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Inside the Race to Save the Clay Behind ‘Wallace & Gromit’

Aardman Animations nearly ran out of the key material for its business.

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Aardman Animations is famous around the world for claymation creations like Wallace and Gromit, which depend on a specific type of clay to come to life. That’s why fans across the world began to worry when the company that makes Aardman’s clay announced it would be closing its doors for good. This video looks at how the studio makes movies one painstaking movement at a time with valuable materials that can’t be bought anywhere else.

Questions:

  1. What sort of risks do companies like Aardman Animations take when they depend heavily on one specialty material?

  2. Why do you think Aardman was reluctant to produce its own clay in-house?