At their core, stop-motion films are the most sophisticated simulation creations to exist in a world of cutting-edge entertainment that is grappling with the coming impacts of artificial intelligence. This year, two of those films - "Walker" and "Walker" - are among the top films vying for top honors in the animated film category during awards season.

Both films are the result of hard work by top filmmakers, but their journeys are different. One is part of a long tradition from a beloved British filmmaking team (Aardman), the other is an independent film from an acclaimed Australian director (Adam Elliott).

Each film and the filmmakers behind it have left a mark. "Wallace and Gromit" was nominated for seven Annie Awards, including Best Picture. Memoirs of a Snail was also critically acclaimed, winning the Annecy Crystal Award, the Animated Film Audience Award, and being nominated for an Annie Award for Best Independent Feature Film.

Stop-motion animated films also performed well this past awards season. "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" won the Best Animated Feature Award in 2006, and "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" also won the Best Animated Feature Award in 2023 . Helmer Nick Park also won three Academy Awards for his work on "Wallace and Growl": "Creature Comforts" (1990), "The Wrong Trousers" (1993) and "The Wrong Trousers". A Close" Shave" (1995). In 2004, Elliott won an Academy Award for his stop-motion animated short "Harvey Krumpet."

"Wallace and Gromit" co-director Merlin Crossingham and Parker used the latest technology to create the film, although the basic approach to making the film remains the same.

"We've been shooting with digital cameras since 'Bread and Death,'" Parker said. "This really helps if something goes wrong because it's easier to fix it. If the animation doesn't work at a certain point, you can edit it digitally."

Crossingham added: "We're still using puppets on small stages in small studios and the core craft of stop-motion animation is still the same. The support around it has evolved. We used to shoot in 35mm. It changes how you bring your vision to the screen. Way. Shooting digitally makes things faster, so you can do a lot more of that chase scene at the end of the movie, just like we did 20 years ago."

The film's final canal chase scene was done with the help of CG water, and they also added silicone instead of clay in certain areas to get the effect they wanted.

"The puppets became so bad through all the stuff the animators did," Crossingham said. "If every part (of the puppet) was silicone, it would save a lot of remodeling work. But even with silicone, we are better. Even if (the puppet) is silicone, the originals are made of clay, And the mold is made from the original clay, so the fingerprints are also transferred to the silicone. It’s still an original piece, and handcrafting is at the heart of everything we do.”

They still use clay in most of their characters, which brings the complexity that comes with this unique handmade art form.

"The modeling clay we used was not designed for filmmaking," Parker said. "It's designed for schools and children, not exactly artist's material. So you order a dark red, one batch might be very dark red, and the next batch might not be so dark red. So, we have a guy who serves as our clay monitor , when we receive a new batch (as we did at the beginning of the film), he goes through it and mixes the colors so that all of our colors are unique. He mixed batches, not only for color and paint, but also for texture, because all the different paints have different malleability and he tried to make them uniform so that all the animators could perform modeling under studio lights. The studio light is usually very warm. He might add a little glycerin to soften it, or if it's too soft, he'll add a little bit of chalk powder, gesso, or something like that."

For Eliot, who made the film with the help of an Australian government arts grant, the key to Memoirs of a Snail was finding techniques that would allow him to tell the story of his development over the years, while also looking closely at his experiences . Budget.

"The film has four basic elements, which are paper, clay, wire and paint," Elliott said. “Everything we do is to make the puppets look a certain way – we’re celebrating imperfection. There's a skeleton inside the head (of the puppet) so we can move it. There are magnets here and there - that's how we attach the eyes, but most of the film is made of paper, clay, wire and paint. All the sets are cardboard. We don't use any fabric, so it's all about texture and strokes, fingerprints, and the wires are always hair. That's because I find a lot of stop-motion animation to be very fluid. . ” I don’t want to be overly reliant on things like 3D printers.”

"Memoirs of a Snail" was made with a small crew and used voice-overs to have characters move their mouths so their actions could be completed more quickly. Sarah Snook, Eric Bana and Jackie Weaver join the voice cast.

“I said yes without even reading it because I knew Adam (Elliott’s) work,” Weaver said. "Playing 'Pinky' was a joy because she was so well written."

There's also a lot of fire and water in Eliot's films. But with a limited budget, he couldn't even consider a small amount of CG. He must find other solutions.

"We used cellophane to create the look of fire," Elliott said. "This movie is about imperfection and accepting imperfection in yourself, others and life. The cellophane look fits what we're doing, but it does make it more difficult. I always have to find ways to use less There were ways to do more with the budget, but in a way you were forced to be creative and innovative and to save time we had to come up with magnetic eyeballs to use on the puppets and were forced to use voiceovers.

"It all forced me to be very careful about how I used everything, and we had to make sure the voiceovers were paired correctly and distilled to their essence so that each word was there just because it needed to be. The rule is to show, not tell. I try to make sure that my The narrative isn't too overbearing, so yeah, I think that's right. It’s all these constraints that force me to come up with solutions that shape my style, aesthetic, and way of telling stories, which makes what I do unique and, oddly enough, exactly what everyone wants to be. When I was in film school, we all tried very hard to be different.”