Wallace & Gromit bring Christmas cheer to London’s Battersea Power Station

29 November 2024

UPDATE

Wallace & Gromit bring Christmas cheer to London’s Battersea Power Station

This holiday season, Wallace & Gromit have decorated London’s Battersea Power Station, home to Apple’s U.K. headquarters.

From 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. today, and every day until New Year’s Eve, a pair of Christmas trees will light up the two wash towers on the landmark’s river-facing façade. Visitors will see the two characters decorate the giant trees in their own inimitable styles, despite the intervention of the mischievous Feathers McGraw. Aardman follows in the footsteps of David Hockney, who last year created Bigger Christmas Trees, drawn on iPad Pro.

Aardman, the multi-award-winning animation studio and creator of Wallace & Gromit, used iPhone 16 Pro Max to create a short animation that transforms the iconic 101-metre-high chimneys that soar above the River Thames. iPhone 16 Pro Max was mounted on motorised heads on set to capture two angles of the Christmas trees, shooting a total of 6,000 frames. Eight iPhone 16 Pro Max devices used the 5x Telephoto camera to shoot super-high-resolution images in ProRAW, which were then assembled frame by frame to produce a stunning 6K video. 

“Wallace & Gromit are a much-loved and iconic duo, and we’re delighted that they will be lighting up Battersea Power Station for Londoners this year,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “It’s great to see the skill and ingenuity of Aardman, and how they’ve used the most advanced iPhone we’ve ever made to produce something so joyful.”

“This project has been a dream to direct — a cinematic fusion of tech and art,” said Gavin Strange, Aardman’s director and graphic design lead. “Shooting stop-motion animation on iPhone 16 Pro Max with the legendary Wallace & Gromit, to then be projected onto the iconic Battersea Power Station, makes this unique in so many ways. I hope that this Christmas, everyone feels inspired to start shooting their own stop-motion masterpieces with iPhone, and I’m excited and proud of what we’ve all created.”

Apple inaugurated its U.K. headquarters and a new Apple Store at London’s Battersea Power Station in 2023. The company’s deepening commitment now sees it support more than 550,000 jobs in the U.K. The 500,000-square-foot, six-story U.K. headquarters runs on 100 percent renewable energy, and has been designed around collaboration, inclusivity, wellness, and sustainability.

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