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Shaun The Sheep - Movie
Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
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Shaun
The Sheep
An
Animated Movie With A New Twist- No Dialogue!
If you think that you could not be entertained by an animated film with
no words spoken, you will be pleasantly surprised by “Shaun The Sheep.” This
movie is proof positive that we communicate just as much with facial
expressions, vocal tones, hand gestures, body language and general vibes as we
do with spoken words. The story revolves around a sheep named Shaun who becomes
board with the same monotonous everyday routine of the farmyard he and a flock
of sheep and other farm animals share. So he hatches up a plan to escape from
the farm for a day of fun and frolic. What starts as fun soon becomes more than
he can handle outside the confines of the farm.
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| Shaun the Sheep |
“Shaun The Sheep” made his debut in 1995 as a supporting player in Nick
Park’s Oscar® winning short film “A Close Shave.” Following a
lengthy hiatus, the cute faced, four legged charmer became an international
sensation starring in his own, completely dialogue free TV show. The U.K. based
animation house Aardman, who produced the TV series, decided it was time the
let Shaun and his flock of merry sheep run wild on the big screen and thus the
movie.
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| Shaun leads the flock to escape through the broken fence |
The project was written and directed in the U.K. by Mark Button and Richard
(“Golly”) Starzak. What sparked the concept of no dialogue for the
movie as well as the TV show and shorts? Starzak explains, “Initially when we
made the TV series, the idea of no dialogue was an economic one. Doing lip sync
when the character’s speak is a lot more labor intensive; you need a lot more
animation, so initially it was just purely a financial consideration. But, that
kind of meant that the TV excerpts became more cinematic. They became more like
mini films because you had to tell a story through pictures. That is something
we wanted to retain the integrity of in the film is to keep that going. That
was the exciting bit I think for me and Mark, was to make a modern day silent
film.” Mark chimed in saying “Obviously they invented them here (U.S.). We
watched a lot of the old silent movies from the old days like Charlie Chaplin,
you know.”
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| Bitzer the farmyard guard dog |
How did Button and Starzak come up with the approach for a film with no
dialogue? Starzak breaks it down, “A lot of it is in the story telling. If you
know what is going on in the heads of your characters you don’t need words. We
were worried early on, is it going to sustain? Are people going to watch it for
a while then the kids will be running around the cinema? But in fact, I think
what happens is, you forget there’s no words because you know what the
characters are thinking. And a lot of that came from Richard and me
working
very hard on telling a quite simple story.” The film has grossed over 100 million worldwide and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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| The Farmer, Bitzer, and the sheep |
©
2016 Rych McCain Media/Syndication TM
(You
DID Hear It From Me!)
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