Aardman News 9 - Watch Wallace and Gromit's Latest Outing and Win an Aardman Tour!

In our last Aardman News, we showed you a brief clip from Wallace and Gromit's latest outing, the new, Jubilee themed, "mini-animation", A Jubilee Bunt-a-thon. Now that the Jubilee extended-weekend is over, the very short short-film is now online.

Embedded above, the just over one minute long outing is more of a mini-bit really. It's funny of course - it is Wallace and Gromit after all - but it's too short to really amount to much.

Nonetheless, this isn't the really exciting news. Wallace and Gromit creative director, Merlin Crossingham, shared a link to the National Trust's website, on Twitter, toting a competition! The competition is hardly challenging:

What does Wallace say to Gromit when he sees the size of the house that they've got to decorate?

a) Oh crikey

b) Oh crumbs

c) Woweee

And although it pains me to add more competition to this - it means I have less of a chance of winning after all - email your answer to competitions@nationaltrust.org.uk by midnight (UK time) on 30th June 2012.

I haven't even got to the amazing prize yet: In addition to spending a day at Tyntesfield - an old National Trust house - you also get:

"the chance to visit the Aardman studio [in Bristol] and meet some of the teams who bring the famous characters of Wallace & Gromit to life. You'll also get the chance to have your very own private screening of your favourite Wallace & Gromit film. And after that, there's a family trip to At-Bristol Science Centre to have a look at some real life Wallace & Gromit sets."

What an utterly fantastic competition and even better prize! Be sure to enter!

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Speaking of Aardman, be sure to cast your vote in our "What's your favourite Aardman film?" poll to the right - there's less than a day left!

Aardman News 8 - Wallace and Gromit in A Jubilee Bunt-a-thon

Before you get too excited, this isn't a new Wallace and Gromit feature film, nor is it even really a short film - what this is, is a "new mini animation" featuring the plasticine duo preparing for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The 1 minute long short film, more like the previous Cracking Contraptions series than the half hour TV specials, is being released by the National Trust at a series of events this summer - for a list of locations, visit the National Trust's website. The short film, entitled A Jubilee Bunt-a-thon, sees barmy inventor, Wallace, and his loyal pooch, Gromit, putting up the bunting to celebrate the Queen's big day and you can see a 30 second clip from it above.

There's also a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the production of Bunt-a-thon (below), showing the painstaking and wonderful process that stop-motion animation undergoes. The video features some words from the duo's creator, Nick Park, and from Creative Director, Merlin Crossingham (one of those fantastic names that makes you proud to be British) who said:

"To complete a minute of film, we have three animators, working flatout for 3 weeks."

It really puts into context the hard work that goes into, not just stop-motion, but animation in general! Look forward to this short film probably making its way online later this year.