Oh the nation wept as one,
Couldn't believe that they were gone.
Yes, everybody felt it,
When Wallace and Gromit melted.
The people hung their heads and mourned,
Those stars of the silver screen.
Who wouldn have thought we'd feel such pain,
At the passing of lumps of plasticine?
At their hour of victory,
They were snatched away so cruelly.
And everybody cried,
When Wallaec and Gromit got liquified.
Yeah
Mata
Oct 16 2005, 12:37 AM
That's very somber.
Anyway... Has anyone seen it yet? Did they like it? Sues and I plan to go see it at some point just on the principle that Aardman haven't done anything badly yet so why would they start now? I don't think it's a good idea to end every sentence in a paragraph with a question mark, is it?
Novander
Oct 16 2005, 12:21 PM
I saw it on friday, the late night showing with only 5 or so people in the audience. I don't think its too much of an overstatement to say its the best film ever made by anyone ever.
Its pretty much standard Wallance and Gromit fare, but feature length. My house mate got bored towards the end, saying it went on too long, but I think they managed to keep the humour all the way through.
NOTE: So you don't have to, I waited all the way through the credits to see if they had any chicken-run style extra scenes at the end. They don't. I was sat in the cinema on my own at one in the morning. Man, did I feel stupid.
I_am_the_best
Oct 16 2005, 02:18 PM
I saw it on Friday. I loved it. The style, the plot, the jokes, it was great. And as sad as it is with the warehouse burning down, it's great publicity.
Ashbless
Oct 17 2005, 12:39 AM
I went back, by myself this time without picky little brother
, and watched the whole film. I liked it. I liked the nod to Watership Downs and the in-jokes refering to earlier Wallace and Grommit episodes.
I'm glad you stayed until the end Novander. I'd been kicking myself for not doing so. I was wondering if I'd missed anything. Thank you for doing it.
elphaba2
Oct 17 2005, 07:11 PM
QUOTE (Mata @ Oct 15 2005, 08:37 PM)
Anyway... Has anyone seen it yet?
I saw it a few weeks ago and liked it very, very much. The evening was only magnified in wonderfulness after a jaunt on a McDonald's plastic castle. I regressed about five years, yes, but that's not a very large number of years. If you think about it.
Also:
QUOTE (Righteous @ Oct 13 2005, 03:26 PM)
When will this be available in the States? My brother, dad, little sister and I love Wallace and Gromit.
It's been here for a bit, might be delayed in Florida?
Righteous
Oct 22 2005, 05:46 PM
It's come out in the theater in my town! I want to see if my dad and brother would be interested in going. We love Wallace and Gromit.
Fallen Element
Oct 22 2005, 11:18 PM
Just back from seeing it now - all I have to say is: Go. See it. Now.
T'was amazing! Even although it's aimed at a younger audience a lot of the humour is aimed towards <uses term loosely> adults. Definate must see!
I'm going to bed now - hopefully to dream of Hutch! (If you go, you'll know what I mean
)
Fal xXx
Star_of_Lei
Oct 23 2005, 03:49 PM
I loved it. Even though all the brats in the cinema were kicking seats and crying and laughing in all the wrong places and such (I'm not a kid person). But I kept laughing the whole way through. The best part was that box that Wallace used to cover himself. Me and mum were still laughing when we got home.
oscarhilton
Oct 23 2005, 05:29 PM
May Contain Nuts
heh heh hee....
I thought it was good. I mean who doesn’t like Wallace and Grommet? It was a laugh. I saw it with some of my friends. The story line was quite good… but had some bad points.
It just makes me feel a bit irritated that they can be bothered to do ALL of that clayamation!
Star_of_Lei
Oct 23 2005, 05:31 PM
Yeah, I must admit I sat there thinking "Blimin 'eck these people have NO life!"
oscarhilton
Oct 23 2005, 05:33 PM
Yeah.... But then they did make ALOT of money out of it...
Apparently it took them a day to do 3 seconds!
JimiJimi
Oct 24 2005, 10:22 PM
Well, at 24fps, 3 seconds is 72 frames. Aardman take a while, so let's say they work 16 hour days. That works out at 57,600 seconds in a working day I think - so that's 800 seconds (13 minutes) per frame, or 19,200 seconds (320 minutes) per second.
</bored>
Mata
Oct 25 2005, 11:25 AM
QUOTE (oscarhilton @ Oct 23 2005, 05:29 PM)
It just makes me feel a bit irritated that they can be bothered to do ALL of that clayamation!
I think you're missing out on the point there somewhat! By using pliable materials they can get a range of organic expression that only the most expensive computer-rendered models even come close to approaching. They might only make three seconds a day, but those three seconds will have more character in them than three seconds of pretty much any other animation technique.
Sometimes it's taken me a whole week to get through a few seconds of my animations just because hand-drawn work is also extremely time consuming, even with the help of a fill-pot to do the colouring for me!
Witless
Oct 25 2005, 03:12 PM
All 'decent' animation takes a long time.
Wallace and gromit didn't even take as long as some of those eastern anime films.
Spirited away took 4 years to make because the director was determined to hand draw every frame. The result was a spectacular looking thing. Most animation series only keep time down by reusing frames, or just not making them high quality.
As guiness adverts keep pointing out.
'good things come to those who wait'
CommieBastard
Oct 25 2005, 03:58 PM
Yeah. Look at the backgrounds next time you're watching The Simpsons. They're very very simple - just a few lines filled in with flat colours, most of the time. Then look at the backgrounds in a Miyazaki Hayao production (like, Witless notes, Spirited Away) and see how rich with detail every frame is. That's the difference that the extra effort makes.
(not, incidentally, that I blame anybody for taking the simple route. Animation takes sodding ages)
Mata
Oct 25 2005, 04:19 PM
My solution has generally been to try for a 'money shot' in the animations, i.e. one small sequence that takes up all the time and keep everything else as static as possible.
Did you ever wonder why so many cartoon characters in animation series' have flapping clothes? It's because you can do a three frame cloth flap and then just pan still images to keep it visually interesting while the plot goes on. Guess why Lapin stole that flag
Daria
Oct 28 2005, 06:41 PM
On a different note- did anyone else think that it is most definitely aimed more at adults this time? I always thought the others were, but in this one there are some definite double entendres ("It ravished my wifes Brassicas!") and references to other films (King-Kong) which younger kids just wouldn't get.
artist.unknown
Oct 28 2005, 07:40 PM
Agreed, there were definately some rather *hem* adult jokes. My personal favourite being the box Wallace uses to cover himself, with "May Contain Nuts" stragetically written. Oh, that Wallace.
JimiJimi
Oct 29 2005, 05:11 PM
I saw it two days ago, and these days when I go to watch a film, I tend to take in all the effects and how they did it rather than the actual plot. When the credits rolled I felt like applauding - it was so bloody fantastic. I can't even begin to imagine how they made it so good.
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