Josh Mahoney

Aardman animations

Explain all their products and services:

The products that aardman produces are stop motion based as that is what their company is based
around. They have done thinks such as films, adverts Etc. There most well know advert is the DFS
advert they did for DFS where they used stop
motion animation to advertise the deals and sales
that DFS are offering. When it comes to their movies
that they have made their most popular and
successful is Wallace and Gromit which again is a
stop motion animation that everyone loved.
Wallace and Gromit is a British clay animation
comedy series created by Nick Park of Aardman
Animations. The series consists of four short films
and a feature-length film. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured,
eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, along with his companion Gromit, a silent
yet loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic dog.

All their other and products are:

Chicken Run is a 2000 stop-motion animated comedy film produced by the

British studio Aardman Animations. Chicken Run received critical acclaim,
and grossed over $224 million, becoming the highest-grossing stop motion
animated film ever.

Flushed Away is a 2006 British-American computer-animated action-

adventure comedy film It is the third and final film to be co-produced by
Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation following Chicken Run
(2000) and Wallace & Gromit. The film was released in US on 3 November
2006 and in UK on 1 December 2006 and was distributed by Paramount
Pictures.1 Despite receiving positive reviews from critics, Flushed Away underperformed at the box
office, prompting DreamWorks to end their partnership with Aardman.

Arthur Christmas is a 2011 British-American 3D computer animated

Christmas comedy film, produced by Aardman Animations and Sony
Pictures Animation as their first collaborative project. The film was
released on 11 November 2011, in the UK, and on 23 November 2011,
in the USA. The film earned $147 million at the box office on a $100
million budget.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! is a 2012 British-American

3D stop-motion animated swashbuckler comedy film produced by
Aardman Animations and Sony Pictures Animation as their second and
final collaborative project. It was a modest box office success, earning
$123 million against the budget of $55 million.
Josh Mahoney

Shaun the Sheep Movie is a 2015 British stop-motion animated

adventure comedy film inspired by the television series Shaun the
Sheep, created by Nick Park. The film follows Shaun and his flock into
the big city to rescue their farmer, who found himself amnesiac there
as a result of their mischief. Shaun the Sheep Movie was nominated at
the 88th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was nominated in
the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards and won in the Toronto Film Critics’ Awards for Best
Animated Film. It earned five nominations at the Annie Awards including Best Animated Feature.
Aardman is planning a sequel to the film.

Early Man is a 2018 British stop-motion animated historical sports

comedy film directed by Nick Park, written by Mark Burton and James
Higginson, and starring the voices of Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston,
Maisie Williams, and Timothy Spall. The film follows a tribe of primitive
Stone Age valley dwellers who must defend their land from bronze-
using invaders in an association football match. It has received generally positive reviews from
critics, and has grossed $48.9 million worldwide.

Aardman has devised an ad for a campaign aiming to kickstart a

lifestyle revolution for every family and halt the rising tide of obesity.
Central to the Change4Life campaign is the claim that without any
intervention by 2050 90 percent of today's children will be overweight
or obese and at risk from serious diseases. It also warns of the
'significant' cost of obesity to the taxpayer. Obesity and overweight people are forecast to cost the
nation £59bn - half the entire NHS budget for a year - by 2050 if the trend continues unchecked.

Explain what are property rights:

Property rights refer to the theoretical and legal ownership of specific property by individuals and
the ability to determine how such property is used. In many countries, including the United States,
individuals generally exercise private property rights. The rights of private persons to accumulate,
hold, delegate, rent or sell their property. In economics, property rights form the basis for all market
exchange, and the allocation of property rights in a society affects the efficiency of resource use.

The term "property" is very expansive, although the legal protection for certain kinds of property
varies between jurisdictions. In most developed countries, for example, the rights of property
ownership can be extended by using patents and copyrights to protect scarce physical resources
(such as houses, cars, books, shoes, land, tire irons or cell phones), non-human creatures (such as
dogs, cats, horses or birds) and even some intellectual property (such as inventions, ideas or words).

Explain what is a product development cycle:

Developing a new product involves a number of stages which typically centre around the following
key areas:

The Idea: Every product must start with an idea. In some cases, this might be fairly simple, basing the
new product on something similar that already exists. In other cases, it may be something
revolutionary and unique, which may mean the idea generation part of the process is much more
involved. In fact, many of the leading manufacturers will have whole departments that focus solely
on the task of coming up with ‘the next big thing’.
Josh Mahoney

Research: An organization may have plenty of ideas for a new product, but once it has selected the
best of them, the next step is to start researching the market. This enables them to see if there’s
likely to be a demand for this type of product, and what specific features need to be developed to
best meet the needs of this potential market.

Development: The next stage is the development of the product. Prototypes may be modified
through various design and manufacturing stages to come up with a finished product that
consumers will want to buy.

Testing: Before most products are launched and the manufacturer spends a large amount of money
on production and promotion, most companies will test their new product with a small group of
actual consumers. This helps to make sure that they have a viable product that will be profitable,
and that there are no changes that need to be made before it’s launched.

Analysis: Looking at the feedback from consumer testing enables the manufacturer to make any
necessary changes to the product, and decide how they are going to launch it to the market. With
information from real consumers, they will be able to make a number of strategic decisions that will
be crucial to the product’s success, including what price to sell at and how the product will be
marketed.

Introduction: Finally, when a product has made it all the way through the new product development
stage, the only thing left to do is introduce it to the market. Once this is done, good product life cycle
management will ensure the manufacturer makes the most of all their effort and investment.

Thousands of new products go on sale every year, and manufacturers invest a lot of time, effort and
money in trying to make sure that any new products they launch will be a success. Creating a
profitable product isn’t just about getting each of the stages of new product development right, it’s
also about managing the product once it’s been launched and then throughout its lifetime.

Explain who are their major competitors:

When it comes to competitors Aardman has a few as there are lots of companies based in animation
examples of Aardmans competitors are DreamWorks animation, Walt Disney, Pixar Etc. So they have
a lot of competition when it comes to making things such as animation movies as lots of big
companies are doing the same thing each trying to be better than the other.

About DreamWorks Animation: DreamWorks Animation, L.L.C. (more

commonly known as DreamWorks Animation and DreamWorks
Animation SKG, or simply DreamWorks) is an American animation studio
that is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of Comcast through
its wholly owned subsidiary NBC Universal. It is based in Glendale,
California and produces animated feature films, television programs and online virtual games. The
studio has currently released a total of 35 feature films, including the franchises Shrek, Madagascar,
Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, Trolls and The Boss Baby. Originally formed
under the banner of its main DreamWorks studio in 1997 by some of Amblin Entertainment's former
animation branch Amblimation alumni, it was spun off into a separate public company in 2004.
DreamWorks Animation currently maintains its Glendale campus, as well as satellite studios in India
and China. On August 22, 2016, NBC Universal acquired DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion,
making it a division of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group as an acquisition for the animation
studio.
Josh Mahoney

About Walt Disney: The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as

Disney, is an American diversified multinational mass media and
entertainment conglomerate, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios
in Burbank, California. It is the world's second-largest media
conglomerate in terms of revenue, after Comcast. Disney was founded on
October 16, 1923 – by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney – as the
Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation
industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. The
company also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio and then Walt Disney Productions.
Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its existing operations and started divisions focused
upon the theatre, radio, music, publishing and online media.

About Pixar: Pixar, also referred to as Pixar Animation Studios, is an

American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville,
California that is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Pixar
began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer
division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by
Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became the majority shareholder. Disney purchased Pixar in
2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction that resulted in Jobs becoming Disney's largest
single shareholder at the time. Pixar is best known for CGI-animated feature films created with
RenderMan, Pixar's own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering
application programming interface, used to generate high-quality images.

Research their main customers:

Aardmans main customers are their target audience that they are trying to get to watch their
animation. So, this would be possibly some adults and definitely children with all the animations
such flushed away and chicken run. When it comes to the adult’s most people of all ages like Wallace
and Gromit as it’s a film that has adult humour as well as child’s humour. However, most films they
make now a days will be aimed around children as it a wider target audience that would be easy to
make a movie around.

Research to see if any sequels in production:

From the looks of it Aardman are possibly making a sequel of

chicken run after 18 years since they made the original. This has
been announced when Aardman tweeted an image of chicken run
and talking about making a new one. This is the only confirmed
sequel that Aardman are in the production of doing as they have
already made sequels to films such as Wallace and Gromit. Which
was one of their most popular films series. So, they are going for
their second best which was chicken run and hopefully going to
make a sequel to follow the story of the chickens who escaped.

Research “Nathan love” subsidiary of Aardman in NYC:

Josh Mahoney

Nathan Love was founded ten years ago in NYC, determined to “have fun, do great work, and make
people smile”. They’ve since become one of advertising’s most iconic character animation studios.
Aardman Animations was founded forty years ago in Bristol and pioneered model animation for
adult audiences. It wasn’t long before the visionary studio grew into a global leader in animation. In
2015, Aardman and Nathan Love joined together, forming a single company much greater than the
sum of its parts. Bigger, further reaching, and more inspired than ever before Aardman Nathan Love
is the pride of its talent and partners, and the delight of audiences around the world.

Explain the diversity of techniques used at Aardman:

Stop motion animation:

Stop Motion Animation is a technique used in animation to bring

static objects to life on screen. This is done by moving the object in
increments while filming a frame per increment. When all the frames
are played in sequence it shows movement. Clay figures, puppets and
miniatures are often used in stop motion animation as they can be
handled and repositioned easily.

Stop motion animation is almost as old as film itself. Film makers needed a way to animate objects
on screen and the technique was devised. The first instance of its usage is credited to J. Stuart
Blackton and Albert E. Smith for bringing a toy circus to life in Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897).

CGI animation:

Computer animation is the process used for generating animated

images. The more general term computer-generated imagery
(CGI) encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while
computer animation only refers to the moving images. Modern
computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics, although
2D computer graphics are still used for stylistic, low bandwidth,
and faster real-time renderings. Sometimes, the target of the
animation is the computer itself, but sometimes film as well.

Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion techniques using 3D
models, and traditional animation techniques using frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations.
Computer-generated animations are more controllable than other more physically based processes,
constructing miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes, and because it allows the
creation of images that would not be feasible using any other technology. It can also allow a single
graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props. To
create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly
replaced by a new image that is like it, but advanced slightly in time (usually at a rate of 24, 25 or 30
frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with
television and motion pictures.

Find out about how they research and develop their next product:

Depending on the movie aardman could research what they are doing in different ways. As an
example, if they were looking to research and develop chicken run 2 then they would research the
first one that they did for ideas to add to the second one. Or they could research another way by
looking online and finding out more about something to make their product. As an example, they
would have had to look online when it came to the film Arthur Christmas and find out more about
Josh Mahoney

Christmas and how they can make that film stand out to children around Christmas time. When it
comes to developing the movie, they will most likely be using techniques that they have used before
such as stop motion and CGI as it’s what they are familiar with and what they are good at. Then once
they have all of that they can start to go into production to make the movie and use all of the
research and development to make the product or movie.

Explain what the meaning of outsourcing and do Aardman do this:

Outsourcing is a business practice in which a company hires another company or an individual to

perform tasks, handle operations or provide services that are either usually executed or had
previously been done by the company's own employees.

The outside company, which is known as the service provider or a third-party provider, arranges for
its own workers or computer systems to perform the tasks or services either on site at the hiring
company's own facilities or at external locations.

Companies today can outsource a number of tasks or services. They often outsource information
technology services, including programming and application development as well as technical
support. They frequently outsource customer service and call service functions. They can outsource
other types of work as well, including manufacturing processes, human resources tasks and financial
functions such as bookkeeping and payroll. Companies can outsource entire divisions, such as its
entire IT department, or just parts of a particular department.

Aardman do not do this as they are an independent company who make all of their work inside the
company as they have hundreds of employees to do the job so they do not require another company
or individual to do their job for them.

what are the current international and national market

trends in animation:

The rapid advancement of technology has made

computer animation available to the masses and the
animation industry is one of the fastest growing
industries. The demand for animated entertainment has
expanded with the increase in broadcasting hours by
cable and satellite TV along with the growing popularity
of the Internet. In the past, animation series were aimed at children aged nine and below. In recent
years however, TV stations have been producing animation series for teenagers, adults and the
whole family. Animation series like The Simpsons and King of the Hill have been successfully aired on
primetime TV. The major markets include the United States, Canada, Japan, France, Britain and
Germany. The current animation industry is influenced by large multinational studios as well as TV
broadcast companies and cable channel companies. They are engaged in activities from pre-
production to distribution, as well as new sources of revenue such as DVD sales and intellectual
property licensing.

The multinational studios leverage various forms of partnership, coproduction and joint ventures
with global partners. Several countries subsidize their national film industries, including animation
and therefore, strategies such as co-production have been adopted to explore global market
opportunities and production subsidies. Co-production has emerged as a popular strategy for
studios in many countries. Funding flows for coproduction, from Hollywood to other countries and
vice versa are very common.
Josh Mahoney

Research their product diversity:

Aardmans diversity is shown within their products that they have developed throughout the years,
for example Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the sheep. These two shows show a quite diver
interaction with the audience, starting off with Shaun the sheep, this program shows an adventure
with an adventurous sheep doing all sorts of crazy activities shown for the entertainment of
children. You wouldn’t expect a fully-grown adult watching Shaun the sheep. Whereas Wallace and
Gromit is different as it also appeals to adults and children as it has humour for all ages so it makes it
perfect for all the target audience.

Another example of diversity is Timmy time where it’s a TV show with no words only action so this is
going to be aimed around young children as they would understand the words in the first place so
that why it appeals to them as they will only be able to see actions on everything they watch as they
are young and not fully developed. That’s why this show is perfect for them and its aimed at them
and again you would see and adult watching this program as they would be to mature for it. Another
film that can be appealing for all ages is chicken run as it has parts that everyone will enjoy out of
the movie and it’s something everyone can understand where as Shaun the sheep only a select
target audience will be able to understand. So Aardman uses a wide range of diversity so that
different films will be able to appeal to different target audience’s.