A Matter of Loaf and Death

Last updated

A Matter of Loaf and Death
A Matter of Loaf and Death movie poster.jpg
North American DVD cover art
Genre Black comedy
Mystery
Romance
Created byNick Park
Based on Wallace & Gromit
by Nick Park
Screenplay byNick Park
Bob Baker
Directed by Nick Park
Starring Peter Sallis
Ben Whitehead
Sally Lindsay
Composer Julian Nott
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producers Peter Lord
David Sproxton
Bob Baker
Miles Bullough
Nick Park
ProducerSteve Pegram
Cinematography Dave Alex Riddett
EditorDavid McCormick
Running time29 minutes
Production company Aardman Animations
Budget£3 million
Original release
Network ABC1
Release3 December 2008 (2008-12-03) [1]
Network BBC One
Release25 December 2008 (2008-12-25)
Related

Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations and created by Nick Park. It is the fourth short to star the titular characters of the Wallace & Gromit series, [2] the first one since A Close Shave in 1995. [3]

Contents

A Matter of Loaf and Death is a murder mystery, including a serial killer murdering bakers. Wallace and Gromit operate a bakery business, during which Gromit tries to solve the case before Wallace himself ends up as the killer's latest and final victim. [4] It was the last Wallace & Gromit film before the retirement of Wallace's voice actor Peter Sallis in 2010 preceding his death in 2017. The short was also one of the most watched television specials in the United Kingdom in 2008 and received critical acclaim. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, and won a BAFTA and an Annie Award for Best Short Animation and Best Animated Short Subject respectively in 2009.

Plot

A serial killer has murdered twelve bakers, the latest being Baker Bob. While on a delivery for their bakery business, Wallace and Gromit save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the Bake-O-Lite bread company, and her nervous poodle Fluffles, when the brakes on her bicycle fail, narrowly avoiding falling into the local zoo's crocodile enclosure. Gromit finds no problem with the brakes, but Wallace is smitten. He and Piella begin a whirlwind romance and Gromit is angered when she redecorates their house and his room. Fluffles and Gromit share a sensitive moment when she returns Gromit's possessions, discarded by Piella.

Wallace sends Gromit to return Piella's forgotten purse. At Piella's mansion, Gromit discovers numbered mannequins representing each of the murdered bakers and an album containing photographs showing Piella in relationships with each one; she is the killer and now plots to make Wallace her thirteenth victim, completing a baker's dozen. When Gromit tries to show Wallace the evidence, the latter is too distracted with his engagement to Piella to listen and she surreptitiously disposes of the album to ensure that Wallace remains oblivious to her plot.

Determined to protect his owner, Gromit installs security measures in their home, including a metal-detecting security screener. After Piella tricks Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her, Wallace makes him do dishwashing while muzzled and restrained as punishment. Gromit watches helplessly as Piella prepares to push Wallace to his death into the mill machinery, but he is saved when Piella is struck by a swinging bag of flour, presumably thrown by Fluffles. After an angry outburst that nearly exposes her true nature, Piella leaves but later drops by to apologise with a cake. Gromit, upon hearing Fluffles is ill, heads to Piella’s home, where Piella captures him and detains him in a storeroom with Fluffles.

Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, Gromit and Fluffles arrive at Wallace's house as he lights the cake candle. The cake falls and breaks apart, revealing it to be a bomb. Piella reveals to Wallace that she detests bakers after her weight gain ended her career as the Bake-O-Lite Girl; before she can dispatch Wallace with a giant wrench, she is attacked by Fluffles operating their forklift. In the chaos, the bomb ends up in Wallace's trousers; Piella leaps onto her balloon to escape, but Gromit and Fluffles neutralise the explosion by filling the trousers with dough. Losing her sanity, Piella vows to kill Wallace, unaware her weight lowers the balloon into the zoo's crocodile enclosure where she is devoured. Fluffles is distraught over her owner's death and despite being offered the chance to stay with the duo, she decides to leave, leaving Gromit devastated. Wallace and Gromit try to take their minds off the events with a delivery. Outside, they find Fluffles, who had changed her mind, and Gromit opens the door for her and she joins them as they happily start their delivery.

Cast

Production

In October 2007, it was announced that Wallace and Gromit were to return to television after an absence of ten years with a new short film titled Wallace & Gromit: Trouble At' Mill. [5] [6] Filming began in January 2008; creator Nick Park commented that the production period for the short was significantly quicker than that of the feature-length films Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit , which each took five years to complete. [3] [7] A Matter of Loaf and Death was the first Aardman film to be made using the software Stop-Motion Pro. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets. [8]

Commenting on the fact that the short would be made directly for a British audience, Nick Park said: "I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America — and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying." [3] Regardless, Park changed the title from Trouble at Mill as he thought it was too obscure a Northern England colloquialism. As well as a final title that references A Matter of Life and Death , the film also references Batman , Aliens and Ghost . [9]

Park said in an interview with the Radio Times , "The BBC hardly gave a single note or instruction on the whole thing", and Park goes on to remark how it was better than his previous work with DreamWorks, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, where they kept receiving calls to change critical things. [8]

Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston. [10] Although unfamiliar with her role as Shelly Unwin in Coronation Street , Park said "Sally has a lot of fun in her voice, flamboyant almost, and I was also looking for someone who could be quite charming too, but with a slightly posh northern accent. Piella needed to at times sound well to do, and then at others sound quite gritty". [10]

Release

The short had its debut in Australia, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC1 on 3 December 2008, and was repeated again the following day on ABC2. [1]

In the United Kingdom, it debuted on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One with over 14 million people watching, although it had been readily available on The Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008. [9] [11] On 19 December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube, ahead of its screening in the United Kingdom. [12]

In France, A Matter of Loaf and Death (Sacré pétrin in French) was shown – dubbed into French – on Christmas Eve 2008, on M6. In Germany, one version, entitled Auf Leben und Brot was broadcast on the Super RTL network, the title is a play on Auf Leben und Tod meaning a matter of life and death.

In a similar style to A Close Shave, Wallace & Gromit became the theme for BBC One's Christmas idents for 2008, to promote the showing of A Matter of Loaf and Death. [13] [14] These idents led Russell T Davies to request similar idents for Doctor Who the following year. [15]

Reception

The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day 2008 in the United Kingdom and secured the largest Christmas Day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the United Kingdom in 2008, [16] with a peak average audience of 14.4 million. [17] The programme had a share of 53.3%, peaking with 58.1% and 15.88 million at the end of the programme. [18]

The repeat showing on New Year's Day 2009 managed 7.2 million, beating ITV's Emmerdale in the ratings.[ citation needed ] The short was shown on British television for the third time on Good Friday 2009, pulling in 3.4 million viewers. In BARB's official ratings published on 8 January 2009, it showed that A Matter of Loaf and Death had 16.15 million, making it the highest rated programme of 2008, and the highest rated non-sporting event in the United Kingdom since 2004, when an episode of Coronation Street garnered 16.3 million.

A positive review came from USA Today , which gave the film four stars. [19]

Awards

Won
Nominated

Related Research Articles

Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aardman Animations</span> British animation studio and production company

Aardman Animations Limited, stylised as AARDMAN since 2022, is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film. Between 2000 and 2006, Aardman partnered with DreamWorks Animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Park</span> English filmmaker (born 1958)

Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

<i>Rex the Runt</i> British animated comedy television series

Rex the Runt is a stop-motion adult animated claymation pixilation comedy series, primarily consisting of a television show and two short films produced by Aardman Animations and Egmont Imagination for BBC Bristol, with EVA Entertainment co-producing the first series. Its main characters are four plasticine dogs: Rex, Wendy, Bad Bob and Vince.

<i>A Close Shave</i> 1995 animated short film

A Close Shave is a 1995 British stop-motion animated short film co-written and directed by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations with Wallace & Gromit Ltd., BBC Bristol and BBC Children's International. It is the third film featuring Wallace & Gromit, following A Grand Day Out (1989) and The Wrong Trousers (1993). A Close Shave won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. A Close Shave saw the first appearance of Shaun, who became the main character of the Shaun the Sheep spin-off series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claymation</span> Stop-motion animation made using malleable clay models

Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.

<i>The Wrong Trousers</i> 1993 short film by Nick Park

The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 British stop-motion animated short film co-written and directed by Nick Park, produced by Aardman Animations in association with Wallace and Gromit Ltd., BBC Bristol, Lionheart Television and BBC Children's International. It is the second film featuring the titular duo, eccentric inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit, following A Grand Day Out (1989). In the film, a villainous penguin, Feathers McGraw, posing as a lodger, recruits Wallace by using his techno-trousers to steal a diamond from the city museum.

<i>A Grand Day Out</i> 1989 animated short film

A Grand Day Out is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film and the first instalment in the Wallace & Gromit series. It was directed, animated and co-written by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and Aardman Animations in Bristol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sallis</span> English actor (1921–2017)

Peter John Sallis was an English actor. He was the original voice of Wallace in the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit films and played Norman "Cleggy" Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine from its 1973 inception until the final episode in 2010, making him the only actor to appear in all 295 episodes. Additionally, he portrayed Norman Clegg's father in the prequel series First of the Summer Wine.

<i>Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit</i> 2005 animated film by Nick Park and Steve Box

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a 2005 animated comedy film directed by Nick Park and Steve Box. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation in collaboration with Aardman Animations. It was the second feature-length film by Aardman, after Chicken Run (2000). The film debuted in Sydney, Australia on 4 September 2005, before being released in theaters in the United States on 7 October 2005 and in the United Kingdom on 14 October 2005.

<i>Wallace & Gromits Cracking Contraptions</i> 2002 British film

Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions is a British series of ten Wallace & Gromit stop motion animations varying in length from 1 to 3 minutes. Each episode features one of Wallace's new inventions and Gromit's skeptical reaction to it. The series was produced and released in 2002 by Aardman Animations. All ten shorts were aired on BBC One after the television premiere of Chicken Run (2000).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Lord</span> British animator

Peter Duncan Fraser Lord CBE is a British animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. He also directed Chicken Run along with Nick Park from DreamWorks Animation, and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.

<i>Shaun the Sheep</i> British childrens television series

Shaun the Sheep is a British stop-motion animated silent children's television series which is developed by Aardman Animations. A spin-off in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the series focuses on the adventures of Shaun, the eponymous sheep previously starring in A Close Shave, as the leader of his flock on an English farm. The series premiered on 5 March 2007 on CBBC in the UK, also airing on BBC Two. Since 2020, the series is streamed globally on Netflix. In March 2024, it was announced that the seventh series is in development and will premiere in 2025. With 170 episodes over 6 series, Shaun the Sheep is one of the longest-running animated series in British television.

Steven Royston Box is an English animator and director who works for Aardman Animations.

<i>Wallace & Gromits World of Invention</i> 2010 British TV series or programme

Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention is a British science-themed miniseries, starring Peter Sallis, Ashley Jensen, Jem Stansfield, and John Sparkes, produced by Aardman Animations, which aired on BBC One during 2010, from 3 November to 8 December and Channel 10 (Australia) during 2011, from 20 September to 6 October. The programme focuses on inventions based around various themes, and consists of live-action films interlaced with animated claymation segments hosted by characters Wallace & Gromit, featuring a side-plot connected to that episode's theme. While Sallis reprises his role as the voice of Wallace, live-action film segments were either narrated by Jensen or presented by Stansfield, with Sparkes providing the voice of Wallace and Gromit's unseen archivist Goronwy, a unique character for the programme.

David Alexander Riddett is a prominent English cinematographer mostly known for his work at Aardman Animations.

Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.

<i>Robin Robin</i> 2021 stop-motion animated short film by Aardman

Robin Robin is a 2021 stop-motion animated musical short film produced by Aardman Animations, created and directed by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please, and written by Ojari, Please, and Sam Morrison.

<i>Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl</i> Upcoming 2024 British film

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a 2024 British stop motion animated comedy film produced by Aardman Animations and directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, featuring Park's characters from the Wallace & Gromit series. It is the sixth Wallace & Gromit film overall, the first since A Matter of Loaf and Death in 2008 and the second feature-length film following The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005, serving as a full-length sequel to The Wrong Trousers (1993).

References

  1. 1 2 "Wallace And Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death - Program Summary". ABC Television . Archived from the original on 6 December 2008.
  2. ↑ "Wallace & Gromit Say Cheese!". E! Online. 25 August 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 "Wallace and Gromit return to TV". BBC News. 2 October 2007. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
  4. ↑ "Aardman Rights Takes Wallace & Gromit, Timmy On International Adventure". Animation World Network. 15 October 2008. Archived from the original on 19 December 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
  5. ↑ "Wallace And Gromit Return". empireonline.com. 3 October 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
  6. ↑ "Wallace and Gromit to Return in the Trouble at Mill". 3 October 2007.
  7. ↑ "The latest Wallace And Gromit outing comes to BBC One this Christmas" (Press release).
  8. 1 2 Nigel Farndale (18 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit: one man and his dog". The Daily Telegraph . London. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
  9. 1 2 "Latest Gromit misses out on Oscar". BBC News. 17 November 2008. Archived from the original on 29 December 2008. Retrieved 17 November 2008.
  10. 1 2 This is South Wales (24 December 2008). "Nick Park says no to Skywalker". This is South Wales . Retrieved 25 November 2010.
  11. ↑ "BBC - Press Office - Network TV Programme Information BBC ONE Weeks 52/53". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
  12. ↑ "Wallace & Gromit pirated on YouTube". International Business Times. 19 December 2008. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2008.
  13. ↑ Sweney, Mark (12 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit star in BBC1 Christmas idents". The Guardian.
  14. ↑ "BBC One".
  15. ↑ Davies, Russell T (2010). The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter. BBC Books. p. 542: Oh, and I'll tell you what's bugging me: those BBC One Christmas idents, with Wallace and Gromit in the bloody snow. Yes, lovely, etc. But why isn't that Doctor Who? Why isn't it David and a TARDIS, spinning about? I want that next year. I want the ident! I'm going to start a campaign.
  16. ↑ Robinson, James (26 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit lead BBC to Christmas ratings victory". London: Guardian.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 January 2009. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  17. ↑ "Wallace and Gromit top TV ratings". BBC News . 26 December 2008. Archived from the original on 26 December 2008. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  18. ↑ Wilkes, Neil (26 December 2008). "'Wallace & Gromit' leads Xmas Day ratings". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on 30 December 2008. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  19. 1 2 "Film Winners in 2009". BAFTA. Archived from the original on 11 February 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  20. ↑ "36th Annual Annie Nominations and Awards Recipients". The Annie Awards. Archived from the original on 15 August 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
  21. ↑ "The 82nd Academy Awards (2009) Nominees and Winners". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 7 March 2010. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.