Published 9th June 2025

Behind the Craft - How we made Wallace & Gromit: Shot On iPhone

Gavin StrangeDirector

Wallace & Gromit. Stop motion animation. 101-metres tall. Battersea Power Station. For Apple. Shot entirely on iPhone.

Any single one of those sentences is super exciting, so to be able to combine them all together into a single project was mind blowing. I was so fortunate to be the Director of this brilliantly bonkers animation, part of an amazing crew of humans who all brought their exceptional skillsets to make this ambitious and literally gigantic project a reality.

Wallace & Gromit projected 101-metres tall onto the Battersea Power Station towers

Let me take you behind the craft, to show you exactly how a talented bunch of humans brought this epic project to life…

Animatic & Storyboard

All our films start out as drawings stitched together on a timeline to make an ‘animatic’. The animatic is then the blueprint for the entire film. It was crucial for this project, because we had such an unusual canvas for the animation - two incredibly tall but very narrow towers! From the outset we incorporated a template on top of the drawings, overlaying the silhouette of the Battersea towers, so we knew we were framing the animation correctly.

Frame grabs from the animatic

As the animation was silent we had to ensure the action and performance of Wallace & Gromit was totally readable. That was an interesting challenge in itself through because we were working at our usual scale of 1920 x 1080 pixels… yet we knew that the actual animation would be over 300 feet tall!

We just focused on making sure the story and performance was solid, so it would look right and be entertaining at any size, as we didn’t have a Battersea Power Station to hand to test how it would look!

What we did have access to though was a CG model of the towers which I placed in augmented space outside the production office using Apple Vision Pro, which was great for getting a sense of just how big this thing was going to be!

Scale model of Battersea Power Station in Apple Vision Pro

The trees

Wallace and Gromit were the stars of the show of course, but just as important were their Christmas trees! In the story, the duo decorated their respective trees in their own unique way: Gromit being careful and considerate, a curated approach to his design… whilst Wallace used one of his inventions to absolutely envelop his tree in a frenzy of lights and decorations!

Claire sculpting the model trees

Before all that could happen though, the two trees needed constructing from scratch, which the brilliant model maker Claire took on. She had to construct two very-similar-but-totally-unique trees which were incredibly tall but incredibly narrow, getting thinner as they got taller.

Claire and the team hand-glued all the scale foliage to a framework, then trimmed and sculpted with scissors, like a (very big) bonsai tree! Air-drying clay and copious amounts of glittery fake snow gave it that beautiful wintery look.

Decorations

The finished trees were only parts of the puzzle though, they then had to be decorated with lots and lots of bespoke decorations. Manon, Claire, Sam and the team crafted so many exquisite items to adorn the tree. Gromit had traditional tinsel, beautiful baubles and hand-knitted stockings but Wallace had over-the-top candy canes, gigantic presents and mini fibreglass-esque light-up decorations. Not to mention a few hidden easter eggs like different types of cheeses and a certain orange rocket nestled in Wallace’s tree!

Dressing Wallace's christmas tree prop

The trees also featured real practical lights too, which were programmed and wired up by our lighting engineer and studio manager Nat. They were even sequenced to animate on a frame-by-frame basis too, so as the animator stepped through each from, the lights would change to match. Having those practical lights on-set always feels special, as illuminates the puppets and props in such a magical way.

As a little love letter to our families, all the presents that are dotted across both trees have tiny little gift tags on them, and they feature the names of all our children (and a few beloved pets too!).

DECOR-8000

What a treat it was to give Wallace a brand new invention for this film, a decorating contraption named the ‘Decor-8000’ - a present-shaped scissor-lift kitted out with decoration cannons! It was a particular thrill for me as a designer because I got to design it in 2D and then see these incredible craftspeople bring it to life as an actual prop. And not only ‘just’ a prop… a fully functional working scissor-lift with engineered mechanism that let it extend nearly 5 feet tall!

Designs for the Decor-8000

Construction of the Decor-8000 model

Rosa, Sam, Ade and the team crafted a thing of beauty with the Decor-8000, it was such a lovely object to look at, with the most exquisite of details. The three canons on the front were engineered to have a small bit of movement on their Z-axis so they can appear to ‘recoil’ and levers, buttons and lights were all fully functional. All throughout the process of this being crafted I was like a giddy child, excited to see every stage as it developed further! Like so much of this project, it was a proper fusion of art and tech.

Apple curtains

In the beginnings of this project, because of the unique location, I often referred to it as a “giant stage play” because this was an animated film with no cuts and no camera moves, everything happened right in front of you, much like a play. And because this film played on a loop from 5pm until 10pm each night, we wanted a way to mark the end of the four-minute film and the start of a fresh loop, and it was Apple’s idea to have some sort of ‘curtain’ that closed and opened again.

Installing the 'curtains' ready for animation

What was so exciting about that was getting to craft the iconic Battersea power station towers in true ‘Wallace & Gromit’ fashion, rivets and all. This too was designed digitally and then hand-crafted, with every rivet, ridge and detail cut and placed by the team. For the Apple logo on the front we worked from the original vector file, which meant we could be millimetre perfect in machining it out of wood.

The curtains projected onto the front of Battersea Power Station

The countdown, ‘Anticipation Meter’ and the 'Apple Presents' graphic elements were designed digitally also, animated in After Effects and then applied to the animation at the Compositing and VFX stage.

Shooting on iPhone

The animation was captured entirely on iPhone 16 Pro Max’s! Our illustrious camera team; DOP Sam, Camera Assistant Egg & Studio Manager Nat constructed a framework for how to utilise the iPhone camera to get the best image at the highest resolution, which we needed for our 6K x 6K final film deliverable, big enough to be projected 101-metres tall!

We also opted to shoot the whole film using the 5x telephoto lens on the iPhone, as we wanted to ensure that our images were as 'flat' as possible so that when they were projected onto the huge towers, the image wouldn't be distorted at all. Shooting on the telephoto let us control that.

Shooting on iPhone

There were a few special set-ups we utilised for the shoot that we developed through a bit of R&D: we mounted the iPhones in motorised heads that let us tilt the camera a very specific amount which let us capture our very tall trees in two separate frames - the bottom half and the top half. We did that because we wanted as much resolution as possible for us to play with, so capturing the frame in two halves and stitching together in post let us do exactly that.

I did a little calculation whilst we were in production and it really blew my mind:

6000 x 6000 pixels =
36,000,000 pixels per frame

36 million pixels x 6000 frames
in duration =
216,000,000,000

That’s 216 BILLION pixels, all captured on iPhone 16 Pro Max. (For context a ‘4K’ film would be just 49 billion. Pah!)

We shot everything in Apple ProRaw, which let us retain all the edibility that we’re used to in our shoots, with each iPhone tethered by cable to our animation towers. The iPhones were running the Dragonframe tether app, which let us remotely control the camera from the towers in each animators unit. That meant we could tweak all the settings of exposure, focus etc remotely without ever needing to touch the iPhone (critical in stop frame production - once a set’s hot, don’t go touching that camera!).

As well as the shoot itself, all the behind-the-scenes footage and stills were captured on iPhone too. I mounted the BTS camera in a cage and always carried it with me, so I could capture the crew as they were making their magic in a lovely bit of 4K hand-held footage or quickly lock it off on a tripod and record a Timelapse as the animators brought the characters to life. As someone that loves capturing BTS, it was ace to be able to be nimble and capture it all in a variety of formats. I even captured a bunch of spatial footage and photos, to enjoy inside Apple Vision Pro!

I loved shooting candid stills of the crew too, as a way to capture the individual people and their awesome contributions to the project. These are some of my favourite stills from the production - shot using RAW Max and then graded on my Macbook Pro.

Animation

We had two brilliant animators on this film, Chris Sadler and Lee Wilton. Chris handled Wallace and Feathers whilst Lee animated Gromit. Animators are real life magicians that walk among us, with the god-like powers to breathe life into inanimate puppets.

Lee and Chris animating on the studio floor

Being in a stop frame studio is a truly special thing, surrounded by the physical and tactile. Being called into an animators unit once they’re finished a shot, hitting spacebar on the animation tower to playback their hard work and seeing that static puppet move and emote in front of your eyes is something that never fails to be joyful.

Even though you’re peeking behind the curtain, observing how the magic trick is done, seeing those characters come to life will always be special.

This was a technically challenging shoot for the animators too, as not only did they have to make Wallace, Gromit and Feathers emote and perform, there was also a lot of choreography too. As all the characters had to interact with their trees and props in a specific way due to the framing of the trees.

It was also a ‘one-take’, in that there appeared to be no cuts in the entire animation. In reality there are a few cuts, when Wallace & Gromit exit their frames, but it meant that even with those hidden cuts, the main section of the film is a very long, 600-frame-plus shot, which is a challenge for any animator. That’s why we were so lucky to have Chris and Lee, experts in their craft that weren’t phased at such a unique set-up for a film, and they delivered pure gold for this project. What a treat!

Compositing & VFX

Our Technical Director Jon Biggins was the glue of this project. Himself and his VFX team of Chris, Nicole, Ethan and Owen were brilliant in piecing this film all together from its component parts. The team were responsible for removing all the metal rigs from the shots, enhancing the film with visual effects (such as falling snow and wheel-spinning ice!) as well as the super important task of stitching the multiple shots together to craft our mega 6,000 by 6,000 pixel film.

Jon at his compositing desk

Jon also created a brilliant pre-vis scene that let him mock-up the animated shots being projected onto a virtual 3D model of Battersea Power Station. Seeing that was when it really hit home at just how bonkers this scale was!

Remember that crazy statistic earlier, the one where we worked out we were delivering 216 billion pixels? Well, Jon was the one that had to oversee the export of all those pixels and inevitably, on a project this complex, there were things that went wrong. Normally though, fixing a pixel here or there is absolutely fine… but it’s a bit different when you know that single pixel will be visible from miles around! So extra care and attention was taken when hitting the big ol’ ‘render’ button - and we have Mr Jon Biggins to thank for that laser focus on every pixel.

Those very early morning test sessions happened the two nights prior to the projection going live on Friday 29th November. It was so exciting being there at that time in the morning, just us and a few nocturnal foxes, noodling with the film, tweaking the alignment and the colour grade in realtime.

Then, that evening, the projection went live for the public. There was a community choir to usher in the first showing of the film and boy, what a moment! The Aardman gang and the lovely Apple crew were all gathered together to watch it, a lot of the crew hadn’t seen the finished film, as it was only me and the projection team doing the 2am tests, so it was a proper surprise for the crew to see it at the same time as the public! It felt so special, watching it be projected so big, standing with everyone that made it come to life.

The crew on launch night

It didn’t end there though, Apple commissioned us to bring down all the sets and puppets from the shoot in Bristol and show them off in London. We had a special event just before the unveiling of the film, at the very top of Battersea Power Station for press and special guests, where we talked everyone through the process of making the film, and recreated what one of our animation units looks like, so people could walk around and see how we work!

That wasn’t all, Apple also commissioned us to create a special exhibition piece that would live directly outside of the Battersea Apple Store and house the Christmas Tree props and the puppets themselves so the public could come get a glimpse. The exhibition set itself was designed to look like a life-size version of Wallace’s ‘Decor-8000’ contraption, and was constructed by the very same crew who made the original version for animation!

Finally, the absolute icing on the already ginormous cake was that mid-December myself and Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park were invited back to Apple’s HQ inside Battersea Power Station to meet with HRH King Charles and Apple CEO Tim Cook! We got to meet lots of other guests, all collaborators with Apple in their various fields, then we were all treated to a special concert outside in front of the towers by Raye!

What meant the most to me though was after all that excitement and glamour, I got to wander around Battersea Power Station with Nick Park, as the projection played out, taking in the enormity of this incredible project with the original creator of such iconic characters.

To think that all this - all 101 metres of it - exists because of Nick’s original imagination and passion to entertain is really something special, and to be in the gravitational pull of that is something really, really special. ❤️

To wrap it up, here's Wallace & Gromit: Shot on iPhone in its entirety; captured from across the Thames and up the air. Grab yourself a cuppa, tap play and enjoy:

It’s a project I will never ever forget and am truly grateful to have been involved in. It was a joy to work with so many talented humans on such a unique project.

Thank you Aardman.
Thank you Apple.
Thank you Wallace & Gromit.

- Gav.

Some of the awesome crew

Gavin is a Director and Designer at Aardman. Working at the studio for over a decade, Gavin’s creative output ranges from title sequences for the OFFF festival and Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, to channel idents for BBC Two and Christmas films for Fortnum & Mason.

View Gavin's full bio