The first two and a half year of the production of chicken
run was spent designing the characters and doing the storyboard. When they
finally did the shoot the film, it took 18 months. When they started, it was
just peter lord and nick park writing away in a quiet room and by the end of
pre-production, they were working with a crew of about 250 people. This turned
out to be a massive effort to get finished.
The heads of the chicken characters and their hands were
made of plasticine. Plasticine is the classic animation material that they had
used for 30 years. The chickens' bodies are made of other materials that were
mean to look like plasticine. Originally, they were all sculpted in plasticine from
which moulds were taken and then they were made into silicone rubber. Inside
they had strong steel skeletons. They used silicone rather than plasticine
because they wanted further detail and they wanted to use paint effects and
they realised you can't paint plasticine effectively. Things would get smudged.
