Wallace and Gromit Studio Loses History

TheFarmerInTheDell writes "CNN is reporting that the Aardman Animations building in Bristol, home of Wallace and Gromit, has been destroyed by fire From the article: 'Today was supposed to be a day of celebration, with the news that 'Wallace and Gromit' had gone in at No. 1 at the U.S. box office, but instead our whole history has been wiped out'"

Comments

Not everything is lost, only a warehouse

[Anonymous Coward]

An e-mail sent this morning to all the subscriptors of the Aarmand website:

On the day that Aardman celebrate a chart-topping opening weekend in the US with
Wallace & Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-rabbit', news of a fire at our storage
unit in Bristol has been devastating.

The facility used to store sets, awards, and historical artefacts, is not a part
of the Aardman studio, and we are glad to report that no Aardman staff have been
affected. However, we have lost a number of irreplaceable storyboards, awards,
props and pieces of film memorabilia from our 30 year history.

None of the material from the new Wallace & Gromit film 'The Curse of the
Wererabbit' was in storage at the time, but we have lost many original sets from
Chicken Run, Creature Comforts, and the three Wallace & Gromit short films, that
were used for reference and toured around the world for exhibition.

This will not in any way affect existing or future Aardman productions as 100%
of sets and props are purpose built for each production.

Wallace & Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-rabbit': http://www.wandg.com/

At least put the quote in context...

[lpangelrob]

Argh. That's not all Park said.

Wallace and Gromit's creator, Nick Park, said the earthquake in South Asia helped put the loss into perspective.

"Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal," he said.

Historic things were lost, yes, but still, they were only *just things*.

Re:News for Nerds!

[DavidLeeRoth]

you are an idiot. if you dont like slashdot, dont read it. if you read it 12 hours ago, you should have posted it. otherwise, dont bitch about slow reporting times.

Re:in other news, 30k dead in asia

[holden caufield]

Since you were so quick to post, you apparently didn't rtfa. Even Mr. Park himself said, "Even though it's precious stuff and nostalgic - and it's dreadful news for the company, in the light of other tragedies it's not a big deal."

I know I'm feeding a troll here but I'd wager he's got things in the correct perspective.

Re:Please No!!

[melonman]

This has to be the worst thing that could possibly happen Not according to Nick Page, who made most of the stuff. As he pointed out in the BBC article, it's dreadful news, but nothing compared to the awfulness of most of the other items of news today.

Re:Backup

[quakeslut]

actually you can't back up clay at all:

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4326624.s tm
The clay characters themselves are not kept after filming because they disintegrate...

Some are saved

[Renesis]

This was only their storage unit and not their main offices which are near the docks, so there at least there was no chance of anyone getting hurt.

Plus I talked to someone there today and they said that some of their best sets are already out on loan for exhibitions, so those "off-site" backups are safe!

Re:Backup

[hyu]

You don't. The clay would disintigrate. According to the BBC, they didn't have their studio burn down, but their storage warehouse for things like storyboards and wooden sets that they used. That is the stuff that got burned. They've lost their original Wallace & Gromit storyboards.

The actual film prints for their work are located at another site, and their studio itself is at a completely different one.

A shame

[MrNemesis]

I've been a colossal fan of Wallace and Gromit ever since I first saw A Grand Day Out when I was in my early teens, and I'm quite saddened by this loss. I know that, as far as things go, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to Aardmann as a company, but... the prospect of me owning a piece of genuine W&G on-set memorabilia has now diminished quite considerably! Whilst their financial value may have been little, it's very sad to hear that remnants of some of the best animation I've ever seen no longer exist.

As an aside, I saw a preview screening of the Were-Rabbit this weekend (first time I've been to the cinema in over a year and I noticed that the Federation Against Copyright Theft are now busy telling all and sundry that using a camcorder will land you in jail for 10 years) and it's well worth a watch. Humour "for all the family" (i.e. it's not dumbed down toy marketing fodder purely for kids) and the wealth of visual puns and arcane geekery will have any seasoned /.'er with a sense of humour stifling a giggle or two. As an even more OT aside, it's a pity that the USA doesn't have Wendsleydale cheese as readily available as we do here in the UK!

Re:Backup

[steve_l]

I actually got a tour of the studio when they were doing the filming for The Wrong Trousers, which is where I learned their dirty secret: There is more than one gromit.

They were filming different scenes in different parts of the studio, with different copies of Wallace and Gromit in each one. So they are truly expendable: cloned for the filming, discarded afterwards.

Wikinews story

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wallace_and_Gromit_set s_destroyed_by_fire

Re:Backup

[jo_ham]

I know you joke, but this /is/ their off-site backup facility.

The studio is unaffected.

Firing clay figures

[pbhj]

I'm a bit of a beginner with this type of thing but ... the only general fire figures I could come up with put burn temperatures below 700C. Granted the commercial setting and open space of a warehouse probably promotes fast burning.

Earthenware is fired to 1000C (roughly 1700F, I think). It seems that the temps reached may not be enough to properly fire the pieces. Also there's the quartz inversion point at about 570C - heating too quickly up to this point could be disastrous.

I also doubt that the pieces are wedged properly to remove air (as they aren't intending to fire them) and so explosion with the air expansion is likely.

Finally ... I thought they used plasticine!

Plasticine (aka "modelling clay") melts when heated, FWIW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticine
http://www.vanaken.com/howclay.htm (note "melting them in a large vat")

My kingdom for a Shakespeare manuscript!

[Myrmidon]

I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on?

For centuries, historians and literary scholars have longed for hard evidence of how Shakespeare worked or what his literary background was. Unfortunately:

"with the possible exception of a few pages of Sir Thomas More, a play that Shakespeare may have helped write, no manuscripts of Shakespeare's survive. The only certain evidence we have of his handwriting is his signature."

Our knowledge of Shakespeare is so sparse that there's an entire genre of claims that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else. Everyone from Ben Jonson to Francis Bacon to Sir Walter Raleigh has been put forward as the "real author". David Kahn's classic work on cryptography, The Codebreakers , devotes almost an entire chapter to debunking the "secret coded messages", supposedly hidden inside Shakespeare's plays, which reveal their true author.

All of this speculation could be disposed of, if only we had a few scribbled pages of Hamlet or The Tempest. But we don't.

Fortunately, Aardman Animations is far better documented than Shakespeare. But the destruction of their storyboards and sets is still a terrible loss.