Sumo Science

Sumo Science are specialists in animation and work together to create fresh new animations unlike anything you have seen before. Ed Patterson & Will Studd make up the team of two represented by Aardman Animations. They have used many different styles of stop-motion, 2D, live-action and Puppetry. They have worked with a variety of companies to make commercials which include Hellmans, Innocent Orange Juice, Weetos, P & O, Johnson's Baby Wipes and most recently Nokia with their Gulp animation.

The inspiration for Gulp came from their previous work on Dot which was also mad whilst working with Nokia. Dot was the smallest stop motion character as she was only 9mm tall, the film won a Guinness world record as well as 15 major advertising awards. The brief behind Dot was to celebrate Nokia's new phone and cell scope however knowing they couldn't animate blood cells they came up with the idea of Dot. For an animation of a minute and a half they were making 4 seconds a day which was a very tedious process and the video got 3 million hits on Youtube.

This then lead onto Gulp which was the worlds largest stop-motion animation ever created with the largest scene being over 11,000 square feet filmed on location in Pendine Beach, South Wales.The film has had rapid success online, just like Dot it was also filmed on the Nokia N8. In Dot they used a 3D print to create all the character models whereas in Gulp it was easier to use a real person for their fisherman and moved each joint like a puppet. The story of Gulp was about fisherman who catches a fish he then becomes the bait for a larger fish and sets off a chain reaction. It was shot for 5 entire days outside with the help of a large team of animation graduates. To produce 20 seconds of animation took about 16 hours. The set of stills play back at 25 frames per second to show the motion.