Harrods - 'The Land of Make Believe'
Design
The design process for our Harrods animation took some time due to the vast amount of props and set pieces that required high levels of detail. From the presents under the tree, to the costumes and the characters themselves, each detail had to encompass the whimsical nature of Harrods at Christmas time.
Storyboard
Harrods, as a concept, involved a lot of visual storytelling and character animation to back up the narration. Working from a script is a great way of guiding the storyboard artist into what to put in the final storyboard.
Animatic
Harrods was a complex story that needed extensive planning. With a narrated script, voiced by Jane Horrocks, that would accompany the stop-frame animation, each beat of the animatic had to be carefully planned out to ensure that the pacing between the narration and each shot was perfect.
Photos
Each of the puppets were built and modelled with metal armatures as a base skeleton. This made them robust enough for our stop-motion animator to work with and get the best performance out of each character.
Making Of
Harrods was one of the largest projects we have undertaken at our animation studio. A great deal of planning was required to enable production to run as smoothly as possible. From the initial idea all the way through to the final edit, it took a lot of teamwork to make this animation a magical Christmas story.