Opinion The Third Edit: Wallace & Gromit’s wins at BAFTA, a victory for the slow and deliberate

In 1840, French painter Paul Delaroche saw the first photograph and declared, “From today, painting is dead!” In 2016, animator Hayao Miyazaki, in response to a presentation of AI-created animation, said, “I feel like we are nearing the end of times”. The history of art shows that change is inevitable. But the two BAFTA wins of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl — for Best Animated Film and Children’s Family Film — show that even as the industry embraces new technologies, a film made with old-school techniques can win both hearts and trophies.

In a world enraptured by AI and its capacity to save time and money, Wallace & Gromit’s wins are a victory for the slow and deliberate. Created by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham of Aardman Animations, the film uses claymation, a form of stop-motion animation involving clay models. Crossingham defined getting one minute of footage in seven days as a “blazing week.” Yet, without deriding the use of technology, he and Park advocate for the value that a labour-intensive process can create. Park said, “there’s thumb prints in the claymation. It’s very much about… authenticity…” His words resonate at a time when fewer animators use time-consuming techniques, with studios like Aardman and Miyazaki’s Ghibli cutting increasingly lonely figures on the animation landscape.

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Technology has opened many new windows of expression — it does not have to be either/or. Films like the widely-acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse have shown how combining the new and old can help buck a trend that puts efficiency and commerce over the love and labour that art often calls for. But in Wallace & Gromit’s victory, there is a simple message for a world that often seems to be in a rush to stay relevant: There is value in slowing down and finding meaning in the hard work of making art with one’s hands.