8 Movies With Seriously Insane Details You Didn't Notice
1. The Pirate Ship Had 44,000 Moving Parts - Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists (2012)
At one time or another, we've all probably thought - for just a second, at least - "wow, those stop-motion movies must take so long to create, I really admire whoever has the patience to complete such a task," before going back to not thinking about that for a couple more years.
Nowadays, there are enough stop-motion movies out there that it's easy to get over the fact that they take so long to make, in the same way that fully CGI-rendered films have been old news since A Bug's Life. We just don't really consider it anymore, 'cause "bah", right?
The point is, we all think we know how hard they must be to make, but do we really know? Do you really know how much effort went into Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists from the acclaimed Aardman Animation studio, for example? Here's where dedication and passion can be glimpsed at their most potent. Because it's not just as simple as building the characters and props from clay, getting the image, moving them, and repeating the process (though that, in itself, is hellish). To create Pirates!, it took over 500 people five years. Five years! Think on that for a second. Five years to create one, relatively short children's film.
That's not all (and here's where it gets seriously impressive): the pirate ship used in the film was built from over 44,000 moving parts. Imagine trying to construct something of that scale (if you're a real ship builder, ignore that comment). If you think that's impressive, you might find it interesting to learn that over 10,000 mouths were used throughout production, too, which enabled the characters to speak.
What this proves, then, is although you think something like Pirates! would be extremely difficult and arduous to construct, it's likely doubly so in reality. It also makes you feel worthless, because you can't build something with more than sixteen parts and an instruction manual. Boo.