Despite the incredible modern tech available for movie making today, traditional stop-motion, or stop-frame, work remains one of the most engaging animation styles for many viewers. It involves a lot of physical work, but there's a warmth and charm to it that still can't truly be replicated digitally.
Aardman Animations is one of the best-known studios using the technique today, and it's just provided a glimpse of how much work goes into creating a scene in short, sped-up before-and-after video that compares the making of a piece of animation for Shaun the Sheep Series 7 with the final thing.
The scene features Shaun and his flock creating some mischief for the long-suffering sheepdog Bitzer at Mossy Bottom Farm. In the behind-the-scenes footage (top), we see the animator's hand and arm almost continually in view, adjusting the clay models between each frame.
Interestingly, it seems many viewers didn't realise that the series was still made using hand-modelled stop-motion animation. In the comments on the post on Instagram, several people express surprise at the amount of work involved in the creation of a short scene.
Shaun the Sheep series 7 is available on BBC iPlayer now. Aardman is known for its stop-motion approach in franchises like Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit, but the studio's also applied its signature style to some of the most iconic animated adverts.
If you're getting started in animation yourself, see our guides to the best animation software and the best laptops for animation for all the tools you need.
