An Altrincham animation company is behind the puppets that star in a blockbuster Christmas advert from Sainsbury’s, which launches on TV tonight.
The supermarket’s three-minute ad, the follow-up to last year’s highly successful Mog the Cat film, stars a singing James Corden and will be aired during tonight’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here on ITV.
It uses stop-frame animation techniques, which requires every shot to be filmed at a quarter of a second a time, and laser-printed puppets made by Mackinnon and Saunders, which operates from Seamons Road in Oldfield Brow.
Watch the ad here:
Ian Mackinnon and Pete Saunders first met at the legendary Cosgrove Hall Productions in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, working as animators on projects such as Wind in the Willows and The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
They set up themselves over 20 years ago and their team is also responsible for the puppets in everything from CBeebies favourites Clangers, Bob the Builder, Pingu and Rastamouse to Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.
The story in Sainsbury’s ad is told via an original song, which will be released on Spotify, sung by actor and chat show host James Corden and composed by Flight of the Conchords Bret McKenzie, who four years ago won an Oscar for the best original song in The Muppets.
It’s directed by Sam Fell, formerly of Wallace and Gromit maker Aardman Animations who went on to make comedy zombie animation ParaNorman.
Fell said that work on creating and planning the film began in March and was only completed last week. It took 16 weeks to build the sets and create the 26 puppets used in the film.
“The advert reflects a typical British family juggling everything they have to at Christmas time, we just hope it puts a smile on people’s faces”, said Sarah Kilmartin, head of campaigns at Sainsbury’s.
