Please qualifies for the Oscars with Nordisk Panorama's Best Nordic Short Film award Anna Mantzaris's felt-puppet stop-motion short Please is now an Oscar contender. Cartoon Brew's 2027 Oscars short-film contender profile (10 November 2026) says it qualified by… Home / News
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Please qualifies for the Oscars with Nordisk Panorama's Best Nordic Short Film award Anna Mantzaris's felt-puppet stop-motion short Please is now an Oscar contender. Cartoon Brew's 2027 Oscars short-film contender profile (10 November 2026) says it qualified by… 
Apple's Hello, MacBook Neo: the launch film's interface was built by hand and shot frame by frame Apple released Hello, MacBook Neo, the introductory film for its entry-level laptop, on its YouTube channel on 4 March 2026. On 24 April 2026 it followed with a short… 
Jarvis Cocker as a puppet: The Sleeping Forecast built in ten days and shot in two Stop Motion Magazine covered Joseph Wallace's brand film for the BBC podcast The Sleeping Forecast on 10 November 2026. A puppet of Jarvis Cocker, who narrates, sits in a… 
Niki Lindroth von Bahr's The End: a miniature airport of waiting souls, four years in development Stop Motion Magazine profiled The End, Niki Lindroth von Bahr's stop-motion short, on 8 November 2026. The whole film takes place in a miniature international airport, built by… 
A new documentary on Ladislas Starevich shows how his hinged wooden puppets were made to perform Stop Motion Magazine released a short documentary, "Ladislas Starevich: Making Figures Come Alive", on its YouTube channel on 8 November 2026, with an illustrated companion… 
Blinkink's Let's Get Fuzzy for Levi's: a furred yeti, three cabins at three scales and fur left to move between frames Let's Get Fuzzy is Levi's 2026 holiday film, directed by Stevie Gee and Essy May at Blinkink. Five friends at a snowy cabin are confronted by a large, furred yeti, and the… 
Joachim Hérissé's The Flesh Dress: textile puppets and a real-time 3D animatic for a stop-motion tale of an ageing dressmaker The Flesh Dress (La Robe peau) is a French stop-motion short of about 15 minutes, directed by Joachim Hérissé, who co-wrote it with Emma Degoutte. Komawé produced it, with… 
Soul Catcher: Amanda Strong and Pamela Post's stop-motion short wins at SPARK and Edmonton after its TIFF premiere Haboolm Ksinaałgat (Soul Catcher), a stop-motion short directed by Amanda Strong with Pamela Post as co-director and screenwriter, premiered at the Toronto International Film… 
CRAFT Animfest 2026 winners: Decay takes the Professional Craft Award; Brain Space, Radix and Silent Cinema recognised The 6th CRAFT International Animation Festival (Craft Animfest) ran from 23 to 28 October 2026 in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and has now published its winners. In its main… 
Uka-uka wins two prizes at Fredrikstad Animation Festival 2026; Please takes the audience award Two stop-motion shorts already in the catalogue were among the winners at Norway's Fredrikstad Animation Festival, whose awards were handed out on 25 October and reported by AWN… 
Two stop-motion features in Manchester Animation Festival's first Animation Featured lab Manchester Animation Festival has picked seven projects for Animation Featured, a new development lab backed by the BFI that aims to strengthen the UK's feature animation… 
Wildwood opens third in North America and passes $20 million after eight days LAIKA's Wildwood opened in North American cinemas on the weekend of 23-25 October 2026 and took an estimated $11.6 million from 2,942 locations, according to BoxOfficeReport.com… 
Sulaimani: Vinnie Ann Bose builds a Kerala restaurant in Paris in stop motion, with memories painted in 2D Cartoon Brew profiled Sulaimani as a contender for the 2027 animated short Oscar. The film is already eligible: it won Best Short Film at the 2025 Manchester Animation Festival… 
Mexican stop-motion short Dolores goes online: corn-husk tomb figures and a week-long 360-degree shot Cecilia Andalón Delgadillo's debut short Dolores, a dialogue-free Mexican stop-motion film, went online for Halloween on Miyu Distribution's BANG BANG YouTube channel after more… Wildwood behind the scenes: a VFX "seam team", 97 motion-control rigs, and two years animating one rescue The A.V. Club published Tara Bennett's behind-the-scenes feature on LAIKA's Wildwood on 24 October 2026. It pairs director and LAIKA CEO Travis Knight with three department heads,… Wildwood's animators on "negative animation", 300 pins in a velvet dress, and choreographing a sparrow Animation World Network published an interview on 27 October 2026, recorded at SCAD AnimationFest, with four members of LAIKA's Wildwood animation team: head of animation Brad… Wildwood's heads of department on an inch-tall mouse puppet, 900 one-second shots and performance rigs Ryan Gaur's Skwigly interview (October 23) brings together five of Wildwood's department heads: director Travis Knight, costume designer Deborah Cook, production designer Nelson… Brad Schiff on Wildwood: a year for the first puppet, 36 Prues in all LAIKA head of animation Brad Schiff told Exclaim!'s Rachel Ho at the Toronto International Film Festival that stop motion is "a crazy way to make a film": every object in… 
How 20 years of LAIKA production R&D converged on Wildwood Andrew Webster's October 24 release-week feature for The Verge asks how LAIKA's accumulated production methods made Wildwood possible. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, working on… Inside Wildwood's costume department: 200-plus in-house fabrics, embroidered "knits" and 16 copies of Prue's coat InStyle's Behind the Seams series (Emily Kelleher, October 23, 2026, the film's opening day) visited LAIKA's costume department to look at the wardrobe of Wildwood. The piece is… 
The Simpsons builds its Treehouse of Horror XXXVII opening in practical stop motion The October 25 Treehouse of Horror XXXVII episode opens with a 20–30 second Nightmare Before Christmas homage made by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. Animation World Network interviewed… Travis Knight on Wildwood's fabric-built General and the muscles LAIKA put inside its human puppets In a release-week interview with /Film's Ben Pearson (October 22, 2026), Wildwood director Travis Knight explains two puppet-building decisions that earlier coverage of the film… 
CRAFT Animfest 2026 opens in Yogyakarta with a stop-motion and traditional-techniques competition including Eating Time and Radix The 6th CRAFT International Animation Festival (Craft Animfest) runs from 23 to 28 October 2026 at BBPPMPV Seni Budaya in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It was founded in 2016 by… 
Please receives Animation Is Film's 2026 Special Jury Prize for shorts Animation Is Film's ninth edition, held in Los Angeles from 16 to 19 October 2026, awarded its Special Jury Prize for shorts to Anna Mantzaris's Please. The festival's own awards… 
Small Prophets' homunculi combine stop-motion puppets, live-action plates and restrained CG Animation Magazine's 22 October 2026 craft feature returns to the handmade homunculi in Small Prophets. Direct interviews with animators Ainslie Henderson and Will Anderson… 
Sean Pecknold on Tennis, Oranges: a self-funded stop-motion short with one stage, one puppet set and three years of restarts Tennis, Oranges is an 11-minute stop-motion short written, directed and produced by Sean Pecknold at Sing-Sing, the Los Angeles studio he runs with production designer Adi… 
Aardman pays tribute to Loyd Price, the animator and supervisor who trained its feature crews On 16 October 2026 Aardman announced the death of Loyd Price, an animator, animation supervisor and teacher whose work at the Bristol studio spanned more than three decades.… 
Stop Motion Studio 27, a ground-up rewrite, nears its first beta on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with Android to follow Cateater, the developer of the consumer and classroom stop-motion app Stop Motion Studio, said on 21 September 2026 that it was finishing the first beta of Stop Motion Studio 27… 
Trent Shy animates a clay short for Michael Dougherty's Sam: The Soul of Halloween, built at home with his family Trent Shy, a stop-motion animator in Summerville, South Carolina, has been commissioned to make a clay animation short for Sam: The Soul of Halloween. Michael Dougherty, director… 
Ray Harryhausen: Myths in Motion opens in Winchester, with the original Trog model shown for the first time Ray Harryhausen: Myths in Motion opened in the Gallery at The Arc, Winchester, on 26 September 2026 and runs until 16 February 2027. The Arc, part of Hampshire Cultural Trust,… 
StopTrik's Dead Media programme connects optical sound, recovered photographs and hybrid puppet animation Amanda Barbour's 15 October report for Zippy Frames documents the craft programme behind StopTrik's 2026 Dead Media theme. The festival ran in Maribor on 23-27 September. Its… 
Phil Tippett's Mad God sequel and LOFT production workflow announced for VIEW 2026 Animation World Network reported on 6 October that a sequel to Phil Tippett's Mad God was in production, with preview material announced for VIEW Conference in Turin, held 12-16… 
LIGHTSTRUCK screens Jan Švankmajer's complete short films in artist-supervised remasters LIGHTSTRUCK's The Alchemical Furnace of Jan Švankmajer brings his complete short-film output to 2220 Arts + Archives in Los Angeles. Curators Zena Grey and Mark Toscano organised… 
Elliot Lobell's stop-motion short Edward took seven years, built and shot almost single-handed in a basement Edward is a seven-minute stop-motion horror short by Elliot Lobell. Its main character is a sideshow performer with a parasitic twin, set in a weathered, hand-built world drawn… At VIEW Conference, LAIKA's Steve Emerson puts Wildwood at 2,776 shots, with one shot needing 1,124 faces LAIKA production VFX supervisor Steve Emerson presented Wildwood at VIEW Conference 2026 in Turin (12-16 October), and Cartoon Brew's Jamie Lang reported the talk on 14 October.… 
Puerto Rico's only stop-motion studio: how Acho Studio built Bad Bunny's frog Sapo Cancho in six weeks Cartoon Brew's Jamie Lang profiled Acho Studio, which its founder Quique Rivera describes as the only professional stop-motion studio in Puerto Rico, on 10 March 2026. Rivera… 
Chris Ullens' 'The KiLL 2': a doll stop-motion music video shot in two weeks with out-of-frame rigging only Director and stop-motion animator Chris Ullens made the music video for Lex Amanri's 'The KiLL 2' with production company Marvellous Last Night, and Dragonframe's showcase blog… Wildwood's premiere run: London world premiere, AFI FEST opening night and an Academy Museum screening with Travis Knight LAIKA's Wildwood is reaching audiences through a run of festival premieres before it opens in cinemas. The 70th BFI London Film Festival (7-18 October 2026) is hosting the film's… 
Festival of Animation Berlin 2026 runs its second Stop-Motion Summit and takes a puppet to the Rotes Rathaus The ninth Festival of Animation Berlin (FAB) runs from 8 to 11 October 2026 at silent green Kulturquartier and City Kino Wedding, and stop motion has its own day. The Stop-Motion… 
Phil Tippett's 90-disc production archive goes online after Berkeley liquidation An archive buyer posting as TippettFan says they acquired a folder of CD-ROMs and DVDs during the August 2026 liquidation of Tippett Studio's former Berkeley facility and have… 
Pixar releases Fruit & Nut, a handmade stop-motion artist short and only its second stop-motion film after Self Pixar Animation Studios published Fruit & Nut, a seven-minute stop-motion short, in full on its YouTube channel on 2 October 2026. Pixar story artists Rej Bourdages and Tony Maki… 
The Gazelle Gazette: Simón Bucher and Cote Ramírez turn a 48-hour pixilation short into a Valdivia premiere, produced with Diluvio Cartoon Brew debuted the trailer for The Gazelle Gazette on 6 October 2026. The Chilean short is directed by Simón Bucher and Cote Ramírez and follows Gisella Cortés (Macarena… Wildwood art director Matthew Maldonado on building 136 sets by hand, ahead of LAIKA's Design Museum exhibition In a Creative Boom interview (Tom May, 28 September 2026), Wildwood art director Matthew Maldonado describes five years, from 2021, designing and building the film's sets. He… 
Chris Lavis brings a four-day Stop-Motion Puppet Lab to VIEW Conference 2026 VIEW Conference 2026 (Turin, 12-16 October), whose full programme 80.lv reported on 9 September, includes a hands-on Stop-Motion Puppet Lab led by Chris Lavis, the Oscar-winning… 
Aardman's 50th: Lightroom immersive show starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and Morph opens October 14 Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More opened at Lightroom in King's Cross, London, on 14 October 2026, as part of Aardman's 50th anniversary. Aardman… 
How Holy Motion animated The Secret Agent's 'hairy leg' in stop motion over live-action plates Kleber Mendonça Filho's Oscar-nominated political thriller The Secret Agent (2025), set in Recife under Brazil's military dictatorship, includes a short stop-motion sequence of… 
Animation Supplies launches Chroma Clay, a UK-made, wax-based plasticine for stop motion UK stop-motion supplier Animation Supplies has launched Chroma Clay, its own plasticine, in response to the closure of the factory that made Newplast. Newplast had been the… 
Simón Bucher on the rough-and-dirty pixilation sequence in Chile's hit Denominación de Origen Tomás Alzamora's Denominación de Origen, a comedy about the town of San Carlos campaigning for legal protection of its longaniza sausage, became Chile's most-watched domestic… LAIKA brings Wildwood and a making-of session to Manchester Animation Festival 2026 Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) has announced its 2026 programme, and stop motion features prominently. The festival runs November 8-12 at HOME and other Manchester venues.… 
DC's Dynamic Duo moves to September 2028 Warner Bros. has shifted Dynamic Duo from June 30, 2028 to September 22, 2028. The DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation feature centers on Dick Grayson and Jason Todd and comes… 
Uka-uka and When the Sea was Calm take OIAF 2026 craft awards Two stop-motion shorts won craft prizes at the 50th Ottawa International Animation Festival, whose full winners list was published on September 26. Henri Veermäe's Uka-uka, a… 
Dragonframe's latest dev builds shoot a test of every exposure at once and add an onion-skin toggle hotkey Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog, checked on 2026-09-29 at build 2027.01.19010, adds several changes for the people who light and shoot a scene rather than script… 
Candy Caries wins OIAF 2026 Young Audiences 7+ award Tomoki Misato's stop-motion series Candy Caries won the Animation for Young Audiences 7+ competition at the 50th Ottawa International Animation Festival, whose awards were… 
Ball Face and Pembe & Eflatun lead the StopTrik 2026 winners The 16th StopTrik International Film Festival in Maribor, Slovenia (September 23-27) announced its awards on September 27. Audiences gave the Stop Motion Animation Grand Prix to… 
Ball Face becomes first film to win four awards in one year at OIAF Laurence Thérien's clay-animated student short Ball Face won four prizes at the 50th Ottawa International Animation Festival: the Public Prize, Canadian Student Award, Bento Box… 
My Melody & Kuromi receives 2026 International Emmy nomination The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated My Melody & Kuromi in the Kids: Animation category for the 2026 International Emmy Awards. The Japanese… 
Ester Pazur on handmade stop-motion practice as AI reshapes commissioned work In a Creative Boom interview, animator Ester Pazur, who is finishing a bachelor's degree in animation specialising in stop motion, describes losing opportunities to AI-generated… SCAD AnimationFest spotlights stop-motion with The Tooth Seed and Wildwood artists SCAD AnimationFest opened its 10th-anniversary edition in Atlanta with a new animation competition that includes Cecilia Mendoza's stop-motion short The Tooth Seed. SCAD's… 
Selina Trepp's Unprofessional Practices spotlights analogue stop-motion and 'radical slowness' University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, is presenting Selina Trepp: Unprofessional Practices (July 17 – October 3, 2026), a solo exhibition built… 
Animator Sammy Lewis describes the 15-year path to Aardman and Beast of Mossy Bottom Australian animator Sammy Lewis has described the 15-year path from arriving unannounced at Aardman with a student showreel to returning as an animator on Shaun the Sheep: The… 
Phil Tippett closes his Berkeley studio after nearly 40 years Phil Tippett closed the Berkeley, California facility of Tippett Studio in late August 2026, holding a three-day liquidation auction (August 28-30) of stop-motion models, cameras… Wildwood's voice cast reveal how filmed booth sessions -- not just audio -- became animator reference Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay and director Chris Butler describe how Wildwood's voice performances -- recorded as early as 2021, years before animation began -- were filmed… LAIKA's release-week set visit names Wildwood's fabrication crew, puppet mechanisms and a 142,030-face record A cluster of release-week studio-visit pieces (Animation Scoop's Bill Desowitz, 2026-09-16; The Nerds of Color's Mike Manalo, 2026-09-17, reporting on a July 2026 Hillsboro,… 
Aardman auctions Wallace, Gromit, Feathers McGraw and the original Morph puppets for its 50th anniversary Aardman is auctioning more than 220 lots of production puppets and props through Propstore to mark its 50th anniversary, with bidding open since September 4, 2026 and the live… Aardman on lighting, "thumbiness" and Gaussian-splat sets for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom Ahead of its September 18, 2026 theatrical release, two interviews laid out how Aardman built its third Shaun the Sheep feature -- and how the studio thinks about craft versus… 
After Effects 26.5 adds disk caching for AI-powered Object Matte, speeds up Mask Tracker Adobe's September 2026 release of After Effects (version 26.5, released September 9) adds disk caching to AI-powered Object Matte -- the single-click automatic subject… LAIKA opens Wildwood: Inside the Performance exhibit at TIFF 2026 LAIKA opened a public Wildwood exhibit at Portland Square Gallery during TIFF week (media preview September 9, public hours September 10-19, 2026), displaying actual production… 
Stop Motion Studio 2 launches for Windows as a ground-up rebuild Cateater released "Stop Motion Studio 2" for Windows on 2026-05-06, describing it as a complete rewrite on modern Windows technology after two years of development rather than an… 
LAIKA launches "Made By Humans" interview series with Sony Music Group LAIKA debuted "Made By Humans: Creatives in Conversation" on September 9, 2026, a multi-episode interview series produced with Sony Music Group that pairs LAIKA artists with… Wildwood's cinematography: Caleb Deschanel on shooting his first stop-motion feature At the Telluride Film Festival on September 7, 2026, LAIKA paired director Travis Knight with six-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel -- shooting his… 
Aardman auctions 220+ puppets and props for its 50th anniversary Aardman is marking its 50th anniversary with a public auction of more than 220 puppets, props, and artworks drawn from its production history - the latest in a year of… 
Dragonframe 2026.07.4 adds Sony A7R VI camera support Dragonframe's 2026.07.4 point release adds direct support for Sony's A7R VI, a 66.8-megapixel full-frame mirrorless body announced in May 2026, to its camera-support table -- the… 
Ambriz Bros' stop-motion follow-up heads to Venice; Aardman marks 50 years with a puppet auction I Am Frankelda directors Roy and Arturo Ambriz (Cinema Fantasma) presented their next stop-motion feature, The Ballad of the Phoenix, at the Venice Gap-Financing Market (Sept 4-6,… Aardman marks 50th anniversary at Annecy; LAIKA's Wildwood confirmed for Oct 23 release This run's sweep found Aardman celebrating its 50th anniversary with an Annecy showcase reaffirming Let's Go Timmy! and Danger Delilah (both already catalogued) plus a newly… 
StopTrik announces 68-film 2026 official selection; PFCAT's expanded lineup pairs Paul Reubens' final performance with a LAIKA panel The 16th StopTrik International Film Festival (Maribor, Slovenia, 23-27 September 2026) announced its official selection: 29 titles in the Stop Motion Animation competition alone,… 
Memoir of a Snail's making-of: hand-mixed tears and an all-practical clay workflow Coverage around Memoir of a Snail's 2024 release detailed writer-director Adam Elliot's insistence on an entirely practical, no-CGI claymation shoot at his independent Melbourne… Ambriz Brothers take stop-motion follow-up 'The Ballad of the Phoenix' to Venice's financing market Roy and Arturo Ambriz ('I Am Frankelda') are bringing their long-gestating stop-motion fantasy 'The Ballad of the Phoenix' to Venice's financing market. The film follows Virian, a… 
Disney+ sets Aardman's stop-motion Pokemon Tales for 2027, alongside a wider Pokemon Company distribution deal Disney+ and The Pokemon Company International announced (Aug 28, 2026) a global content deal that gives Aardman's stop-motion series 'Pokemon Tales: The Misadventures of… 
Madame Tutli-Putli's making-of revisits how composited human eyes gave its puppets their gaze The National Film Board of Canada's blog resurfaced a four-part making-of interview with directors Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski on Madame Tutli-Putli (2007), revisiting one… Annecy 2026 puts stop-motion center stage: honorary Cristal for the Brothers Quay, 50th-anniversary Aardman tribute The 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival gave stop-motion a headline role: honorary Cristal Awards went to the Brothers Quay, credited by artistic director Marcel… 
Inside Tippett Studio's stop-motion Cyclops puppet for Poker Face Tippett Studio built a stop-motion Cyclops creature for "The Orpheus Syndrome," an Emmy-nominated episode of Peacock's Poker Face (director Rian Johnson) that pays tribute to Phil… 
PFCAT 2026 posts its awards page, naming five stop-motion works already in the catalogue as winners PFCAT (Portland, Aug 18-23, 2026) published its 2026 awards page. Stop-motion winners: Best Animated Feature -- Memory Hotel (Heinrich Sabl); Grand Prize in Animation and Best… 
Indy Shorts 2026 crowns Bára Anna Stejskalová's stop-motion/CGI hybrid '9 Million Colors'; Brothers Quay's Annecy honor surfaces 9 Million Colors (Bionaut/Foliascope/Trollfilm), a dialogue-free stop-motion/CGI hybrid short about a mantis shrimp and a blind fish, won the Academy Award-Qualifying Animated… PFCAT 2026 spotlights 30+ stop-motion films as LAIKA's Wildwood and Aardman's Beast of Mossy Bottom near release The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT), Aug 18-23, 2026, features more than 30 stop-motion works including two features -- Heinrich Sabl's Memory Hotel… 
Inside Stoopid Buddy Stoodios' stock-puppet system for Robot Chicken's weekly puppet volume Animation World Network's account of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios' puppet department for Robot Chicken -- a sketch-comedy series that needs a new cast every episode rather than one… 
Dragonframe's Arc motion control adds DUCO, DOBOT and Fairino cobot arm support Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog has widened Arc, the motion-control workspace, beyond the Universal Robots six-axis arm support it added in July: the 2027.01… 
A making-of retrospective details how Virgil Widrich folded 65,000 printed frames into Fast Film's paper sets Animation World Network's 'Tearing up the Tracks: Virgil Widrich's Fast Film' documents the making of Widrich's 2003 short, built from more than 65,000 individual paper printouts… 
A 2025 R&D case study details Aardman's VR 'Puppet Sculpt' tool for reviewing digital puppet designs A 2025 case study in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, by researcher Tom Livingstone (University of the West of England) working… 
Ottawa 2026 marks 50th edition with von Bahr short in competition The Ottawa International Animation Festival announced its 2026 selections for its 50th-anniversary edition (September 23-27, 2026, ~200+ films). Niki Lindroth von Bahr's… LAIKA's SIGGRAPH talk details a CG-groom-to-silicone-cast fur pipeline for Wildwood's creature cast A SIGGRAPH Talks 2025 presentation from LAIKA groom artist Micah Henrie gives the first technical account of how Wildwood furs its non-hero creature cast. Rather than… 
Second Home Studios' Tweedy & Fluff heads into its third year on Milkshake!, PFCAT's stop-motion spotlight runs through the weekend Creative Boom profiled Birmingham's Second Home Studios and its Milkshake! preschool series Tweedy & Fluff (created by children's author Corrinne Averiss, directed by studio… 
Miyu's "Animation in Conversation" debut: Anna Mantzaris and the Cartoon Physics duo on directing while making, and reference from real reactions Miyu Distribution launched a new interview series, "Animation in Conversation," on its Bang Bang YouTube channel (2026-08-21) -- an unscripted, roughly 40-minute conversation… LAIKA drops first Wildwood trailer; PFCAT 2026 spotlights 30+ stop-motion films in Portland LAIKA released the first full trailer for Wildwood, Travis Knight's stop-motion adaptation of Colin Meloy's novel, ahead of its October 23, 2026 US theatrical release. Separately,… Aardman lit Gromit's garden to foreshadow Norbot's arrival before he's seen Senior lighting camera Laura Howie and gaffer Sally Wattiaux built Gromit's garden on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl as a narrative lighting problem, not a decorative one.… How Aardman faked a marching robot army for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl without building dozens of puppets For a scene needing a marching crowd of small robot henchmen ("Norbots") in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Aardman avoided building dozens of individual puppets.… 
Phil Tippett Studio details its internally built, closed generative-AI pipeline At VIEW Conference 2025 in Turin, Tippett Studio's Gary Mundell (CEO), Remko Noteboom (principal software engineer), Mark Dubeau (art director), Tom Gibbons (animation supervisor)… 
BlinkInk's Bake Off title sequence mixes stop-motion prime lenses, icing-sugar multiplane and 1000fps eggs Cinematographer Daniel Morgan and director Isabel Garrett (BlinkInk, for Channel 4) combined three separate capture methods in one minute for The Great British Bake Off's 2025… Annecy 2026 stop-motion wins and LAIKA/Aardman release dates confirmed Community sweep of Cartoon Brew, AWN, and Annecy 2026 coverage found the festival Young Audience Award going to Antonin Niclass stop-motion short Into the Forest, plus fresh… 
PFCAT and Frame Fest bring dozens of stop-motion selections to late-August 2026 festival calendar Two U.S. festivals with substantial stop-motion programming land in the second half of August 2026: the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT, Aug 18-23)… 
VFX Voice: how Aardman's animators physically support puppets through Early Man's toughest poses VFX Voice's making-of feature on Aardman's Early Man (2018) describes how the studio's animators keep a puppet steady through demanding, off-balance poses on set: "animators make… PFCAT 2026 brings more than 30 stop-motion works to Portland The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology will run August 18–23, 2026 at OMSI with a programme of more than 170 films from 31 countries. Animation World Network… 
How Aardman faked 300-mph motion blur on The Wrong Trousers' toy-train chase by moving the camera, not the train Inverse's retrospective on the making of Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) recounts how cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett and the camera crew created the model-train… 
LAIKA's Craft in Motion series shows how animators fake motion blur with hand-built smear frames LAIKA's official "Craft in Motion" video series published a new entry, "Craft in Motion: Smear Frames in Stop-Motion Animation" (LAIKA Studios YouTube channel, 2026-07-03),… 
The Inventor heads to US theaters Aug 25; CEE Animation Forum 2026 selects 33 projects for its November Pilsen edition Blue Fox Entertainment released an official trailer for Jim Capobianco's stop-motion musical The Inventor (already catalogued, France/Ireland/US, voice cast including Stephen Fry,… 
Deborah Cook on engineering Kubo and the Two Strings' costumes down to the millimeter LAIKA costume designer Deborah Cook (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link) described stop-motion costuming as an engineering discipline… 
Kodansha's LIGHT HOLE prints Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Attack on Titan pages into a papercraft world LIGHT HOLE, Kodansha's third global branded film, was directed by Toru Katori -- an independent creator selected from roughly 150 open-call submissions -- with Takuro Oishi as… 
Detlev wins Germany's top short-film prize for a forced-perspective, almost-all-in-camera parking lot Ferdinand Ehrhardt's diploma film Detlev -- a silicone-puppet short about a lonely man's nightly petrol-station ritual -- won the 2025 Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (Germany's national… 
Aardman's 50th-anniversary Annecy slate: Let's Go Timmy!, Danger Delilah, and the Pokemon collaboration Marking its 50th anniversary, Aardman used Annecy 2026 to unveil a full slate: 'Let's Go Timmy!' (a 30 x 5-minute stop-motion/2D series set in the Shaun the Sheep world of Mossy… 
Frame by Frame at the Center for Puppetry Arts puts stop-motion puppets from Corpse Bride to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio on public display Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts is showing Frame by Frame: The Art of Stop-Motion Animation, which opened on 12 June 2026 and was first scheduled to close on 1 November 2026:… 
See Creature's CNESST spot animates a puppet that unravels -- built entirely from crocheted wool Montreal's See Creature Animation built "Hanging by a Thread," a workplace-psychological-health campaign for Quebec's CNESST, around a puppet made almost entirely of… 
MoMA opens a century-spanning animation exhibition with stop-motion among 13 techniques The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition It's Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection opens on 1 August 2026 and draws from a collection covering 13 animation techniques,… 
Inside The Tiny Chef Show's art department: scheduling handmade sets for weekly delivery Autodesk's account of ShadowMachine's art department on The Tiny Chef Show lays out how a weekly series schedules handmade fabrication at a pace a feature never has to match: Art… 
How Scale Model Studios shot a one-take rotating build reveal for Bristol's Aviva Arena Dragonframe's showcase blog profiled Scale Model Studios' stop-motion preview film for Bristol's Aviva Arena (opening late 2028): a hand-built 1:500 scale model with 3D-printed… LAIKA shapes Wildwood release strategy around eventized theatrical screenings At Annecy, LAIKA president and director Travis Knight presented an extended look at Wildwood and described the feature as the studio's most ambitious production. The project has… 
Insectario expands into a four-country stop-motion co-production Mexican filmmaker Sofía Carrillo's first stop-motion feature, Insectario, has expanded its production network with Canada's Productions Ocho and Latvia's Trickster Pictures… 
Inside Chicken Run's sound pipeline: two-day-a-reel Foley premixes and a hand-built pie machine AudioTechnology magazine's contemporary account of Chicken Run's sound production lays out the schedule behind the mix: dialogue premixes at De Lane Lea took about a day and a… 
ARTE publishes Annecy 2026 making-of films for Cartoon Physics and Please ARTE's Annecy 2026 edition of Court-circuit pairs festival-selected shorts with production-focused companion pieces. The programme includes Cartoon Physics by Ru Kuwahata and Max… 
PFCAT 2026 lineup spotlights 30+ stop-motion films in Portland The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT), Aug 18-23, 2026 at OMSI, announced an expanded lineup with 30+ stop-motion films including two features: Heinrich… 
How Aardman's Oscar-winning Creature Comforts got its dialogue: real people, unscripted Animation Obsessive's history of Aardman's "vox pop" dialogue technique traces it from Faith and John Hubley's unscripted 1950s American TV commercials -- "We did not use a… 
Animator 2026 awards expose Poland’s current stop-motion and craft-animation network The 19th Animator International Animated Film Festival in Poznań announced its winners on 11 July 2026. The programme placed craft-led animation alongside drawn, digital and… 
SMOF 2026 adds Núcleo Latam animation market to its stop-motion festival The ninth SMOF International Animation Festival ran in Buenos Aires from 20–26 July 2026 with almost 100 stop-motion shorts in competition, screenings, premieres, workshops,… PFCAT 2026 lineup confirms Memory Hotel, Lure of the Ponies and Siqi Song's She Creates Change already catalogued The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT) released its expanded 2026 lineup (Aug 18-23, OMSI): 170+ films, 30+ stop-motion works and two stop-motion features… 
BBC's "Trails Will Blaze" animates 700 3D-printed athletes with real, in-camera fire BBC Creative and its production partner Nomint built the Winter Olympics 2026 opening film "Trails Will Blaze" around a stop-motion fire effect the team refused to fake: every… Travis Knight explains the sixteen-year production path to Wildwood At Annecy, LAIKA chief executive and director Travis Knight described Wildwood as a project the studio had wanted to make for sixteen years but could not responsibly attempt until… Annecy 2026 wrap-up: Pokémon x Aardman first look, Insectario expands to 4 countries, I Am Frankelda directors on Mexico's first stop-motion feature 2026-07-19 daily sweep of Cartoon Brew and Skwigly picked up fresh Annecy 2026 coverage: Sofía Carrillo's stop-motion feature debut Insectario has expanded into a 4-country… How The Girl Who Cried Pearls tracked CG mouth replacements with invisible UV ink befores & afters' technical deep dive (2026-01-06, building on its 2025-11-24 overview) reports how The Girl Who Cried Pearls (Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, National Film… 
Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest opens its 2027 short-film competition Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest has opened submissions for its 2027 competition, with separate categories for stop-motion puppet animation, live-action puppetry, and student work.… 
ACLU's Know Your Rights University traces back to a Stoopid Buddy Stoodios stop-motion animator A stop-motion animator's path from studio floor to civics education: Brandon Lake, previously catalogued here only as an animator/camera assistant at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (Robot… Laika details Wildwood's scale: 136 sets, 231 puppets, 54 hero characters LAIKA's own behind-the-scenes reveal for Wildwood (catalogued here as Wildwood), reported by Screen Rant, puts the production at 136 physical sets -- several large enough for the… 
Hidari lands Keanu Reeves and feature financing at Annecy's Cannes showcase At the Annecy Animation Showcase during Cannes' Marche du Film (May 2026), writer-director Masashi Kawamura and producer Noriko Matsumoto presented the feature-length plans for… 
Aardman Academy offers three bursary places for its online stop-motion courses Aardman Academy has opened three bursary-supported places across its Stop Motion 1 and Stop Motion 2 online courses. The scheme is intended for applicants who are underrepresented… 
TESTED's Adam Savage watches Aardman storyboard Early Man On a behind-the-scenes visit to Aardman for Early Man, Adam Savage's TESTED channel sits in with one of the studio's story artists on the storyboard stage -- described on-site as… 
SMOF 2026 identity spot builds a handmade planet around the festival's community SMOF's 2026 festival identity follows an astronaut arriving on a small animated planet inhabited by varied creatures. The festival presents the piece as an expression of its… 
Inside Pinocchio's cinematography: lens-matching, dust-safe DSLRs, and switching to on-ones to beat strobing Befores & Afters' account of cinematography on Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) quotes director of photography Frank Passingham on the shot-level camera choices behind the… 
ETER Anima Festival closes inaugural competition call with 129 submissions ETER Anima Festival has closed submissions for its first edition after receiving 129 films from Poland and other countries. The festival will run in Łódź from 30 September to 3… How Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio pushed puppet armatures into 3D-printed metal Skwigly Animation Magazine's October 2022 interview with puppet supervisor Georgina Hayns and production designer Guy Davis, conducted by Laura-Beth Cowley, describes how… 
Nina Gantz shares the independent stop-motion process behind Wander to Wonder At Animafest Zagreb 2026, filmmaker Nina Gantz presented a masterclass on building independent stop-motion films, using Wander to Wonder as the central production case study. The… 
Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton knighted; Royal Mint issues 50th-anniversary 50p coin Aardman's June 2026 news round-up (via aardman.com/latest-news) confirms co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton were honoured in the King's Birthday Honours, and that the Royal… Inside Hidari's five-minute pilot: wooden puppets, a Volo motion-control crane, and hand-moved smear frames Animation Obsessive's account of Hidari's 2023 five-minute pilot -- the hand-carved-wood samurai short from director Masashi Kawamura that is now in development as a feature with… 
Stop Motion Studio Windows update fixes Logitech Brio, onion-skin and eraser-preview issues Stop Motion Studio 26.07.78 for Windows addresses three production-facing issues: compatibility problems affecting Logitech Brio cameras when Windows Hello is involved, incorrect… A set visit inside Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget's puppet and animation departments Animation Magazine's Rich Johnson toured Aardman during the final months of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget's six-year production (2023-12-06). In the puppetry department, head of… 
StopMotionAnimation.com launches professional stop-motion mentorships StopMotionAnimation.com has added a professional mentorship offering intended to connect developing animators with experienced stop-motion practitioners. The initial mentors are… Industry sweep: Mackinnon & Saunders x Nihil Declarandum 'Heads', Il Baracchino, and a Secret Agent stop-motion cameo Cartoon Brew's stop-motion feed this run centred on LAIKA's Wildwood press tour (theatrical release Oct 23, 2026), Aardman's Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom trailer and… How Mackinnon & Saunders engineered Pinocchio's mechanical and 3D-printed puppet heads befores & afters (Ian Failes, 2022-12-12) reports on how Mackinnon & Saunders built the mechanical and 3D-printed puppet heads for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, drawing on… LAIKA launches handcrafted Wildwood portal experience at San Diego Comic-Con LAIKA opened The Forest is Calling Portal Experience outside the Hard Rock Hotel during San Diego Comic-Con, presenting the first public, in-person environment based on Wildwood.… Aardman's Newplast plasticine supply ran out in 2023 -- the clay it built Wallace & Gromit on is now back as HUE Clay In 2023, the single factory that made Newplast -- the plasticine Aardman has animated on since its 1972 founding, across Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep and Star… 
How Emmy-winning DP Ozlem Akturk lights stop motion for The Tiny Chef Show, Isle of Dogs and Frankenweenie Cinematographer Ozlem Akturk, whose stop-motion credits include The Tiny Chef Show, Isle of Dogs and Frankenweenie, describes stop-motion lighting as a control problem before it… 
SMOF 2026 launches Núcleo Latam animation market alongside its ninth festival edition SMOF's ninth edition expands beyond screenings and training with Núcleo Latam, described as the festival's first Latin American animation market. The three-day programme is… 
Dragonframe adds Canon EOS C50, EOS R6 Mark V and Sony Alpha A7 V camera support Dragonframe's camera-support table now lists Canon's EOS C50 and EOS R6 Mark V and Sony's Alpha A7 V as its newest supported cameras, all gated to Dragonframe version 2026.07.1 or… 
Kevin Parry animates an office chair ‘driving’ itself in stop motion Independent stop-motion animator Kevin Parry built a short scene of an office chair ‘driving’ itself through a room and into a chase, shot as 444 still photographs over 10 days,… Behind the handcrafted poster for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom GKIDS has released a behind-the-scenes featurette showing how the poster for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom was developed from an initial concept into a physical,… 
Dragonframe's development branch expands its Python scripting API Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog has moved into a new 2027.01 build cycle, and alongside small interface refinements (new Arc orbit-tool graphics, a +/- control… Annecy celebrates stop-motion and opens a new animation cultural center Annecy International Animation Film Festival's 2026 edition placed stop-motion at the center of its public program. Golden Globes' festival report describes Peter Lord's Aardman… 
StopTrik extends its 2026 call for entries StopTrik International Film Festival extended the submission deadline for its 16th edition to July 17, 2026. The official notice confirms four programming lanes: a traditional… 
MOTK Capture Stage 02 rebuilds the app around CAM and STAGE and draws a clear line to MOTK Shoot MOTK Capture Stage 02 replaces the Stage 01 tab-drawer shell with a camera-first instrument that has exactly two modes. CAM covers everything decided before and between shots:… MOTK Capture adds a native iPhone still-save path while keeping its browser and Windows beta MOTK Capture is the public identity for this independent stop-motion product. Stage 01 provides a cyan-and-amber shooting instrument with a large camera stage, editable exposure… 
Focus Features' ParaNorman production notes detail the silicone/foam-latex/resin puppet build Focus Features' "Two Years in the Making" production notes for ParaNorman describe the puppet department's material build in the studio's own words -- "All of our puppets are made… Howard Jones on rig removal and clay clean-up for Aardman's Early Man In a Rotoscopers interview, Early Man VFX supervisor Howard Jones (axisVFX) describes the baseline post-production task on Aardman's clay-puppet feature: "The simplest stuff we do… 
SMOF 2026 opens a week of stop-motion screenings and training in Buenos Aires SMOF 2026 runs from 20–26 July across Buenos Aires, presenting an international competitive programme centred on stop-motion animation. The festival combines short-film screenings… 
MOTK Shoot 0.4.7 beta adds a focused Windows stop-motion studio without removing the timeline MOTK Shoot 0.4.7-beta.1 adds MOTK Shoot Local, a focused Windows application for animators who want the camera-room workflow without production administration or post-production… 
MOTK Companion publishes a reproducible full software verification gate MOTK Companion's public beta now includes one reproducible verification command for its complete non-hardware software surface. Twenty-one test groups cover local pairing and… 
SoDaze's Strathberry craft films animate real thread, tools and hardware -- no digital generation Dragonframe's showcase blog featured SoDaze Studios' two commissioned films for Scottish leather brand Strathberry, "Crafting the Mosaic Nano" and "Crafting the Mini Tote," which… 
Nina Gantz’s Wander to Wonder receives an official free online release Nina Gantz’s stop-motion short Wander to Wonder has been made freely available through Miyu Distribution’s Bang Bang YouTube channel after an extensive festival run. Animation… MOTK Shoot 0.4.4 and Companion 0.4.0-beta.7: SIGMA fp native capture verified, one-click Companion launch MOTK Shoot 0.4.4-beta.1 and MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.7 complete the free toolset's native camera path: SIGMA fp still capture now works end to end and was verified on real… 
Aardman at 50: craft, archives and public exhibitions Country Life marks Aardman Animations' 50th anniversary through a studio-history feature that connects the company's Bristol roots with its continuing commitment to handmade… 
Niki Lindroth von Bahr's The End premieres in Cannes Official Short Film Competition; Aardman confirms Tom Parkinson to direct Pokemon x Aardman series Swedish stop-motion director Niki Lindroth von Bahr (The Burden, Bath House) premiered her 15-minute stop-motion short The End -- a dark tale of death at an international airport,… 
Frame Fest to stage Ireland's first dedicated stop-motion festival in Connemara Frame Fest is scheduled for 29–30 August 2026 at Stiúideo Fia in Lettermore, County Galway, presenting what its organisers describe as Ireland's first festival devoted… LAIKA unveils Wildwood's fully-articulated eagle puppet at Annecy LAIKA opened "Wildwood: Discovering a Handcrafted World," a first-look exhibition at Annecys Galerie de la Cite (running through September 27, 2026), built around a miniature set… MOTK Companion beta 4 reduces Windows control to Shoot and Files MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.4 replaces the earlier collection of setup, start, pairing-key, folder, documentation and maintenance entries with one visual Windows Control Center. Its… MOTK Companion beta 3 makes running Windows updates transactional MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.3 fixes a Windows update failure discovered immediately after the visual installer was released. When Companion was still running, the earlier installer… MOTK Companion beta 2 replaces PowerShell-first installation with a Windows setup MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.2 replaces the first public beta's command-line-first Windows entry with a normal double-click path. After extracting the ZIP, a user opens INSTALL MOTK… 
MOTK Shoot 0.4.2 fixes phone landscape controls and makes capture storage explicit MOTK Shoot 0.4.2-beta.1 corrects a phone and tablet interaction regression in the camera-room Focus view. In landscape, the entire Focus control layer now accepts touch input… MOTK Media Tools launches with Universal VideoCutter and a shared Companion contract MOTK Media Tools has opened in public beta as a browser surface for small, repeatable media jobs that should not require uploading production sources to a cloud service. Its first… 
MOTK Shoot 0.4.1 keeps earlier captures closed and restores phone playback MOTK Shoot 0.4.1-beta.1 changes how the free browser shooting tool starts a working session. A new browser tab or later browser session now opens with a new empty shoot instead of… 
MOTK Shoot redesign puts the camera room first, adds Focus mode and local capture copies MOTK Shoot 0.4.0-beta.2 reorganizes the free browser stop-motion studio around the camera room. The live shooting surface now stays visible while three clearly named work… MOTK Web now creates a complete, creator-owned production workspace in Google Drive MOTK Web's public beta now creates a complete production workspace inside the signed-in user's own Google Drive. One project name produces a Project Root containing the main MOTK… 
MOTK toolset enters public beta: free, open-source production tracking, capture, and local automation MOTK, a free and open-source toolset for stop-motion and small film/animation teams, is now in public beta. The lineup covers production tracking on the user's own Google Sheets… 
LAIKA and Intel built a machine-learning tool to speed up rig and seam removal befores & afters reports that LAIKA partnered with Intel's Applied Machine Learning team, working near the studio in Portland, Oregon, to build a prototype tool inside Foundry's… Wildwood teaser reveals the practical scale behind LAIKA's next feature Creative Bloq's report on the first Wildwood teaser records concrete production-scale details behind LAIKA's next stop-motion feature. The production reportedly used 136 sets and… 
Out of Words builds its co-op adventure from handmade stop-motion puppets, not just its cinematics Out of Words (WiredFly and Kong Orange, published by Epic Games Publishing for Xbox Series X|S, 2027), a two-player co-op platformer built around poet Morten Sondergaard's story… 
Canon EOS R6 V adds an optional stop-motion animation firmware configuration Canon's EOS R6 V has joined the company's cameras available with an optional paid Stop Motion Animation Firmware configuration. The stop-motion version is designed for… 
Henry Selick on why Coraline's replacement-face seams were painted out digitally In a Sight and Sound interview by Alex Dudok de Wit, Coraline director Henry Selick describes developing replacement-face animation on commercials work (the Pillsbury Doughboy)… 
Dragonframe development branch adds a dedicated Shoot Clean Pass capture command Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog now includes Capture | Shoot Clean Pass..., a menu command for shooting a clean plate -- the bare set with no puppet or rig… 
Webster Colcord to present The Host animation materials at S.F. Godzillafest 2026 S.F. Godzillafest 2026 will include a July 18 presentation built around Bong Joon-ho's 2006 creature film The Host. Animation supervisor Webster Colcord is scheduled to accompany… Annecy 2026 stop-motion wrap: Cartoon Physics, Into the Forest, Please -- plus Aardman's Let's Go Timmy! and Frankelda credits confirmed This week's sweep confirmed the catalogue is already current on the major Annecy 2026 stop-motion storylines: Into the Forest (Antonin Niclass) won the Young Audience Award,… Wildwood's scale: 136 handcrafted sets, 231 puppets -- the most LAIKA has ever built Behind-the-scenes coverage tied to LAIKA's Wildwood trailer gives the production its first public scale numbers: 136 handcrafted miniature sets and 231 practical puppets across 54… 
The Tower documents a 20,000-frame independent doll stop-motion production Independent filmmaker Leia Everett has completed principal photography for The Tower, a roughly 30-minute stop-motion film built around American Girl dolls. The production grew… Hidari's wooden puppets: director Masashi Kawamura on carving the craft into the story Hidari, the stop-motion samurai feature from Dwarf Studios, Whatever Co. and TECARAT, drew a crowd at Annecy 2026 when director Masashi Kawamura appeared alongside a video message… Travis Knight describes how Wildwood's long production overlapped with Masters of the Universe Travis Knight says Wildwood has been in development for sixteen years and was still being completed while he promoted the live-action Masters of the Universe. He frames the… LAIKA's studio book confirms a digital-first replacement-face pipeline, previews Wildwood LAIKA published its first studio-authorised book, LAIKA: The Magic Behind a Stop-Motion Dream Factory (Ozzy Inguanzo, foreword by Mark Salisbury; Rizzoli, released March 10,… 
Dragonframe receives Academy Scientific and Engineering Award The Academy’s 2026 Scientific & Technical Awards page records a Scientific and Engineering Award to Jamie Caliri and Dyami Caliri for the design, engineering and continuing… I Am Frankelda reaches global Netflix audience with fresh craft context The June Netflix window gives I Am Frankelda a wider international discovery moment than the earlier festival and Mexico theatrical cycle. Entertainment Weekly listed the film in… Inside Aardman exhibition keeps stop-motion process visible through Young V&A run The Young V&A exhibition Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends (12 February - 26 November 2026) gives Aardman's stop-motion process a long public-facing institutional… Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom trailer points to Aardman's 2026 feature pipeline Aardman's next Shaun the Sheep feature has moved from announcement into trailer-led public marketing. The reported trailer frames the film as a Halloween story built around Mossy… 
Annecy 2026 aftermath: Ovary-Acting's stop-motion musical keeps festival momentum; one TMDB seed title flagged as a likely keyword mismatch Ida Melum's stop-motion musical short Ovary-Acting continued its festival run after Tribeca 2025 and Annecy 2026 Official Competition, winning Best Animation at the Flickers Rhode… 
Aardman's Laura Howie on lighting from inside the set, not around it In a career-spanning profile, Aardman senior lighting camera operator Laura Howie -- credits include Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, The… 
Dragonframe's development branch rewrites its graphics engine and adds robotic-arm motion control Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog shows the software's core rendering engine changing under the hood -- "Replace OpenGL code with QRhi (Metal/D3D11/Vulkan)" --… 
Annecy 2026 puts Brothers Quay in lifetime-achievement focus Annecy 2026 coverage identifies the Brothers Quay as recipients of an Honorary Cristal/Lifetime Achievement spotlight, alongside masterclass activity during the festival. For SMDB… 
Tristan Oliver on Wes Anderson's stylistic break from stop-motion convention on Fantastic Mr Fox Cinematographer Tristan Oliver discusses how director Wes Anderson's established visual style -- higher camera angles, a limited colour palette, and soft diffused light -- ran… 
Tristan Oliver on lighting Save Ralph entirely from outside the set Cinematographer Tristan Oliver describes the opening shot of the stop-motion short Save Ralph as lit with no fixtures on the set itself: "It's completely lit from the outside.… 
Annecy 2026 aftermath: Brothers Quay honorary Cristal, Anna Mantzaris wins first-film prize, new stop-motion features surface Cartoon Brew's post-Annecy roundup confirms stop-motion had an outsized presence at the 2026 festival: the Brothers Quay received honorary Cristal Awards, Anna Mantzaris' puppet… Dave Alex Riddett on lighting plasticine faces for genre on Vengeance Most Fowl Cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett explains why lighting choices on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl go beyond mood-setting: the puppets are plasticine and, in his words,… How Aardman lit the cramped submarine interior on Vengeance Most Fowl Senior lighting camera operator Laura Howie describes lighting the submarine interior set on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by building the fixtures into the structure… 
Bree O'Donnell profile shows stop-motion texture becoming a digital reference language The Verge profile of Bree O'Donnell is not a physical stop-motion production report, but it is a useful discovery lead for SMDB's future educational and source-mapping layers. The… ParaNorman anniversary re-release adds LAIKA-made adjacent short The Thrifting Entertainment Weekly's trailer report identifies ParaNorman: The Thrifting as a new LAIKA short attached to the ParaNorman anniversary theatrical re-release. The report is useful… 
Our Uniform is available on Yegane Moghaddam's Vimeo channel Yegane Moghaddam's Oscar-nominated short Our Uniform now has a durable public viewing lead through the filmmaker's Vimeo page. The page identifies the film as an Oscar-nominated… 
Community sweep: Bowling4Rhinos garage stop-motion studio surfaces as a new indie catalogue lead A community post about Emmy-winning animator Carolyn Gair building a stop-motion feature (Return to Kellogg, shot on Dragonframe) in her home garage led to discovery of her… Wildwood's eagle puppet The General gets articulated wings and a breathing-chest mechanism TheWrap's first-footage report from Annecy 2026 (Drew Taylor, July 1, 2026) describes new mechanical work on LAIKA's Wildwood beyond the puppet-count figures already tracked from… Aardman’s Bristol anniversary exhibition surfaces studio-origin and craft material The Guardian reports that Cracking Exhibition Gromit: 50 Years of Aardman in Bristol opened at M Shed on June 20 and runs to September 13, 2026, positioning Aardman’s… 
Pokémon Tales first look confirms Aardman’s handmade Galar-region stop-motion series GamesRadar+ reports that Aardman and The Pokémon Company used Annecy to show the first look at Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu, a 2027 stop-motion series… Annecy 2026 aftermath: Wildwood, Shaun the Sheep sequel and new Aardman/Pokemon/WIT Japan projects already tracked This run's Cartoon Brew/AWN/ANN sweep surfaced Wildwood (LAIKA, Travis Knight), Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, the Aardman/Pokemon series, Let's Go Timmy!, Danger… 
Stop Motion Magazine's Will Vinton retrospective traces Claymation's origin and Laika's founding Stop Motion Magazine's obituary/retrospective on Will Vinton (who died October 4, 2018) traces his career from the 1975 Best Animated Short Oscar for Closed Mondays through the… Behind the sound of Aardman's Early Man: location Foley and a 1,000-person crowd shoot A Sound Effect's making-of interview with supervising sound editor and designer Adrian Rhodes describes how Aardman's clay-animated Early Man (2018) built its character sound.… Travis Knight describes finishing LAIKA's Wildwood alongside Masters of the Universe GamesRadar+ interview with Travis Knight notes that Wildwood is still being finished while Knight also releases Masters of the Universe in 2026. The piece is useful for SMDB… Annecy 2026 surfaces several stop-motion-relevant signals Annecy 2026 closed with broader animation prizes, but the stop-motion-relevant value for SMDB is in the programme trail: the Brothers Quay were listed among the Honorary Cristal… The Girl Who Cried Pearls wins Best Animated Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards The Canadian stop-motion short The Girl Who Cried Pearls, directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski and produced by the National Film Board of Canada, is listed as the Best… Annecy 2026 highlights Brothers Quay with Honorary Cristal context Annecy 2026 programme coverage listed the Brothers Quay among the Honorary Cristal recipients and noted stop-motion-linked masterclass context around the festival. For SMDB this… Canon EOS R6 V adds paid stop-motion firmware option Canon's EOS R6 V coverage notes a stop-motion animation firmware option aimed at Dragonframe-style production workflows. Reported features include higher remote live-view… Aardman reveals new look at Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu Aardman and The Pokémon Company showed a first look for Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu at Annecy. The series is described as a stop-motion journey through… 
BBC Creative's Trails Will Blaze pushes practical stop-motion fire effects for the Winter Olympics 2026 campaign Community/trade-press sweep for 2026-07-03: BBC Creative and London studio Nomint's Trails Will Blaze, a stop-motion Winter Olympics 2026 campaign directed by Yannis… How Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio built its stop-motion sound from guitar-maker's scrap wood Sound designer Scott Martin Gershin built roughly 99 percent of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio's (2022) sound from scratch, because recording the film's actual wooden puppets did… 
Dragonframe 2026.07.1 adds Canon EOS C50/R100/R6 V and Sony A7 V support, DMX sACN Dragonframe's current release, 2026.07.1, extends the software's bounded camera-support list with four new tethered bodies -- Canon EOS C50, EOS R100 and EOS R6 Mark V, and Sony's… 
Annecy 2026 Young Audience Award winner Into the Forest adds a new Swiss stop-motion short to the catalogue Community/trade-press sweep for 2026-07-02: Antonin Niclass's stop-motion short Into the Forest -- three handcrafted monkeys turning a cold studio into a jungle -- won the Young… 
Out of Words: puppet fabrication and durability behind the stop-motion co-op game Out of Words, a stop-motion co-op adventure game featuring actor Samuel Barnett voicing its puppet protagonist Prince, is built with real photographed puppets rather than CG… Annecy 2026 sweep: Wildwood footage; Shaun the Sheep trailer; Aardman Pokemon reveal; Please wins Jean-Luc Xiberras Award; I Am Frankelda on Netflix Annecy 2026 (June 21–27) produced several key stop-motion developments: (1) LAIKA's Wildwood director Travis Knight presented footage and spoke about stop-motion as 'a quiet act… 
Dragonframe 2025 adds dynamic X-Sheet, expanded motion control and colour 3D-print support Dragonframe 2025, the latest major release of the industry-standard stop-motion capture platform, ships a dynamic X-Sheet that auto-updates as exposures are captured: frame count,… 
Please (Anna Mantzaris) wins the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film at Annecy 2026 Anna Mantzaris' stop-motion short Please won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film at the Annecy 2026 closing ceremony on 27 June. It is the festival's prize for a debut… 
Netflix, Guillermo del Toro and GOBELINS Paris launch dedicated stop-motion studio at Paris campus Announced October 2025, a new stop-motion animation studio at the GOBELINS Paris campus was established through a three-way partnership: Netflix (co-funder), Guillermo del Toro… Hidari — dwarf and Whatever's hand-carved wooden puppet samurai film at Cannes and Annecy 2026 Hidari, a stop-motion samurai feature in development by Japanese studios dwarf and Whatever (director Masashi Kawamura, producer Noriko Matsumoto), screened its pilot film at the… 
Best camera for stop-motion animation in 2026 Digital Camera World published a 2026 buying/workflow guide for stop-motion cameras. The useful durable facts are not the shopping rankings but the workflow criteria: stable live… 
8 practical lessons from a Nescafe Kuwait stop-motion campaign Creative Bloq interviewed filmmaker Luis Grolez about a Nescafe Kuwait National Day stop-motion ad series built around tabletop environments and a red Nescafe mug. The article is… Annecy 2026: Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal; 4 stop-motion shorts in competition; Pokemon Tales director confirmed; HIDARI with Keanu Reeves steals show Annecy 2026 (June 21-27) was a landmark edition for stop-motion: (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received the Honorary Cristal Lifetime Achievement Award — a major… 
Smithsonian: Stop-motion animators produce around 2 seconds of footage per day — and why that makes it accessible Smithsonian Magazine feature (approx. 2025), timed to an Aardman Animations retrospective at the Young V&A museum in London, documents the pace and materials of Wallace and Gromit… LAIKA's Wildwood: 231 puppets, 3D-printed armatures and 136 sets mark new production scale Variety interview (2025) documents production innovations for LAIKA's Wildwood (theatrical release Oct 23 2026). Key facts: 231 practical puppets total; 54 hero characters, each… Sweep: A Proud Family Wizmas stop-motion Disney+ special; Wildwood full cast confirmed; Aardman Let's Go Timmy! directors confirmed Sweep findings (June 28, 2026): (1) A Proud Family Wizmas — NEW stop-motion holiday special for Disney+; produced by HouseSpecial (Portland) and Disney Television Animation;… Annecy 2026 full competition results: The Violinist wins Cristal; no stop-motion in main prizes as Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal marks cultural peak The 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (50th edition; June 21–27) closed on June 27 with competition results confirming no stop-motion films in the main competition… Annecy 2026 closes: Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal and stop-motion as central festival theme The 50th Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 21-27 2026) made stop-motion animation a central theme. (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received Honorary… 
Annecy 2026 closes; SMALL: A Musical Fable announced (Mackinnon & Saunders); Annecy 2026 competition winners not yet confirmed Sweep findings (June 27, 2026): (1) Annecy 2026 (50th edition) closes today — competition award winners not yet confirmed in indexed results as of sweep time; closing ceremony… Annecy 2026 closes June 27; I Am Frankelda live on Netflix; Ivar at Sundance; AV Club on stop-motion as AI resistance Sweep findings (June 26, 2026): (1) Annecy 2026 (50th edition) closes June 27 — main competition awards not yet announced; Brothers Quay received Honorary Cristal Lifetime… Annecy 2026: Brothers Quay Cristal, Aardman 50th, Wildwood, and new stop-motion projects announced Annecy 2026 (June 21-27, 50th edition) delivered major stop-motion milestones. (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received Honorary Cristal Awards for decades of… HIDARI's Keanu Reeves casting and Insectario 4-country co-production are top stop-motion headlines Two major stop-motion announcements surfaced in the 2026 Cannes/Annecy cycle: (1) HIDARI — dwarf studios' stop-motion wooden-puppet samurai feature directed by Masashi Kawamura… 
Stefano Bertelli discusses paper stop-motion feature Spacetime Chronicles Animation Magazine's Annecy interview adds production context for Stefano Bertelli's handmade paper stop-motion feature. 2026-08 update (Cartoon Brew, Animation World Network):… I Am Frankelda is now streaming on Netflix Netflix's official title page lists I Am Frankelda as a 2026 fantasy release with trailer and availability details. 
LAIKA releases Wildwood teaser trailer LAIKA's official Wildwood teaser is now linked to the work page, alongside the studio page and IMDb title. 
Catya Plate's stop-motion feature Alma adds Eric Roberts and Sam Humphrey Animation Magazine reports Eric Roberts and Sam Humphrey joining Misty Lee in the voice cast of Catya Plate's handcrafted stop-motion feature project Alma. 
Little Nightmares stop-motion short Broken Promises selected for Annecy Bandai Namco announced that the Little Nightmares stop-motion short Broken Promises, developed with Taller del Chucho, was selected for Annecy. 
Annecy 2026 lineup includes stop-motion focus and Aardman tribute The Hollywood Reporter notes stop-motion focus across Annecy 2026, including a tribute to Aardman. Canon EOS R6 V adds stop-motion firmware option Digital Camera World reports Canon's EOS R6 V can ship in the U.S. with paid stop-motion firmware, including higher remote live view resolution and Dragonframe-oriented controls. Ambriz brothers discuss I Am Frankelda and building Mexican stop-motion infrastructure Cartoon Brew interview adds production context for Cinema Fantasma, the Ambriz brothers, and the Mexican stop-motion feature's Netflix moment. Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! trailer debuts ahead of Annecy premiere Cartoon Brew reports New Zealand's first stop-motion feature is heading to Annecy, with Sinclair and Elworthy discussing the clay/2.5D pipeline and small Christchurch team. Guillermo del Toro, Netflix and Gobelins plan stop-motion studio lab A new space is planned to shape stop-motion storytellers, connected spiritually to Taller del Chucho in Guadalajara. 
LAIKA's 20 years of stop-motion profiled A craft-focused profile reflects on LAIKA's two decades and stop-motion identity. 
LEGO and Aardman launch Boop short Aardman and LEGO debuted a short film collaboration inspired by children's creations. 
Guillermo del Toro discusses stop-motion adaptation The Buried Giant Guillermo del Toro shared details about his stop-motion adaptation of The Buried Giant during a BFI talk. 
Profile of Loud Cloud Animation in Oklahoma City Animation Magazine profiled Mason Drumm and Loud Cloud Animation as an Oklahoma City stop-motion production house. HIDARI appears in Cannes Annecy Animation Showcase 2026 lineup HIDARI is highlighted as a Japanese stop-motion/action feature project with dwarf, Whatever and Tecarat connections and a planned 2029 completion. LAIKA's Wildwood set for October theatrical release LAIKA's sixth stop-motion feature Wildwood is scheduled for U.S. theaters on October 23 through Fathom Entertainment. I Am Frankelda heads to Netflix in June Netflix released trailer/key art for the Mexican stop-motion feature from Cinema Fantasma ahead of its June 12 debut. 
Anna Mantzaris short Please debuts trailer before Animafest Zagreb and Annecy The stop-motion short Please, starring Stellan Skarsgard, is entering major festival visibility at Animafest Zagreb and Annecy. 
Nihil Declarandum and Mackinnon & Saunders partner on stop-motion feature Heads A new darkly imaginative stop-motion feature is in development in Greater Manchester, with Mackinnon & Saunders involved as a key animation company. No matching stories.