They’re one of Britain’s most beloved double acts.
And now Wallace & Gromit are back with a brand new Christmas animation.
The six-minute animation features the duo decorating their Christmas trees before their arch nemesis, Feathers McGraw, attempts to scupper their plans.
If you want to see it, don’t reach for the TV remote or venture down to your local cinema.
Instead, you’ll need to head to the iconic Battersea Power Station in London, where the animation will be projected throughout December.
Aardman Animations, the world-famous creators of Wallace & Gromit, joined forces with Apple to create the animation, which was shot entirely on an iPhone 16 Pro Max.
MailOnline’s Shivali Best was exclusively invited behind-the-scenes at Aardman’s studios in Bristol to see how the stop-motion animation was shot.
And with Wallace’s puppet measuring just 7.8-inches (20cm) high, it’s safe to say that transforming him and his silent sidekick to fit on the power station’s 338ft towers was no mean feat.
If you want to see it, don’t reach for the TV remote or venture down to your local cinema. Instead, you’ll need to head to the iconic Battersea Power Station in London, where the animation will be projected throughout December
They’re one of Britain’s most beloved double acts. And now Wallace & Gromit are back with a brand new Christmas animation
Last year, Apple teamed up with David Hockney, who sketched a Christmas tree on an iPad Pro before it was projected onto Battersea Power Station.
Following the success of that collaboration, this year, the tech giant has joined forces with Aardman Studios.
Speaking to MailOnline’s Shivali Best at Aardman’s Bristol headquarters, Gavin Strange, Aardman’s director and graphic design lead explained: ‘This is a project that we’re working on with Apple to create a stop-frame film featuring Wallace & Gromit, all shot on iPhone 16, that will be projected, every night in December, on the iconic Battersea Power Station – 103 metres tall.
‘That’s an insane sentence to say!’
Like all of Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit animations, this Christmas special is stop motion – a painstaking technique that creates the illusion of movement.
‘Stop motion is a technique where, simply put, you use a camera – in our case, an iPhone 16 Pro Max – to take an image,’ Mr Strange explained.
‘We have our puppets (that’s what you call stop motion characters), and we put them in a pose, take a picture, and then an animator will move it a really, really small amount, before taking another picture.
‘It doesn’t sound like much in two or three images, but when you play those still images back – 24 images per second – the illusion of life kicks in and suddenly those characters are living and breathing and moving.’
Aardman Animations, the world-famous creators of Wallace & Gromit, joined forces with Apple to create the animation, which was shot entirely on an iPhone 16 Pro Max
Stop motion is nothing new for the Aardman team, who have been using stop motion since the 1970s. However, the real challenge here was the scale of the project
This technique is nothing new for the Aardman team, who have been using stop motion since the 1970s.
However, the real challenge here was the sheer scale of the project.
‘Wallace, as a puppet, is about 20cm high, and Gromit is a little shorter than that. You can’t go too small, because you simply wouldn’t have the fidelity to move the puppets,’ Mr Strange explained.
‘But because our Christmas trees are projected to fit in the brilliantly bonkers ratio of the Battersea Power Station towers, they have to be very thin and very tall.
‘So, our puppet of Wallace is 20cm, but our tree is about 5ft 3. That’s massive for Wallace – and absolutely huge when you see it projected!’
Aardman usually shoots its stop motion animations on film, but it turned to a new camera for the Battersea animation – the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
This flagship device was mounted on motorised heads on set to capture two angles of the Christmas trees, shooting a total of 6,000 frames.
Meanwhile, eight iPhone 16 Pro Max devices used the 5x Telephoto camera to shoot super-high-resolution images in ProRAW, which were then assembled frame by frame to produce a stunning 6K video.
Aardman usually shoots its stop motion animations on film, but turned to a new camera for the Battersea animation – the iPhone 16 Pro Max
‘When you do go see it, everything you see, all those tiny decorations, were made by humans, by hand,’ Mr Strange said
‘The iPhone 16 Pro Max gives us flexibility. We can have multiple cameras capturing multiple setups that we need,’ Mr Strange said.
‘We’ve got an iPhone 16 mounted in a motion-control head, which lets us capture the maximum resolution of these huge trees in two sections, so we get mega mega resolution when we stitch them together.
‘The size of the iPhone lets us be way more flexible in what we’re capturing.
‘We then have other iPhones in the animators’ units for reference.
‘So, we’re capturing with one iPhone, we’ve got another one so an animator can see the full height of what they’re animating, and then we’ve got another iPhone capturing beautiful 4K timelapses.
‘We still animate the same way, but it means our ambition is greater, which is really exciting.’
In terms of the animation itself, the silent film features Wallace and Gromit decorating two huge Christmas trees, which have sprung up on the two chimneys at Battersea Power Station.
‘It’s a simple story. Gromit starts decorating his tree in his way – he’s considerate, and curated, and methodical,’ Mr Strange explained.
In terms of the animation itself, the silent film features Wallace and Gromit decorating two trees, which have sprung up on the two chimneys at Battersea Power Station
‘The iPhone 16 Pro Max gives us flexibility. We can have multiple cameras capturing multiple setups that we need,’ Mr Strange said
‘And then in storms Wallace, on a brand new contraption he’s created called the Decorate 1000, which is essentially a scissor-lift with porridge cannons full of decorations.
‘Wallace proceeds to blast his tree with all sorts of decorations, absolutely filling it.
‘They both finish decorating their trees, placing their respective stars at the top of the iconic Battersea Power Station towers.
‘But then in walks the mysterious, nefarious penguin, Feathers McGraw, who discovers the power cable on the floor, pulls it up, and pulls it apart, plunging them into darkness.
‘He scuttles off with not a care in the world and Gromit goes to investigate what’s wrong – because, of course, Wallace is stuck at the very top of his lift extension.
‘Gromit slides down his ladder, discovers that the power has been pulled, finds it and plugs it back together.
‘Wallace then comes down to safety, joins Gromit at the very front of the projection so they can admire their hard work, and then Gromit has the icing on the cake where he turns the dial on the power block to go from five to 11, and the trees are then beautifully illuminated – creating a really beautiful Christmas scene.
‘Finally, the trees fall back down and the loop starts all over again.’
Given the sheer size of Battersea Power Station, the six-minute loop should be visible for people to see from miles around.
‘It’s a really lovely, simple tale. Wallace and Gromit have a nice bond, so it’s really nice to make something festive and warm and charming,’ Mr Strange added.
‘Wallace & Gromit are a much-loved and iconic duo, and we’re delighted that they will be lighting up Battersea Power Station for Londoners this year,’ said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
‘It’s great to see the skill and ingenuity of Aardman, and how they’ve used the most advanced iPhone we’ve ever made to produce something so joyful.”
If you’d like to see it, simply head down to Battersea Power Station where the animation will be projected from 5pm to 10:30pm today, and every day until New Year’s Eve.
‘When you do go see it, everything you see, all those tiny decorations, were made by humans, by hand,’ Mr Strange said.
‘Hopefully there will be repeat watchings to A. Enjoy it, and B. Spot different things.
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to appreciate the scale of it until you’re there, staring up at it.’