The recent surge in high-end commercial stop-motion projects continues in dramatic form with this ambitious environmental PSA disguised as the trailer for a remake of Kenneth Grahame’s kids’ classic “The Wind in the Willows.”

The two-minute film, produced for UK charity The Wildlife Trusts and featuring VO work from Sir David Attenborough and Stephen Fry, was directed by ROWDY directors Matthew Day and Thomas Harnett O’Meara (part of the team behind Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs) during a 23-day shoot in London.

Thomas O’Meara, Director: “It’s such a brilliant idea: taking the classic story of Wind in the Willows and subverting the narrative half-way through to show the destruction and devastation that’s being caused to UK habitats and wildlife that lives there in 21st century UK.”

Matthew Day, Director: “I’d been reading Wind in the Willows to my son when we got the call – it seemed like a happy coincidence. People connect to this children’s story, but however much everyone says they love the countryside, they don’t think about it needing protection and that we how proactive we need to be to ensure it remains the same.”
 

Client: The Wildlife Trusts

Agency: Don’t Panic
Founding Partner: Joe Wade, Mark Whiteway
Creative Partner: Rick Dodds
Senior Creative: George McCallum
Creative: Alice Dowdall
Agency Producer: Huw Allen
Head of Artwork: Paul Howard
Designer: Ellen Crowther

Production: ROWDY
Director/Producer/DOP: Matthew Day
Director/Producer: Thomas Harnett O’Meara
Animation: Andy Biddle, Tobias Fouracre, Anthony Farquhar Smith, Max Martin
1st AC & BTS: Toby Goodyear
Additional motion control: Max Halstead
Gaffer: Aldo Camilleri
Head of Puppets: Ciara McClean
Puppet department: Stefano Cordioli, Jade Gerrard, Petrarycja Cichocka, Carlos Padilla, Saskia Martindale,
Claire Lever, Sofia Rodriguez
Costume: Janet Knetchell
Art Directors: Sarah Crombie, Yossel Simpson Little
Modelers: Catherine Prowse, James Owens, Colin Armitage, Ben Cote
Art Department: George Warren, Renata Corillo Martin, Colette Pidgeon, Nathan Ward, Jessica Vogot, Dewie
Evans

Sound: String and Tins
Original music/sound design: Will Cohen