SumoScience

Sumo Science specialize in animation work. Aardman Animations have Ed Patterson and Will Studd making up the team. The styles of animation that they have used include 2D, live-action, stop-motion and Puppetry. They have also made commercials, most recently with Gulp animation for Nokia. Other companies that they have created commercials for include Weetos, Johnson’s Baby Wipes, Innocent Orange Juice, P&O abd Hellmans.

The inspiration for the recent Nokia commercial with Gulp came from their award winning previous work on Dot (also with Nokia). Dot was the smallest ever stop motion character, and at 9mm it earned a Guinness world record. Dot was also credited with 15 major advertising awards. Aardman Animations came up with idea for Dot after being asked to create an animation to celebrate Nokia’s new cell scope and phone. Dot was created when they realised that trying to animate blood cells might prove tricky. A day’s work resulted in 4 seconds of animation footage, building gradually to create an animation that lasted for 90 seconds. It proved very popular on Youtube, with 3 million hits.

From Sumo Science’s award winning smallest-ever Nokia ‘Dot’ animation, came Gulp, the largest ever stop-motion animation. One particular scene (filmed on Pendine Beach, South Wales), is over 11, 000 square foot. Filmed using a Nokia N8, it too is becoming extremely popular, particularly online. Unlike Dot, who was created using a 3D print, Gulp uses an actual person, who is moved, joint at a time, in a similar way to that of a puppet.

Gulp is an animation about a fisherman, who after catching a fish becomes the bait for a larger fish, setting off a chain reaction. It was shot outside, with the help of a large team of animation graduates, over a period of five days and nights. Every 20 seconds of animation took about 16 hours of work to create. Stills are played back at 25 frames per second to show the motion. 

Nokia 'Dot' from Sumo Science on Vimeo.