
On Christmas day in the UK, BBC One delighted children nationwide with an animated adaptation of the much-loved picture book Stick Man, the tale of a happy-go-lucky father's epic journey to make it home in time for Christmas.
Martin Freeman, Hugh Bonneville and Jennifer Saunders lent their voices to the half-hour animated show produced by Magic Light Pictures. The show is available in the US to Amazon Prime members via SOVD. See the trailer here.
When they made the decision to produce the show, their fourth adaptation of a Julia Donaldson-written/Axel Scheffler-illustrated story, Magic Light opted to produce Stick Man entirely in CG, which presented some challenges in maintaining the tactile look of stop-motion models and real sets from the previous films. They turned to South African Animation Studio Triggerfish as their creative partner. We grabbed a few minutes with Triggerfish Producer Mike Buckland to learn how they went about it, specifically in terms of their approach to rendering.
What was the focus of your work on Stick Man?
Triggerfishs role on the project started with working with the Director Jeroen Jaspaert and Co-Director Daniel Snaddon to develop storyboards from the script. We then handled all the production design and art direction, the asset creation, character animation, lighting, rendering and compositing. Magic Light also managed the all the voice recording, postproduction, cusic and sound mix.
Why did Magic Pictures decide to do Stick Man in all CG?
The film is the fourth in a series, and distinctive style had been developed in the previous films based on Axels drawings and inspired by the tactile look of stop-motion models and sets. The films had actually utilized real sets over which they composited the CG character animation. The scope of Stick Man made it too expensive to build so many real model sets and characters, so the big challenge for us was to try an emulate this handmade approach to the whole film, but to do it all in CG. This meant we had to do a lot of work in sculpting, texturing, shading and lighting to achieve the look of physical models and lighting.
How did you approach rendering on this project?
We were using Softimage with the Arnold renderer and the StoA plug-in (Softimage to Arnold), and the ease of use and simplicity of Arnold render settings when trying to complete shots under production pressures was extremely helpful. We could achieve very good-looking results with a minimal amount of lights. We really love the way lights react in Arnold, and even with minimal light setups, we could produce beautiful results that feel natural. Although our look wasnt exactly physically accurate, all our lighting starts with a natural lighting approach. Arnold delivers that very quickly and beautifully, but it also allows you to make creative adjustments to achieve a specific look.
The lighters also appreciated the iterative progressive rendering that helped to speed up the lighting on a per-shot basis. Arnolds .tx converted texture files helped reduce render times considerably. We were able to render sets that were quite extensive and which incorporated a lot of assets with displacements to create the handmade' look, as well as many densely covered grassy surfaces thath required the rendering of many millions of strands. Despite extensive use of SSS shaders on our snowy scenes, we found that we could get noiseless renders comparatively quickly. We also made extensive use of the AOVs during the compositing process, which allowed us more flexibility in optimizing our render process and achieving the Directors specific vision for each shot.
What shaders did you use?
We used mostly the Arnold Standard shader. Skin_SSS was great for creating a snow shader, Sky Shader for reflection/refraction information, Hair Shader for strand rendering. Store in channel for custom aovs - that was particularly useful for the ocean foam, which relied on quite a lot work in the Comp suite to get the right look.
Any other notes on the production you'd like to share?
Triggerfish has a relationship with Magic Light that stretches back several years. (Their co-founder and producer) Michael Rose was kind enough to give us notes and advice on our script when we were in development on our first feature film, Adventures in Zambezia. So when they decided to produce Stick Man as a fully CG film and asked us to bid on it, we were very excited. We were already big admirers of their previous animated films in this series, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalos Child and Room on the Broom, which are beautifully crafted pieces of storytelling.
Images courtesy of Magic Light Pictures.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
13/08/2026
New Agreement Aims to Leverage Gracenote Infrastructure to Create More Relevant ...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
IBC today announced that its most prestigious honour, the International Honour for Excellence (IHFE), will be presented to Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), ...
13/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced its participation in the IBC2026 Accelerator Media Innovation Pro...
13/08/2026
dzjinius, the all-in-one production management platform for the media and entertainment industry, will showcase its new application, dzjinius on-set , at IBC20...
13/08/2026
Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), a leading European provider of media services, system integration and product development, will demonstrate an end-to-end sove...
13/08/2026
Clear-Com is returning to IBC 2026, taking place September 11-14 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. At Stand 10.D29, Clear-Com will spotlight the award-winning FreeSpe...
13/08/2026
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics of Europe, will showcase its comprehensive portfolio of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement ...
13/08/2026
KRK Brings Advanced Wireless Control to Professional Monitoring With New V Serie...
13/08/2026
Anthony Noack Captures Artist's Journey in Estonia with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton August 12, 2026
0 Comments
Solo filmmaker documents concept...
13/08/2026
ARRI Image Science makes its mobile debut in the HONOR Robot Phone
Brie Clayton August 12, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image displays the HONOR Robot Phone, ...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/08/2026
Suitest's Test Automation Platform Simplifies Video Quality Assurance, Monitoring, and Device Certification Across the OTT Ecosystem
At IBC2026, Suitest, a...
13/08/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will have its key software solutions ready to demonstrate at SET Expo 2026 (18 20...
13/08/2026
Scripps Research has established the Peter K. Vogt Endowed Chair, a new faculty ...
13/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-A vaccine's molecular structure plays a key role in determining how the immune system responds and prepares to protect the body from future exp...
13/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
13/08/2026
Wenvoe serves over 1 million people across South Wales
13 August 2026, Winchester, UK - Vale of Glamorgan MP, Kanishka Narayan, has praised the engineering exp...
13/08/2026
RT 's Miriam O'Callaghan welcomed a range of specially invited guests to the National Concert Hall last week for a unique event to mark a new season wit...
13/08/2026
August 13 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Seattle Seahawks Become First Team to Bring Dolby O...
13/08/2026
GeForce NOW is giving cloud gaming an extra-credit upgrade just in time for back-to-school season.
The native Linux app for GeForce NOW is officially out of be...
12/08/2026
Traditional live sports production has focused on creating the best possible pro...
12/08/2026
FOR-A will showcase a range of broadcast and production products at IBC2026 (Stand 2.B53, Amsterdam RAI, September 11-14), including software-based switching, A...
12/08/2026
The Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and EBU will host live demonstrations of NMOS BCP-008 Minimum Status Reporting at IBC2026 (September 11-14) on th...
12/08/2026
Dalet has announced Dalet Solution Suites, a portfolio of cloud-native solutions...
12/08/2026
Net Insight has announced that DMC Production Norway has selected its Open Live ...
12/08/2026
Zixi has appointed Alyson Stewart as Senior Director of Sales. Stewart will be responsible for direct sales and partnerships, with a focus on broadcasters, medi...
12/08/2026
LiveU's LU900Q intelligent production unit was deployed as part of the host broadcast operation for the Games in Glasgow (July 23-August 2, 2026). Host broa...
12/08/2026
Disney , ESPN, and Formula E have announced a multi-year deal bringing all Formula E races to Disney and ESPN in the U.S. and to Disney in most international...
12/08/2026
PSSI has launched X-LIVE, a managed service offering dedicated engineering resources and Appear encoding infrastructure for live event signal processing and tra...
12/08/2026
The inaugural MoonPay X Games League Summer Season reached 18.3 million unique live viewers across three stops on ABC and ESPN, a 78.5% increase compared to the...
12/08/2026
BBright will showcase an expanded IP-Gateway at IBC2026, adding support for all RIST profiles to its existing support for MPEG Transport Stream over IP with SMP...
12/08/2026
BBright will demonstrate EBU OGraf animated graphics support in its software-bas...
12/08/2026
Interra Systems will demonstrate its ORION, BATON, BATON Captions, and VEGA solutions at SET Expo 2026 (August 17-20, Distrito Anhembi, S o Paulo) at partner Li...
12/08/2026
DPA Microphones has appointed Raul Contreras as West Coast Regional Sales Manager. In the role, Contreras will oversee sales and customer relationships througho...
12/08/2026
Live spectacles ranging from the Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup to the Oscars and...
12/08/2026
Writer-Director Andrius Bla evi ius and crew attend the premiere of How to Divorce During the War at The Ray Theatre on January 26, 2026, in Park City, UT. (P...
12/08/2026
Enhanced DAW & plug-in control for the UC1, UF8 and UF1
The software that powers SSL's range of control surfaces has just received a major update that d...
12/08/2026
In-line preamp features one-knob EQ
In addition to their range of in-line preamps, Triton Audio recently managed to squeeze a compressor into an enclosure t...
12/08/2026
Captures system audio with or without a DAW
Depending on your setup, capturing system audio in a DAW can be a tedious process, so much so that Arvital Audio...
12/08/2026
2026 NATIONAL NAIDOC AWARDS TO BROADCAST ON NITV LIVE AND DIRECT FROM MPARNTWE
12 August, 2026
Media releases
First Nations excellence will be celebrated l...
12/08/2026
More than six million sports fans stay with SBS for Tour de France and Tour de F...