Aardman Academy and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand have signed a five-year partnership to train students in Aardman’s signature stop-motion animation style. 

The university is looking to offer stop-motion studies as part of a broader strategy to help its students keep up with evolving technology by developing a wider variety of media expertise. In 2022, it invested US$65 million to build a campus for teaching film production, game development and metaverse skills. 

Students enrolled in U of C’s four-year Bachelor of Digital Screen honors program, which already teaches animation, audio production, game development and screenwriting, will have access to the Aardman-led courses. 

Aardman launched its training academy in the late ’90s when it urgently needed more animators to work on Chicken Run—which launched in 2000 and went on to earn more than US$224 million worldwide. Since then, Aardman Academy has trained hundreds of animators, directors and model-makers globally. But this is its first educational partnership in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands region. 

With a 40% cash rebate on qualifying local expenditures, New Zealand is a hot production location that has attracted big-budget animated films such as Avatar: The Way of Water and The Adventures of TinTin: Secret of the Unicorn in recent years.

Pictured above is an Aardman stop-motion set. Courtesy of Aardman.