The third company from the stop-motion world I am going to focus upon is MacKinnon & Saunders. It is a very well established company in the world of stop-motion, MacKinnon & Saunders pride themselves on having over thirty years of experience in the trade, and the company's team can offer a wide range of services include a full production, puppet & set construction and consultancy on a variety of different components. Whilst it appears to operate on a project-by-project basis with no designated headquarters, it is a very reputable business that has operated on some hugely successful projects.
The company is highly regarded as a puppet fabricator and constructor of armatures of a very good standard. In the past few years, MacKinnon & Saunders have been credited as a 'Special Effects' company on many success full animated movies, such as Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Toby's Travelling Circus (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014) and the Clangers (2015). In addition to this, it has been heavily involved in children television series' such as Postman Pat and Bob The Builder. As a model maker, this level of diversity is greatly appealing, and the challenge of creating both established and new characters for projects such as these would be one I would relish. The variety of projects would also allow me to test myself in many aspects of stop-motion, and it would very enticing to work within many strands of the industry.
Even though I am interested in the model making and stop motion side of the company; it is imperative to point out that MacKinnon & Saunders also manage projects and consult on other mediums of animation, such as 2D and CG. It is this flexibility that allows them room to manoeuvre in the industry and compete against their competition.
In recent times, MacKinnon and Saunders continue to diversify in the marketplace. In addition to the aforementioned film and TV projects; the company have recently agreed deals to be involved with new episodes of CBBC series' including the popular 'Frankenstein's Cat'; as well as televisional commercial work and promotional reels for charity and exhibition events. Their recent portfolio gives every indication the varied and successful trend that MacKinnon & Saunders are currently on looks set to continue.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is my favourite Stop-Motion film because I love everything about it. I think the puppets are beautifully made. So looking into Wes Anderson's Stop-Motion films would have been my 6th company! Looking into the diversity of Mackinnon & Saunders has made me realise that I would like to possibly explore new avenues of companies that aren't Stop-Motion related. I enjoy sculpting so creating maquettes like the one in the picture above would be ideal for me, I find great satisfaction in being given a 2D drawing or image of a character then sculpting it in 3D with Sculpey.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is my favourite Stop-Motion film because I love everything about it. I think the puppets are beautifully made. So looking into Wes Anderson's Stop-Motion films would have been my 6th company! Looking into the diversity of Mackinnon & Saunders has made me realise that I would like to possibly explore new avenues of companies that aren't Stop-Motion related. I enjoy sculpting so creating maquettes like the one in the picture above would be ideal for me, I find great satisfaction in being given a 2D drawing or image of a character then sculpting it in 3D with Sculpey.
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