Prize poultry!

>> >> Nick Park and Peter Lord make Chicken Run choice animated fun

by MATTHEW HAYS

Animal rights activists will be pleased. For their first feature-length project, the two-time Oscar-winning animation team of Nick Park and Peter Lord (the Wallace and Gromit shorts, Creature Comforts) have turned their attentions to the plight of chickens.

Why chickens? "They're perfect, if you think about it," says Park, straight-faced. "They're so often the subjects of ridicule. They always seem to be the extras in animal movies. We wanted to fight the cause of chickenkind."

Thus Chicken Run features a cast of English chickens, all set for the slaughterhouse and all desperate to escape the evil humans who want to sell their corpses for profit. Park and Lord, who codirect, conjure up their usual magic: seconds into the movie, we've forgotten we're watching animated characters. As Park explains it, "chickens are people too."

Vegans unite

Though the horrors of the slaughterhouse are suggested, there's nothing terrifically graphic in Chicken Run (it is, after all, a film for all ages). But the chickens' lives are definitely threatened, and these chicks are all decidedly likable. Chicken Run stands as the best bit of vegetarian propaganda since Babe, though Park and Lord insist that wasn't a planned agenda. "No, we never really thought of it that way," says the soft-spoken Park. "But if it has that effect, that's okay too."

Both British animators concede there was some trepidation about stepping up to feature length. "We'd done so well with the shorts," says Lord. "And I think people were expecting a Wallace and Gromit feature. But we felt it was time to put them on the shelf for a while, as we'd just made another short with them in it." The two don't rule out a Wallace and Gromit feature in the future, however. "Hey, Wallace and Gromit fridge magnets are the best-selling fridge magnets in the world," notes Lord. "That many fans can't be wrong."

Clay not computers

Despite the recent fetish for all things computer-generated, Park and Lord aren't concerned about their old-fashioned claymation technique seeming out of vogue. "I'm an admirer of Toy Story, for sure," says Park. "But I think we have an advantage, because many young people are less familiar with our technique. Really, people haven't seen this kind of expression on the big screen before. I think there's room for all different kinds of animation."

Lord chimes in: "I really think this form of animation is the best way of conveying emotion. The chicken's fear, horror and happiness can all be told through our moulding of the clay."

The claymation process is definitely not for the impatient, as Park and Lord attest to. Chicken Run took 20 months of shooting on 30 different sets, with hundreds of figurines of various scale sizes. "Sometimes we would act the sequences out ourselves," says Lord, "just to get an idea of how the movement we were animating might work."

The directorial team also managed a casting coup. Absolutely Fabulous alums Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks lend voices to a couple of the chicks, while Mel Gibson gently mocks his own tough-guy persona by voicing Rocky, a rooster who leads the chickens to believe he can fly. "Mel was a real sport about it," says Park. "He did a lot of ad libbing and joked around a good deal. We were so glad to have him, especially because of so many of his previous roles. In fact, he came on board right after Lethal Weapon 4."

Sitting before me, it strikes me that Lord and Park have already achieved a cinematic first, even before Chicken Run is released. Indeed, there will be tons of stuffed variations of their latest creations, set to hit toy stores very soon. But amazingly, I don't resent them for it. After all, from Wallace and Gromit to Creature Comforts to Chicken Run, their creations are just so damn charming, not cheezy-cutesy like the Disney ones.

One final question: amid all the merchandising and hype, will there be a Kentucky Fried Chicken tie-in for Chicken Run?

Both filmmakers indicate no with a shake of their heads. :

Chicken Run opens June 23