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SHERLOCK GNOMES

Synopsis

Sherlock Gnomes (Johnny Depp) and his assistant, Dr. Gnome Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor), storm into London’s natural history museum, where their nemesis, a pie mascot named Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou), is holding gnomes hostage, planning to smash them. After a brief battle, Moriarty is defeated by getting seemingly crushed by a dinosaur skeleton. Meanwhile, Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and Juliet (Emily Blunt), as well as the other gnomes, are moving to London. While there, Gnomeo and Juliet are declared the new leaders of the garden. Noticing that Juliet has cast him aside to improve the garden, Gnomeo leaves to find a flower as a centerpiece, but nearly gets caught in a shop, forcing Juliet to rescue him. Gnomeo and Juliet return to the garden, but then find out that all of the other gnomes have gone missing. Sherlock and Watson show up at the scene to investigate, and after Gnomeo and Juliet help them escape from a sewer flood, Sherlock agrees for them to team up.

Studio

Paramount Animation

Director

John Stevenson

Services provided

Creative studio (Paris & London) , Line Production

Full credits on IMDB

It was an interesting challenge because, obviously for Mikros, it would have been a lot easier for them to do the whole production in Paris, but we were keenly interested in having production in London, because we were living there and the movie is actually set there, so it was a unique opportunity to do an animated film on-location, so to speak.”

Eric Leighton, Animation Director – interview for Animation World Network, April 2, 2018

Overall, the animators stressed that working with Stevenson was quite a positive experience.

“He was so happy with everything we were doing, that the crew would be happy,” Leighton underscores. “It became like a motivational thing, more than a dark approval session, and everybody ended up wanting to come to our dailies. We were just super-energized, and super-positive.”

He added that he also had to look at a lot of animation schools to find the talent he needed.

“We had a lot of juniors that I ended up hiring for this show but they were super passionate,” he said, adding that the animation schools these days are much less technical and much more into the art and craft of animation. “So what I ended up with on the show was all of the mix of seniors, with all these passionate juniors coming in, everybody in the middle, and they all taught each other.”

Leighton is also proud of the fact that they ended up with almost a 50/50 gender split, on the animation crew, “I have never had anything close,” he says. “You’re always fighting to get a mix of people and energy, but I’ve never had that before, and it really made a big difference to our crew. It totally changed the energy on the floor. It wasn’t a boys’ club; it was a real mix of people. It was super unique in that way, and I think that a lot of people will be walking away from this job as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A lot of bonds were made. It was super memorable.”

Copyright

© 2018 MGM/PARAMOUNT PICTURES/ROCKET PICTURES 

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