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Can he fix it ? Yes he can!
by Conrad Astley12/ 5/2005
A GROUP of warehouses nestling alongside distribution centres
and plastics manufacturers is the unlikely home of Bob The Builder
and everyone's favourite Eastern European penguin - Pingu.
Every one of Bob's adventures is brought to life behind these
warehouse doors, by the painstaking but loving process of stop
frame animation.
There is no computer generated trickery here - what you see is what
you get. Every time you watch Bob get to work with Scoop the digger
or have a chat with Wendy in his workshop, he is really doing
it.
The centre is home to at least eight Bobs. They are about 10ins
tall, built around steel "skeletons" complete with ball and socket
joints, ensuring he moves as realistically as possible, and covered
with a layer of pink-coloured silicon.
The models, which cost several thousand pounds each, are supplied
by Manchester puppet manufacturers Mackinnon and Saunders, who have
also made the models used in countless films including forthcoming
Tim Burton feature The Corpse's Bride.
The units also contain dozens of brightly coloured sets, from the
size of coffee tables to that of small rooms, on which Bob's
adventures take place.
Animator George Labab, who was to give me a brief insight into his
art, led me through a set of black curtains into an open space
dominated by a miniature landscape surrounded by trees and purple
mountains - Bob's new home in Sunflower Valley where he has moved
for the new eco-friendly series Project: Build It.
George explained that because of the time-scales involved in making
each episode - each animator produces about 20 seconds of footage
per day - there are constantly numerous Bobs being filmed against
various backdrops.
He gave me a quick demonstration of how the character was brought
to life, by placing him on the set - making sure he stayed in place
by sticking a magnet underneath the table - and slightly moving one
of his arms, before clicking a button on a box of tricks, making
the camera take a single-frame shot.
George then moved the model's arm closer to its head, before
pressing the button again.
Several more tiny movements later, he had taken enough to show me
the sequence - pressing play and making an image of Bob on the TV
screen start to wave.
Although Hot Animation does most things the old fashioned way, it
has benefited from some technological advances.
George explained how, in the old days, animators had to work blind
- not knowing whether they'd got it right until the film was taken
away, developed and edited a week later. Now, computerised video
cameras mean they can see what they've done straight away.
And with that briefest introduction to this obscure craft, I was
left to my own devices to see what I could do with Bob.
I decided, for no particular reason, to start off by making him
stretch up and yawn, slowly moving his arms outwards and opening
his mouth.
Each click of the button - or grab, as it's called - is about a
25th of a second, so it takes a while to get him to do
anything.
Unfortunately, when I played it back it looked more like he was
bursting out into song, but I decided to move on, and was much more
pleased with my next action - getting him to scratch his face
pensively.
Although I realised this was not the sort of thing he'd be likely
to do, I began to think I'd got the hang of it. However, my third
movement proved to be a disaster. I tried making him put his head
in his hands and bend forward, as if gripped by some existential
crisis, before realising everything was all right and standing tall
again.
But when I pressed the play button it looked like he was
sneezing.
When I later showed a video of my attempts to some friends, they
pointed out I had made him appear slightly camp. Although they were
probably just looking at the Village People-style hard hat that was
also not the image I had been trying to get across.
There's clearly a bit more to this business of injecting inanimate
objects with emotion and depth than I had thought.
However, the studio staff insisted I hadn't done a bad job for a
first timer, although they did stop short of offering me a credit
for best boy or key grip.
George told me animation was an art as well as a technical skill,
as they had to use these tiny movements to express the characters'
personalities, and constantly observed people to pick up the
nuances of everyday actions.
And, of course, they had to get these figures perfectly
synchronised with a voiceover track, recorded by Neil Morrissey in
London.
So it was far more than just playing with toys all day for a
living.
I didn't believe him for a second.
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