"It's been a funny old sort of week really, Gromit" said Wallace. "One minute you're hob-nobbing it with all those fancy filmy types with their new-fangled cameras and things, and the next you're melting like a rowntrees jelly because someone forgot to turn down the thermostat in that draughty old barn."
Well, if you forgive the poetic licence, that could well have been the popular plasticine man and national treasure's take on the last seven days or so, for just as Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit completed its five year journey to the big screen and universal adulation, the entire studio sets of the now legendary Aardman studios were being razed to the ground. Nick Park, the wonderfully self-deprecating three-time Oscar winner, said it was a 'huge disaster' but said that compared to other things in the world it wasn't on the same scale.
Fortunately, plasticine models can be remade and, thankfully, if it had to happen at least it did so after 'it's a wrap' had been called on the whimsical northern inventor and his sidekick hound's feature film debut, with the film prints safely winging their way to preview theatres around the country. "All's well that ends well, eh Gromit?"
Park's pragmatic reaction is so decidedly British, and it is this attitude that plays no small part in Aardman's most loved creations, Wallace and Gromit, being embraced by the nation's bosom. oo-er missus. 'Get your titters out', as the late Frankie Howerd would say. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit is littered with throwaway quips and sight gags, double-entendres that come straight out of naughty seaside post-cards and the Carry On tradition, naughty but nice and still innocent enough to appeal to both the very young and the young-at-heart.
With the American production giant DreamWorks behind the movie, one wonders whether this humour, reminiscent of the detailed jokes that punctuate the popular Shrek 2 , has been requested by the backers themselves. Not so, say the creators.
"The gags you are referring to we were very cautious about and really agonised over," says co-writer and director, Steve Box. " They tended to creep in a bit really. We had lots of discussions about whether to keep them in. We tried to keep the kind of innocence at the same time. One paper in America said that DreamWorks had put in these slightly cheeky jokes but it was actually us who wanted them in - they were saying take them out, they might not go down that well in Middle America .
"They [DreamWorks] came to us because they love what we do and the way we do it. Jeffrey [Katzenberg, the 'K' of SKG, the founders of DreamWorks] has always said what a fan he is of Wallace and Gromit. Someone in Australia called it that lumpy British animation and we're quite proud of that, that you can see the fingerprints. To be fair on Jeffrey, he came in and helped us in quite strong ways with the script. Whenever we were stuck he helped us out. He's never slow with his opinions but at the same time - quite unheard of outside of Hollywood really - we had total creative control and he would fly in on his private jet, stay in the studio for about eight hours, see everything we'd done - we'd pitch scenes that were coming that we were about to do and he'd make his comments and it was very much take it or leave it, this is only meant to be helpful and we were left to find our own solutions to those problems or sometimes ignore them. He was very much 'at the end of the day it's your movie' and we were determined to keep that kind of very British quirkiness to Wallace and Gromit. We didn't want to lose any of the basic absurdity to anything really."
Indeed, in a world where computer technology is continually breaking new ground in terms of animation, the simple stop-motion characters and the quintessential British humour, not to mention Peter Sallis' rich Northern accent and the peppering of regional colloquialisms to the script, must surely be quite bewildering to the American market.
"We had reams of notes, actually, what 'give it more welly' meant or 'steady on Gromit you'll buckle me trunions', Says Steve. "To be honest, a lot of English people don't understand what it meant but the whole point is that it doesn't really matter. We've had American colloquialisms for 30, 40, 50 years and we're just sending a few over that way now."
The plot of the film concerns Wallace and Gromit's Anti-Pesto business, catching the naughty bunnies who are threatening the prize vegetables of the local townspeople, all of whom are jealously intent on winning the forthcoming Giant Vegetable Competition, to be hosted by Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham-Carter).
"The only change we made in the end was because they [US audiences] didn't understand the word 'marrow'. We'd already animated the word 'marrow' and 'squash' wouldn't fit so we had to put 'melon'. We had to get Helena Bonham-Carter in for a day just to say the word 'melon'!"
Unusually for the follicle-challenged inventor, Wallace finds himself a little romance this time round, courtesy of the aristocratic Lady Tottington, or 'Totty' as she likes to be known.
"It's a problem if any romance is involved because what happens? You can't really split Wallace and Gromit up, so it's always been a dilemma - how do we end the story? We kind of think of them in a way as an elderly married couple, a 'can't live with each other, can't live without each other' kind of thing - long suffering, always looking out for each other."
However, as in all good stories, the course of true love doesn't run smoothly for Wallace and Totty, with the dastardly cad Victor Quartermaine vying for the fair lady's affections, double-crossing all and sundry at every opportunity. Voicing the character is renowned British thespian, Ralph Fiennes, who had a very unusual screen test.
"We tried the puppet with a line from one of his film's and it just fitted. He has such an unusual quality to his voice and he seemed to enjoy it so much, and with Helena as well. I remember asking Ralph to do an evil laugh as Victor, which I think got cut in the end, but it was so funny getting him to do that. I remember saying to him, 'I bet you didn't do that in Schindler's List' . They were so complying and such fun - it was great to get such A list British classical actors and get them to play it up a bit, and ham it up, and they did, they just played along and had fun.
"[DreamWorks] did encourage us to have at least two of our new characters to be known in America but we went for ones we really liked ourselves and they were happy enough."
It has been a long journey for Wallace and Gromit to finally appear in a feature, and both Nick and Steve were under no illusions as to the risks they were taking.
Says Nick: "With the success of three half-hours now, it always seemed a natural step to go to a feature film. Partly the reason for doing Chicken Run (2000) first was that I was naturally cautious - what works in short film format often works because it's a short - there's a certain thing that works about it being short. We waited for the right idea to come along that had all the scope and the size for the characters and the potential development.
"The most important thing, because we know it's going to be a really long-haul thing - in this case a good 4-5 years - is that it has to be an idea that you really find funny, and we got this idea in the beginning that rather than a werewolf, it's like an old universal horror movie, it's a were-rabbit and then with the vegetables it contained so much potential you sort of know when you've got an original idea - that you're going to have such a field day with this, and it's going to be more of a problem with how to contain it.
"We spend a couple of years writing and at the same time spend time developing characters and the sets. While you're filming you are constantly revising every scene, re-storyboarding, re-writing dialogue, going back to the actors. Quite often we're re-recording dialogue the day before we shoot the animation."
Part of the appeal of Wallace & Gromit is that their gentle simplicity is mirrored in the non-affected air of their creators, possibly two of the most unassuming multi-Oscar winners one could meet. Stood in front of them today are two little models of about, say, eight inches in height. A testimony to the esteem in which these little lumps of plasticine are held, the assembled seem enchanted by their presence.
"These are two of the actual models from the film. They've got metal skeletons inside with socket armatures so they can be positioned while the picture can be taken," explains Nick to the doting crowd. "They're covered mainly in plasticine - your old traditional plasticine, it still smells the same. Wallace's leg and also tank top were originally plasticine but then we take a mould and for ease for the animators his trousers are now made of latex rubber. It comes to all of us with age! The tank top is made of resin. It's somewhere for the animators to get hold of him rather than smudge the plasticine, the details."
Having started out on 8- and 16mm, nowadays Steve and Nick don't do the actual animation themselves but are still very much involved with every stage of the production.
Says Nick: "I feel that even though Steve and I are not doing the animation anymore that we are very 'hands on' in that while we're writing the story we're modeling all the different characters and it helps inform the writing. Every single colour of every sock is approved. We spend a lot of time down there on the set, going through every single shot, going through what we want. We may not do the animation but the pay-off is that you get to control a much bigger picture."
From film students to one of Britain's greatest exports, what is most endearing is that the men from Aardman have lost none of their enthusiasm for their work and, whilst we all know that immense talent and prodigious hard work have more to do with it, they seem to share an almost boyish incredulity at having 'lucked out'.
"It has taken over in the sense that having an idea and creating silly characters at college, and now seeing it in the shops, even A Grand Day Out in the cheap basket at Sainsbury's, along with the 'Best of Sooty' - there's still a thrill and I can't help but think of new ideas for Wallace & Gromit. Steve and I are always thinking of new things. They're like children, they sort of have their own life now and whatever idea me or Steve have you can put Wallace and Gromit in that idea and they will bring their own absurdity and their own logic to it.
"I can tell that it's nutty and whimsical, and we are always aware that we don't want it to be sanctimonious - we want it to be crazy. We care about the characters and want to get involved. I've got a lot of the merchandise around the house - it has been called the Wallace Collection! I try not to collect it anymore - it was a thrill the first five years to have your own stuff on the shelves in the shops but now the novelty has worn off quite a bit. I'm not wearing tank tops!"
Opening to rave reviews and number one at the UK box office, the future looks brighter than ever for this particular dynamic duo of one man and his dog, and the equally dynamic duo behind them. Can we hope to see more of them on the silver screen? Nick is as pragmatic as ever - "I hope so, yes. I don't see why not."
Jean Lynch
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