Wallace & Gromit stretch the imagination

Despite being about only nine inches and four inches tall respectively, Wallace and Gromit have previously starred in three award-winning short films and are already big names around the world. And if you haven’t heard of them before, that’s about to change as the plasticene pair are getting ready to embark on their first big-screen adventure, Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, opening in October.

The claymation feature film centers around the annual Giant Vegetable Competition in Wallace and Gromit’s town. Wallace, a quirky inventor with a penchant for cheese, and his faithful canine, Gromit, run a humane pest-control business, Anti-Pesto, which thwarts the local rabbit population—preventing them from looting the local gardens. But trouble looms for everyone when a mysterious beast suddenly begins to terrorize the neighborhood and ravage the town’s great vegetable plots.

Nick Park, creator of Wallace and Gromit, co-directs Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Steve Box. Box has previously collaborated with Park on two Wallace & Gromit short films: He animated the characters Feathers McGraw in The Wrong Trousers and Wendolene Ramsbottom in A Close Shave. Both films won Academy Awards in the Best Animated Short category.

Fans of Wallace and Gromit have been waiting a long time for the characters to appear on the big screen. "When the film will be in cinemas, it'll be pretty much five years to the day since we began writing," explains Box. "We take our time!"

It took one and a half tons of plasticene to make Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. That's about the combined weight of four full kindergarten classes!

Every member of your family will be able to enjoy Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Fans come in all ages, and the directors don't target a specific audience. Park says, "We've never really aimed at anybody. We've just done what we think is funny to ourselves, and now we've gone into feature film land, we often question will this speak to the American public? and will American kids understand this bit of English dialect?"

"We've stuck with our funny English accents," concludes Park. "We want to respect audiences around the world—including the American audience—and their ability to understand other cultures. The entertainment is universal, so we've carried on doing what we think is funny."

After seeing Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, your children may be interested in finding out about, and playing with, clay. Nick Park started making animated films at age 13, and his fascination with clay goes back further: He remembers being given some clay to play with on his first day at school. He made a train and everyone admired it. "First, it started off as a hobby," Park says of animating clay models. "It doesn't feel like a proper job. I always feel like someone's going to find out!"

Park suggests emphasizing the enjoyment of clay with your children. "Take a blob and just play with it, make it metamorphisize into different shapes and characters, and just have fun."

Children of all ages can enjoy playing with clay or play dough. You can encourage toddlers to identify the different colors of your play dough models, and let them watch as you transform one shape into another, into another. Preschoolers will enjoy discovering the tactile nature of play dough as they squeeze it in their hands and ooze it between their fingers. Young children may be surprised at how adept they are at making simple play dough models, such as balls and worms. Ask them if they can make a family of worms, then have them tell you the color of each one.

You can encourage your older children to manipulate play dough into different shapes. Ask them if they can make a star, a triangle, or a square. Let them make shapes for you, and try to identify each one in turn. If you follow the homemade play dough recipe, older children can help in the kitchen when supervised. Ask for their help with mixing the dry ingredients. Let them knead the play dough when it has cooled. If you make play dough in different batches of color, make a game of creating your colors ("What will we get if I add a drop of yellow and a drop of blue?").

After seeing Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, your elder children may also be interested in finding out about, and trying, clay animation. A very delicate process is employed in the feature film. Gromit doesn't speak, so he has to communicate entirely through his expressions. Steve Box says, "I think Gromit is such huge value to the movies as he's the audience's way into the films. I think the animators fear animating Gromit more than any other character because every tiny movement is so crucial."

Nick Park explains the process further, "The medium is so important because you can manipulate in such fine ways, and create such nuance and expression. The animators, when they animate a shot—a single frame—they manipulate the eyebrow for every single frame of the film. It's twenty four times [frames] to make one second of film."

Wendy Jackson Hall, founder of Animated Adventures, a Pacific Northwest company that helps people of all ages express themselves through the art of animation, suggests children try an activity involving replacement animation. Jackson Hall explains, "Replacement animation is one of the best methods to create smooth animation, especially for faces. Rather than re-sculpt the face over and over again, the animators make many different heads for the same character and switch the heads while they are animating, creating subtle changes of expression."

The following replacement animation activity is called a cartoon take (when a character sees something surprising and reacts in an exaggerated way).

Open your hands flat and roll some play dough between your palms to create a ball. Make three balls in total, each about the size of a golf ball. You can use household objects, such as toothpicks, popsicle sticks, and pencils, to sculpt the play dough.

Jackson Hall continues, "Sculpt the first ball into the head of a person with a normal expression, with open eyes and a straight or slightly smiling mouth. Pinch the play dough out from the ball a little at a time to make a nose, ears, and any other details. For the eyes, use a couple of googly eyes, beads, or dry black-eyed peas. This face is the standard face of your character."

Sculpt the second and third balls so they look like the same character, but with the following facial expressions. Give the second ball a squished-up face. Make the eyes closed, squinting (make two U shapes). Make the mouth closed, and closer to the nose. "This face," explains Jackson Hall, "is the anticipation face your character makes right before reacting to something."

Give the third ball a surprised-looking face. Make the eyes the same as the first ball, but with raised eyebrows. Make the mouth O-shaped. This is the extreme face of your character's reaction.

Place a digital camera in a secure position on a table (or use a tripod) so that it doesn't move when you take a picture of each head in turn, in the same position. Cycle back and forth through the three pictures to see your animation. Try making more heads with different expressions and have fun!

Steve Box has one more piece of advice for would-be clay aficionados: "Don't drop it on the carpet."

Ingredients: 3 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups salt, 6 tsp cream of tartar, 3 cups water, 3 tbsp oil. Food coloring optional.

Directions: Mix ingredients together. Stir over medium heat until mixture sticks and forms ball. Knead after cooling. Store in airtight container.

Children should be supervised when playing with all homemade products. For reference, write the ingredients on a piece of paper and secure to container.