Nick Park Made 90% of the First Wallace and Gromit Film Alone
'Wallace and Gromit,' 90% Alone
Before Wallace and Gromit became icons, Nick Park spent most of the 1980s animating A Grand Day Out almost entirely by himself. His graduation project ballooned from a planned six months into years of solitary work, yet it gave him his signature style and launched Aardman's most famous duo.
I did probably 90% of it myself.
- davnicwil
This is just incredible, I had absolutely no idea of the context of 'a Grand Day Out' being a solo school project.
There's no way I'd imagined it wasn't done in a professional setup by a full team.
A real standout part is how he commuted by bus to the studio for years, to work on it mostly alone. Truly amazing dedication to a passion project.
I haven't watched it in probably 25 years but I'll find it now and appreciate it all the more for knowing this!
- codeulike
And then for his next work to be The Wrong Trousers, a near perfect film with the ending train sequence widely acclaimed as one of the best action sequences ever put to film
- VCFundedGenYer
I love the atmosphere of the original 3 features. A Grand Day Out especially, it makes great use of pauses and sweeping ethereal wide shots to give a great sense of scale and isolation.
As great as the post-A Close shave features are, something was definitely lost when they started adding more characters and expanded the universe.