The Bristol-based animation company Aardman is best known for its most famous creations Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. But despite the quintessentially British aesthetic and tone of its movies, this very British studio continues to enjoy international box office success with movies such as Shaun the Sheep Movie, Flushed Away and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Aardman has always been closely linked with one of its key animators, Nick Park, and its stop motion, Plasticine-modelled family films, but it has more recently begun to experiment with modern digital filmmaking effects that either emulate 'Claymation' methods or form a hybrid animation style. This unique volume brings together leading film and animation scholars with children's media/animation professionals to explore the production practices behind Aardman's creativity, its history from its early shorts to contemporary hits, how its films fit within traditions of British animation, social realism and fantasy cinema, the key personalities who have formed its ethos, its representations of 'British-ness' on screen and the implications of traditional animation methods in a digital era.

This movie storybook accompanies the madcap, animated comedy scheduled for theater release November 3, 2006. Full color.

Flushed Out! is a cleverly written tale of international crime and intrigue that illustrates the notorious world of an illegal drug syndicate and its distribution operations. It will take you from Colombia, South America to the island of Curaçao to Tampa, Florida - and further to New York to follow the authorities as they hunt down the felons and attempt to stop the illicit deals. In this stupefying account of the illegal drug trade, Abel provides a descriptive and compelling insight into the hideous network of drug distribution. He introduces the readers to the Manhatan, N.Y., DEA Special Agent in Charge, Jack Finch, who devises an operation to get the Tampa, Florida-based drug transporter, Carlo Estevez, up to New York and to shut down his distribution network plaguing the Northeast Corridor of the United States: to flush him out. Finch's plan is simple in theory but complex in its execution—to intercept a shipment of drugs, make it look like a rip-off and setting up his old college classmate, Michael Boland, as a pigeon, and the man who planned it all. Timing is everything on this mission; everything needs to be in place.

Readers can explore the topsy-turvy world of the London sewers in a guide to the animated motion picture that provides information on the characters.

Bring scenes from the latest DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features collaboration to life with stickers depicting Roddy, Rita, and all their underground friends. Full-color backgrounds let readers create their own scenes with 60 reusable stickers. Consumable.

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are two of America’s preeminent film scholars. You would be hard pressed to find a serious student of the cinema who hasn’t spent at least a few hours huddled with their seminal introduction to the field—Film Art, now in its ninth edition—or a cable television junkie unaware that the Independent Film Channel sagely christened them the “Critics of the Naughts.” Since launching their blog Observations on Film Art in 2006, the two have added web virtuosos to their growing list of accolades, pitching unconventional long-form pieces engaged with film artistry that have helped to redefine cinematic storytelling for a new age and audience. Minding Movies presents a selection from over three hundred essays on genre movies, art films, animation, and the business of Hollywood that have graced Bordwell and Thompson’s blog. Informal pieces, conversational in tone but grounded in three decades of authoritative research, the essays gathered here range from in-depth analyses of individual films such as Slumdog Millionaire and Inglourious Basterds to adjustments of Hollywood media claims and forays into cinematic humor. For Bordwell and Thompson, the most fruitful place to begin is how movies are made, how they work, and how they work on us. Written for film lovers, these essays—on topics ranging from Borat to blockbusters and back again—will delight current fans and gain new enthusiasts. Serious but not solemn, vibrantly informative without condescension, and above all illuminating reading, Minding Movies offers ideas sure to set film lovers thinking—and keep them returning to the silver screen.