Bristol filmmakers, including Oscar winners Aardman and students from the city's School of Animation, have set a new record for making the world's largest stop-motion film – a year after they produced the smallest.That film featured Dot, a character just 9mm tall living in a microscopic world set. For the new film Gulp, the set was an 11,000 ft stretch of a sandy beach in South Wales.
To produce the short film, Bristol filmmaking duo Sumo Science – aka Will Studd and Ed Patterson – worked with Aardman and the volunteer students. The fishy tale of a lone trawlerman who becomes the catch himself was filmed entirely on three Nokia N8 camera phones attached to a cherry picker 36ft above the sand, which was raked by the volunteers to represent waves, seagulls and fish.
Will Studd said: "The film was a huge test of planning and coordination with mother nature. We were incredibly lucky with the conditions and tide times – sometimes we got our final frame for the day as the waves crashed in around our set."
