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 Beast of Mossy Bottom. In an ABC Arts interview, Lewis says working at the Bristol studio put them alongside veteran stop-motion animators who openly shared their knowledge, and that the finished film was substantially different from the rough-cut and storyboard material visible during production.\n\nLewis also discusses the pressure facing labour-intensive stop-motion production and argues that visible evidence of human making matters increasingly in a generative-AI era. After completing Beast of Mossy Bottom, Lewis is preparing to return to Australia and reconnect with local animation communities, emphasizing peer networks as an important part of sustaining a stop-motion career.