Classic Movie: ‘Chicken Run’

While the chickens on evil Mrs. Tweedy’s farm dream of a better life, a clever hen named Ginger (voice of Julia Sawalha) is hatching plans to fly the coop – for good!. The only problem is, chickens can’t fly… or can they? Every escape attempt goes fowl until Rocky (Mel Gibson), a smooth-talking all-American rooster crash lands into the coop. It’s hardly poultry in motion when Rocky attempts to teach Ginger and her fine feathered friends to fly… but with teamwork, determination and a little bit o’cluck, the fearless flock plots one last daring attempt in a spectacular bid for freedom [from DVD cover].

Some critics remarks: “This movie about chickens is more human than many formula comedies” ; “Mel Gibson’s as a rooster – best performance ever, 10 out of 10!” ; “The voice acting is fabulous, the slapstick is brilliant, and the action sequences are spectacular” ;

This movie (year 2000) is the first feature-length work by the team of Peter Lord and Nick Park, who have won three Oscars (Park) and two Oscar nominations (Lord) for their work in Claymation, a stop-action technique in which plasticine is minutely changed from shot to shot to give the illusion of 3-D movement  [Rotten tomatoes].
For stop animation, around 24 shots for one second is required, for a 85 minutes movie, creators shot over 115,000 single photographs….