Battersea Power Station, now Apple HQ, is an iconic site in London. It’s biggest association with art used to be via Pink Floyd’s Animals album cover, which featured an inflatable pig flying over the historic 101-metre-high chimneys. Then, last year, the landmark’s new occupant started a new festive tradition, projecting the animation Bigger Christmas Trees by David Hockney onto the building itself.
This time the Christmas trees belong to a couple of famous characters: Wallace and Gromit. And the animation studio Aardman shot the six-minute film on an iPhone Pro Max, obviously (for deals on Apple tech, see our report on iPad Cyber Monday).
Wallace & Gromit are lighting up Battersea Power Station this year with Apple’s Christmas trees.Aardman shot the stop-motion animation on iPhone 16 Pro Max, to then be projected onto the iconic Battersea Power Station, daily from 5pm to 10.30pm until NYE! pic.twitter.com/MRtIQnwbWLNovember 30, 2024
The short site-specific animated film sees Wallace projected onto one tower and Gromit on the other. They each decorate a towering Christmas tree. Of course, like many of the other impressive films and videos we’ve seen “shot on an iPhone,” that claim should be expanded upon. Aardman had a bit more tech on hand than just a smartphone.
They actually used eight iPhone 16 Pro Max mounted on motorised heads to capture two angles via the devices’ 5x telephoto cameras, and they used the Dragonframe Tether app to link the devices up to stopmotion software. The team shot 6,000 frames of 4K stills in ProRAW format and stitched them together to achieve the 6K image needed to turn the 23‑centimetre characters into 101‑metre tall projections.
(Image credit: Apple)
Gavin Strange, Aardman’s director and graphic design lead, described the project as a “dream to direct – a cinematic fusion of tech and art.” It certainly feels a lot more festive than the horrible Coca-Cola AI Christmas Ad!
The film will be projected from 5pm to 10:30pm UK time every day until New Year’s Eve. It also serves as a teaser for the new film Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which will be broadcast on the BBC on Christmas Day and on Netflix worldwide from January 3.
Meanwhile, Apple’s Regent Street branch will be hosting a talk with Aardman on 12 December at 7pm. You can learn more and see behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the new animation on the Apple website
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The new M4 iPad Pro is a powerhouse of a tablet, capable of running software for animation, video-editing and 3D work. And with the new OLED display, it looks fantastic too. The US deal above is best price since release.
The latest iPad Air provides a good middle ground for balance between power and price. It lacks the grunt of the Pro for more demanding creative software, but the drawing experience in apps like Procreate is great with the new Apple Pencil Pro.
