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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'"
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.
Good to hear that Nick Park is so well-grounded.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Well thats where it gets a bit difficult. Everyone here seems to come from a mentality of, "there is nothing but computer data worth saving". I'm sure they had that covered, however what is a little bit harder is to "backup" a physical item, like the original Morph model, or the sets from "The Wrong Trousers".
Unless of course you have some kind of matter duplicator in your basement, in which case more fool Nick Park for not coming to see you first.
They lost everything *except* the material for the new movie. That is, the original three W&G's, Chicken Run, and their other material. I feel awful for them. This must feel like watching your house burn down. :(
- ME -
"if you dont like slashdot, dont read it."
/. daily, several times a day. I get to it maybe three times a week in total.
/. rips their stories from, e.g. Anandtech, Tom's, BBC News, CNN, Engadget. /. always ripped stories in the past, but there was a certain value added with timely and short summaries, a good forum for all, etc.
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/. is less of a resource and even outdated, with the editors not caring or maybe not seeing what it truly has become--a ripoff site only.
We've taken that advice. Truly, we have. Many of us no longer do. I used to read
Others have posted this in the past, but a lot of readers simply go to the sites
Frankly, the
This reflect wholly on the site in the past few years--The heavy moderation which was supposed to solve things created many worse problems, including censorship a la Lessig (via technological limitations and binds), the editors don't listen to truly practical advice (i.e. complaints that they don't read email address they set up explicitly to help prevent dupes, even admonishing those users in general on the main page), and basically the readership, while certainly having some true gems (which is the only real reason I check the site is to get varied opinions) has gone substantially down in terms of community and intellect.
Should such people start their own sites? Some have on neglected topics (deadly then undeadly.org). Others with a better story submission setup (kuro5hin). These days,
Not wanting to sound like an ass, let me make the following pre-comment caveats:
- I love Nick Park's work
- I own all the videos/DVDs of his films, including Creature Comforts on compilation
- I can't wait to see whatever else his fertile brain imagines.
But, having said that, is this so much a tragedy? The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap? Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it? I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
The artworks themselves are treasures. The other stuff is honestly refuse, unless they seriously plan to use them again. Extrapolated further, in 50 years we're all going to be posting our bitter comments on Slashdot from rooms hip-deep in "priceless memorabilia" (Reese Witherspoon's earrings from Legally Blonde XVII, the dorsal fin worn by a stuntman from Jaws III, etc.). Eventually we'll have to develop the technology to build dynamic-foundation skyscrapers on the mounds of movie-memorabilia that cover the countryside....
-Styopa
Indeed, there are people far worse off.
BBC is reporting that an estimated 20000 people (at the very least) are dead in Pakistan and India. Compare that to the 1200 or so people killed in the southern US, or even the 3000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
At least Page is able to put his loss in perspective. It takes a real man to be able to do that.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Perspective, people, this was just a bunch of crap that we would have made fun of someone for bidding too much for at some auction. It's more on the order of your mother throwing away your baseball card collection.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"Historic things were lost, yes, but still, they were only *just things*."
*Overheard after the British burned the White House, or the Library at Alexandria got torched, or after the Iraqi museums got sacked*
For the folks that work there, I'm sure this hard to take. Remember, they probably have a long history of the location, they lost lots of awards and other physical assets including the sets that were used in four movies.
I would imagine that some of these sets might have been re-used in the future, had they not been destroyed.
Moving making, espedcially using claymation is much more physical than programming. If my office burned down tomorrow, I'd need the offsite backup take restored onto a new server, a new Macintosh, a new desk, and a chair. That's it.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
First off, your example is not going to make your argument. IF such a thing from Shakespeare existed, I have no doubt that collectors would pay through the nose for it. Sotheby's would make a small fortune from the auction comission alone.
However Nick Park noted that, "in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal". I would have thought they had reused some of the props (like the insides of Wallace's house). Instead, they state that each was "purpose built" for their respective films.
I think the worth is relative. For example, I own a few original animation cels that I consider extremely valuable. If I lose them in a fire, I will be upset and the loss would cause a certain amount of grief for me. Is it as bad as the tragic loss of life in natural and unnatural disasters we see on the news? Certainly not. I'd trade all my cels if I thought it would save lives, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't miss my cels. The loss of these "treasures" in fire is tragic because they had value, sometimes deep value, to the people that created them, and the fans that loved what was created by and through them. It's similar to the pocket watch my grandfather gave me. It is of great worth to me, and I would be really upset if something happened to it. Same goes for these "treasures". People worked hard. It was a labor of love for many. To see it gone effects them. Yes, there are more important things in the world, but there's room for grief of these treasures as well as things that may even be more tragic. Nobody is asking for donations to help the victim's of this fire because they were all inanimate as far as we've heard. I think we're doing a fine job of keeping it in perspective. Let's continue to be sensitive to the grief of others regardless of if we really share it or not.
With this crowd, you can provide perspective by asking "how would you feel if the original storyboards from the three original star wars movies were destroyed by fire, along with the original models of the millenium falcon, et al?"
And Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks were nothing but pieces of parchment that he scribbled on, too.
/.). This isn't about eBay fodder -- this is about the process and development of an artist. Should future animators wish to learn from Nick Park's storyboards, they'll have to look at his later work. And that's very sad.
For many artists, process is often more valuable than the finished product. As a graphic design student, I find seeing the sketches and previous versions of some of the designers I admire very illuminating. Paul Rand famously provided his clients with process books (including one client notable to
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Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
...a great deal of the production art from the classic Warner cartoons aka "Termite Terrace" aka Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies era would be gone. The standard operating procedure at animation studios was to wash and reuse cels...Clampett would sneak out the occasional cel, the occasional sketch, etc. and keep them. It is only since the 1960s that there was any care taken to preserve the ephemeral art that were by-products of animation production.
Who's to say that an original set from Chicken Run or The Wrong Trousers or the Peter Gabriel "Sledgehammer" video isn't art? Who's to say that storyboard sketches aren't art? Damn, I would have loved to have one of the original storyboards from an Aardman production. I have lucked out in that I have some layouts and sketches from some Spumco productions thanks to our family friend Jim Smith.
The sketch really is where the art lives, you know. A cel is pretty and colorful but the artist's soul is in their sketches. It's at the point where I'd rather have a sketch than a cel. And considering that almost everyone scans sketches into a computer for "ink and paint" cels are pretty much made only for collectors by artists who had nothing to do with the original production, the sketch is really the only thing left now. In some cases the sketch doesn't even exist anymore...some animators nowadays like to directly work with a computer tablet instead of paper and pencil.
This is a big loss. Maybe it won't seem like it now, but later on, when animation historians are trying to document what Aardman has been doing over the past 20 years or so they will look at this day as being when the history of a unique animation studio was lost. I grieve with Nick Park and his crew. This is not a lightweight thing.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
As someone who's lost his office and everything in it to a fire, let me tell you - it smarts. The decades of data that you painstakingly helped to collect, even though you've written a few papers out of it, are worth countless human hours, blood, sweat and tears. They may still have a use, and they're worth a lot to you and your colleagues. To see them senselessly destroyed takes a few days to get over.
Of course, when you put it into perspective of the bigger human tragedies in the world, it suddenly seems rather inconsequential. But it still hurts... for a while.