Chicken Run: Hatching The Movie - Hardcover

Brian Sibley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752271962 ISBN 13: 9780752271965

Publisher: Boxtree Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

Three-time Academy Award winner's Nick Park and Peter Lord are the creative geniuses behind the acclaimed and incredibly popular Wallace and Gromit characters. Chicken Run, their long-awaited first feature film tells the story of an intrepid band of chickens constantly trying to eacape from the Yorkshire farm of Mr and Mrs Tweedy. When the Tweedys acquire a chicken-pie making machine, the prospects of the brood take a distinct downturn. Arriving on the scene to save the day is an American rooster named Rocky (voiced by Mel Gibson) who appears able to fly and who teaches this unchickenly skill to his fellow prisoners for the great eacape. This lively and colourful book describes and illustrates how this incredibly ambitious film was made (at a rate of two seconds per day per animator). It takes the reader behind the scenes at Aardmann, to the sound stages, model-making shop, and set-design shop. Based on extensive interviews and reproducing a wealth of visual material, it will be a wonderful souvenir of the film.

About this title

Review:

Exit Wallace and Gromit, enter Ginger and Rocky. "An escape movie with chickens" was how Chicken Run was pitched to Spielberg, and the result was one of the treats of the new millennium. Hatching the Movie is also a treat. Heavily illustrated, mostly in colour, and written in a concise, easy to follow and unflashy style, it covers all aspects of the film's creation, as well as an in depth history of Aardman's previous achievements.

Best known to British readers as a regular radio presenter and film buff, Brian Sibley helped co-director Nick Park to develop the plot. As he notes, Chicken Run shares many similarities with Wallace and Gromit's outings, including scepticism about technology--an outlook which manifests itself in the "handmade" style of the films. However, Hatching the Movie leaves no doubt about the immense pressure, skill and patience involved in such creativity. Some detractors have criticised Chicken Run as feeling commercially compromised, and Sibley covers the uneasy relationship between art and commerce.

Younger children might be put off by the amount of text, but for film buffs and Aardman's numerous older fans, this cannot be recommended highly enough. --Stephen Portlock

Synopsis:

Brian Sibley leads the reader behind the scenes at Aardmann to reveal the incredible amount of painstaking work that goes into all the studio's films. The focus of the book is on the making of "Chicken Run".

About this edition

• Publisher: Boxtree Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0752271962
• ISBN 13: 9780752271965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 191