Book Review: A Grand Success! by Peter Lord and David Sproxton

A Grand Success! The Aardman Journey, One Frame at a Time
by Peter Lord and David Sproxton (791.433 Lor)

I really wanted to love this book, considering how much I love the short and feature-length films put out by Aardman Animation. But, while I do still recommend this book, it ended up not being quite what I anticipated.

Aardman Animation is the company behind the Wallace & Gromit series of films, Chicken Run, Early Man, and the Shaun the Sheep series. They specialize in stop motion animation, an old-school form of animating figures by moving clay or plasticine figures a tiny amount and shooting a single frame of film. The artists of Aardman have collectively won several Academy Awards and other film industry honors for their work.

This novel tells the story of the company’s founders and how they first got into film-making, and how they initially founded Aardman back in the 1970s. The book then jumps back and forth, exploring the expansion of the company over the years, the various production deals they had with several other studios, both in Hollywood and in their home base of England, and descriptions of many of the artists who are associated with the company. The book spends a lot of time talking about the Aardman business model — the philosophies that the founders have about how Aardman should be run — in fact, a large chunk of the latter third of the book goes into this in great detail…which detracted from the information about their actual productions (which is what I was most interested in).

I definitely learned a lot about the company, and a few tidbits about the production of some of their iconic films and videos (they did the animation for the music video of “Sledgehammer”!). But much of the second half of the book was a bit dry and business-like and I ultimately ended up skipping past sections to get to the more interesting stuff. If you, as a reader and viewer, are interested in the minutiae of running a company in a smaller city in England, you may find it more interesting than I did.

All in all, an interesting book.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to view the films/TV-series Chicken Run, Early Man, Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep or Flushed Away, all by the Aardman Animation studio. They also have multiple YouTube channels available for viewing their work.]

[ publisher’s official A Grand Success! web page ] | [ official Aardman Animation web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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Early Man (on DVD)

Early Man
[DVD j Early] 

This 2018 film from Aardman Animation, the folks who’ve previously brought us Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep, didn’t stay in theaters long in early 2018, on its initial release. This is probably due to its very originality — they weren’t capitalizing on any of their established characters, but were trying to break new ground. And, for whatever reason, the audience just didn’t “connect” with it as much as with their previous films. That’s a shame, because this a delightful, entertaining film.

The plot, in a nutshell, involves a tribe of Stone Age primitives, represented primarily by Dug (voice of Eddie Redmayne), struggling to protect the valley where they live, from incursion by miners from a Bronze Age city, represented by the venal local Bronze Age leader Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston). The chosen battlefield where their conflict comes to a head is…a soccer field, where Lord Nooth believes his experienced players will easily dominate the primitives, who’ve never played before. Little does he realize that Dug’s ancestors invented the game of soccer years ago, or that a rebellious girl from his own society, Goona (Maisie Williams), will help the Stone Agers to train and give them a fighting chance at saving their homeland.

The film has lots of humor, ranging from simple heartfelt comedy to broad slapstick farce. Director Nick Park provides the “voice” of warthog “Hognob”, Dug’s persistent sidekick, and gets some of the funniest scenes and “lines” for himself. The voice work is terrific across the board, as is the Aardman clay animation. There are a lot of visual jokes to catch, if you’re paying close enough attention. And for fans of “extras” on DVDs, there are a couple of very nice “making of” specials that are worth checking out. A fun film, although I do still prefer the previous offerings from Aardman.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep (which is definitely aimed at a much younger audience).]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Early Man web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you seen this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Shaun the Sheep: The Movie on DVD

Shaun the Sheep: The Movie [j DVD Shaun]

This is one of those kid’s movies that is just as funny for adults. Like the TV show, none of the characters talk, even the humans — they just mumble like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons. The story begins on the farm when Shaun begins to think of a way to get a day off their usual routine. Disaster and humor ensue when he and the other farm animals put the sleeping farmer an old camper, which then rolls away to the big city. The farm dog, then Shaun, then the rest of the sheep herd head to the city to find the farmer – as it turns out its not so nice without him. If you liked Wallace and Gromit you are sure to like this too because they are made by the same company using clay models and stop motion animation.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Shaun the Sheep: Season One or Season Two.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Shaun the Sheep: The Movie web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!