As part of our ongoing, exclusive content about Shaun the Sheep, Aardman's Mark Burton and Richard 'Golly' Goleszowski chat exclusively to Cineworld about the challenges of scripting a family animation. Unsurprisingly, it takes a lot of wool-power, as the filmmakers explain.
"The story’s solid, but the way things are staged changes along the way," explains Golly. "I’m sure we’ll carry on storyboarding right up until the last day."
Adds Burton: "[Pixar director] John Lassetter once said ‘Animation films are never finished, only released’ and yeah, you’re always going be tinkering with it. Me and Golly, because we wrote the script together we can put on different hats and say, ‘This isn’t funny this scene!’ ‘Okay, I’ll change it!'"
Shaun the Sheep, due for release on 6th February 2015, marks the cinema debut of Aardman's much loved children's TV character. The directors told us that Shaun's animators are another big influence over the development of the story.
"The animators, they themselves are great performers in their own way," Burton says, "so you work with them and as it would be with an actor and that’s when you get a bit of gold. That’s the fun part of the process."
Will you be making like a sheep and flocking to see Shaun in Cineworld? Tell us in the comments.