MORPH TURNS PHOTOGRAPHER IN NEW EPISODE
Morph, the classic children’s character created by Bristol-based Aardman Animations, has taken up photography in his brand new episode.
‘Sloped World’, is the thirteenth episode in the series of 15 one minute short films to be launched on Morph’s YouTube channel and features Morph and his side-kick Chas honing their photographic skills using a Canon EOS 550D.
Creative Director on the new Morph episodes, Merlin Crossingham said: “When Morph was first created back in 1977, he lived on an artist’s desk alongside ordinary, everyday things like pencils, paints, modelling clay, books and mugs. The new episodes feature Morph on an artist’s desk in a corner of the Aardman Studios in the current day, where along with the paint, pencils and mugs, you’d also expect to find a few electronic items. We asked for feedback on storylines from our Kickstarter backers, and many seemed to agree that Morph would get up to mischief with modern-day gadgets as we received lots of story suggestions featuring mobile phones and digital cameras.”
Merlin adds: “When we came to produce the props for Sloped World, we wanted to stick with the found object approach so we looked at real cameras for Morph and Chas to find. We shoot our animation with the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV but it was too big next to Morph for the shot composition so we chose our much smaller EOS 550D as the prop.
Merlin continues: “The entire new Morph series was shot on Canon EOS 1D Mark IV cameras over three months. The EOS 1D Mark IV has a very stable live video feed which gives vital reference for stop motion animation. We actually capture each frame as a raw file which allows us to then out put our final films at any resolution up to 4K with no fuss. It sounds a bit mean but the best thing about the cameras is that you forget that they are there, they just do the job well.”
Guido Jacobs, Country Director at Canon UK & Ireland says: “It’s great to see that Morph is brushing up on his cameras skills in the latest episode and using Canon equipment to do so. We were delighted that the EOS 550D was chosen as a camera for Morph to use as we’re big fans of the series here at Canon. Morph is a complex programme to film and the EOS 1D Mark IV allows Aardman to achieve the best results while staying true to Morph’s traditional stop motion animation.”
The new Morph series launched in the summer, after a successful campaign on the Kickstarter crowdfunding website raised over £110,000 which part-funded 15 brand new episodes. Staying true to the original format, the new episodes are shot using clay and traditional stop-frame animation at Morph’s original home at the Aardman studios in Bristol. Morph first appeared on our TV screens back in 1977 when his creators Peter Lord and David Sproxton produced short films for the BBC children’s art programme, Take Hart with Tony Hart.
‘Sloped World’ goes live on Morph’s YouTube channel www.youtube.com/MorphOfficial at 10am on Friday 2nd January 2014.