Shaun the Sheep

Like all of Aardman's work, the TV series "Shaun the Sheep" is super charming and a delight to watch. So when a chance to work on the show presented itself, I naturally jumped at it!

Bitzer, the sheepdog, is relaxing with the paper and a cup of tea in "Bitzer's Basic Training,"
season 2, episode 24 (2009).

Back in the spring of 2009, it came to my attention that some of my friends in the Israeli animation business were working on the storyboards for the second season of the beloved British claymation series. I realized that this was a unique opportunity and decided to try to get a piece of the action. I contacted the local storyboard director to offer my services, but when I couldn't really get a clear answer from him, I made the bold decision to jump on the first plane from Copenhagen and simply show up at the studio in Tel Aviv, ready for work. Thankfully, my chutzpa paid off.

I was given an episode called "Bitzer's Basic Training," in which Bitzer, the sheepdog, fears that the Farmer is planning to replace him with a more efficient and obedient dog. So Shaun, the unofficial leader of the sheep flock, offers to help whipping Bitzer into shape in order to save his job. The mission succeeds beyond expectation, of course, when Bitzer ends up taking his new role a bit too seriously, requiring Shaun to step in and solve the problem.

The script was changed several times during the storyboard phase requiring me to redo a number of sections again and again, with the outtakes amounting to almost as many storyboard panels as those that made up the final animatic. In the end, some of the shots that were previously cut out eventually found their way back into the movie. The whole process took about two months, far more than justified by the modest remuneration offered. But that didn't matter. Half of my pay went to travel expenses anyway. The main objective was to be part of the Shaun the Sheep story. And so it was, and for that I am grateful.

The episode "Bitzer's Basic Training" originally aired on 20th May 2010.

Here's a video of the final animatic, synced up to the sound from the actual color movie.

And here is a "dual video" of part of the animatic (the "training sequence") juxtaposed with the final movie for easy comparison.

A "dual video" of the entire episode can be seen on YouTube here (only available outside Europe).

You can see some storyboard snippets from other Shaun the Sheep episodes made by my good friend and long time colleague Doron Meir here at the Living Lines Library.

Pirates

One thing that helps make character designs more interesting, is if the individual characters are distinctly different from each other. Not just in the details, but in their overall graphical shapes.

Most of the regular monkeys in Marco Macaco are relatively similar, but our three villains are indeed represented by three different basic geometrical shapes. The President is an upside-down pyramid or triangle, Carlo is a big fat cone, while the Pirate Captain is more or less a ball.

Carlo

Baboon Carlo sketches by Dan Harder, 2010.

Nailing the design of Carlo, the primary villain of Marco Macaco, took a little back and forth before the director Jan Rahbek was happy. As you can see from the early sketches (below), a number of different ideas had already been floated prior to my arrival on the project.

Early sketches of Carlo by Jan Rahbek and Teddy Kristiansen, 2009.

Suggestions for Carlo by Kim Hagen, 2009.

The President

The Monkey Island in Marco Macaco is ruled by a ruthless dictator, the President, whose security interests are Marco's most passionate concern. Whereas Lulu's model is basically a modification of Marco's, the President has a completely new type of monkey face, which is in turn reused for a number of other characters, such as pirate monkies and some incidental characters.

Early sketches of the President by Jan Rahbek, 2009.

President suggestions by Teddy Kristiansen and Kim Hagen, 2009.

As with Lulu, preliminary sketches had been done by Jan Rahbek, Kim Hagen and Teddy Kristiansen. As you can see, my final design didn't deviate much from the early ideas. I exaggerated the shoulders to make his body shape more triangular, and after a few attempts settled on the funny long muzzle. I kind of like the graphical quality of the mouth, something that is not often seen in CGI animation.

Lulu

On the Marco Macaco feature, as on the Disco Worms, and again necessitated by the limited budget, extensive reuse was planned between the characters. The monkeys in the movie were confined to three major types (or races, if you will), the vast majority belonging to the same race as Marco. That was indeed the case for the female main character, Lulu.

Her initial rough design was done by director Jan Rahbek. More suggestions were made by designers Kim Hagen and Teddy Kristiansen. But as usual, Jan knew pretty much what he was looking for, so my final design didn't stray very far from his original vision.

Early sketches of Lulu by Jan Rahbek and Kim Hagen, 2009.

More Lulu sketches by Teddy Kristiansen and Jan Rahbek, 2009.

Inspirational modelsheet for Lulu by Dan Harder, 2010.

Marco Macaco Character Design

I don't think I'm offending anybody if I say that the Marco Macaco feature (aka Carlo's Casino) is probably the weirdest movie I have ever worked on. At the same time it is also one of the best looking.

Marco Macaco movie poster, 2012

Considering the budget (less than 3 million dollars) it is down right amazing what the team of artists achieved on this project.

With an average footage requirement per animator of 16 seconds (24 feet) a week, the animation is really quite good (not least thanks to the animation director Tonni Zinck). The backgrounds, mostly built in 3D, have been further enhanced by beautiful hand painting, giving this CGI feature a fresh style and unique atmosphere, which easily outshines movies with price tags many times higher.

The movie (released 2012) was produced by the Danish studio Nice Ninja, which also created the feature Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms, released 2008 (back then the studio was called Radar Film).

On this production I was once again entrusted with the task of doing the character designs. Just like on the Disco Worms, some preliminary designs had already been done when I arrived on the project. And this time too, the main character, Marco, had already been modeled in 3D, based on some loose sketches done by the film's director, Jan Rahbek.

 

Early Marco sketches by Jan Rahbek, 2009.