The third Shaun the Sheep feature film The Beast of Mossy Bottom opens in theaters nationwide this Friday Sept. 18. It’s a Halloween delight for families and fans of this beloved stop-motion animation franchise. Joining me is longtime Aardman art director Andy Brown. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: You have quite a history with this gang as set dresser and art decorator: the first film, this movie, the series, the Christmas special. So what do you love so much about this gang? What gets you most excited about working with this gang?

Andy Brown: I think part of it is just feeling privileged to actually be doing this. That’s one of the main things. At the age I am at, I’m still excited every day that I’m in the studio on the whole. Still get a buzz from it. I think part of Aardman’s charm with everything, one of the key words, is simplicity. They’re simple guys. They’re simple characters, but they’ve got longevity. There’s just so much scope because of their simplicity. You can kind of put them anywhere. With the movies, even though this had major time restraints on it, you get longer. So you can just embellish it, make it a bit more cinematic, and that’s to do with the time. And I think also with this movie… in the past, it’s always the same time of day. It’s always the same time of year. It’s summer. It’s midday. But now we went to autumn. We had dawn. We had dusk. Beautiful lighting. And that is what I find exciting about it.

JM: This movie is so good, you’re right, because of the different times of day, because of the locations. And it is so intricately choreographed. When you first learned this was gonna be a Halloween movie and all the steps and the beats of this story, what were your thoughts and reactions to it? It’s amazing what you pull off here.

AB: At first we were like, “Well, how are we gonna do this?” ‘Cause we were very much told it’s not a horror film. It’s a Halloween film, and obviously all our references were Frankenstein’s windmill and Nosferatu. Charles [Copping], the DOP, was very much looking at the lighting of ’80s films with John [Carpenter] and “Ghostbusters”. It’s how we took all that but put it into Shaun’s world. But it’s still on the farm. That’s very much Shaun’s world. The characters were the same. A lot of it feels natural how things happen at Aardman. It’s a great story, and it was a funny story, and it lent itself, and we just went with it.

JM: This is a story about pumpkin growth, about hair growth, about the farmer, and about going into town. Shaun becomes a mad scientist, and we see the laboratory come to life. How fun was that for you to have this laboratory and all the little designs and all the little references?

AB: That was one of my highlights. That gave us scope to introduce all these new colors. We had primary and secondary colors in there, things we’ve never used. They’re quite ambitious and bold with the lighting. And those colors actually… became a theme, and they were repeated through the film as well. You saw them in the cave and the forest. You saw them as well in the house. The house hadn’t changed. That’s the same interior house that we’ve used for 20-odd years on all the Shaun series. But in the hallway, it just took on a whole new life, and there was nothing new in the hallway apart from the lighting, just the reds and the greens. At first, we were just trying color swatches to do different paint effects in there, change the color of the hallway. But in the end, we pretty much stuck with the original, and that was down to the lighting in there.

JM: Amazing. Yeah, the house is a character in this. There’s some great moments of how you use the house with “Psycho” and lots of other things. And also the veterinary hospital is a character, and going into town, even the clothing store — the department store is a character. So having these sets come to life and having these colors come to life, what challenged you the most as far as all these different locations and wanting to pull off a story that is fun but also accomplishes so much in about an 80-minute timeframe?

AB: In the past, for money restraints or whatever, you’d only be allowed one or two shinies for each film, one new location. But on this, because of embracing technology, it wasn’t overtaking us. We were very much manipulating it. We were using Gaussian splats, so we could basically get more sets in a footprint, in an area, which allowed us to do more locations. So I guess that was one of the benefits. We could actually do more without having to need more space.

JM: You have been at Aardman for over 25 years, and have been a part of so many incredible films and series and projects. What has remained constant about your time at Aardman, and what has changed over time, as you talk about technology changing as well?

AB: My enthusiasm’s remained constant. With Aardman, it’s the simplicity that everybody likes, so we haven’t changed that. Everything’s still tangible. It’s still organic. You can still feel it and touch it. But technology’s just given us the scope to physically do bigger sets. We can use Gaussian splats and create a massive forest, whereas before we’d have to build that. You’d be doing it for a couple of years, and now we’ve just turned a feature film around in, like, eight months. So that has changed. We’re still using the same techniques, but it’s given us more scope to be ambitious.

JM: This is a really funny film. These movies always are. They’re so clever. How important is the comedy when it comes to making everything and bringing everything to life and just making it delightful, upbeat comedy (which is what this franchise has always been)?

AB: And it’s simple as well, isn’t it? It’s a simple comedy. I would say it’s so important. On this one, unlike some of the films in the past maybe… I mean, they’ve all been brilliant, but on this, on the animatic, we were getting laughs showing the animatic for the first time. It was funny from the outset. And knowing that as you’re on the studio floor each day, and maybe it’s getting tough, knowing that you’re hearing people laugh when they see it… that pushes you on.

JM: You’ve got a winner here in terms of the humor for adults and the references and also for kids experiencing it all. Seeing the reactions of the characters to various moments. The eyes are so important. Everything is so important. How have you seen firsthand with kids loving this franchise? And kids obviously love Halloween. I feel like they could dress up as these characters for Halloween, which would be so fun. What joy does that give you with the kids who are gonna see this?

AB: That gives us tremendous joy. But what also gives us joy [is] parents taking the kids to the cinema or parents sitting with their kids watching the series… it gives them joy as well. So you know it’s giving everybody joy, and the family can feed off each other, while they’re watching it, ’cause they’re all having a great time.

JM: I think they will have a great time seeing this in theaters, maybe a couple times before Halloween. And what would you say to young kids who are gonna go to this and wanna create characters and wanna make characters and make things? It’s so important when it comes to stop-motion animation, like you said, something tangible. What would you say to them, who love these characters and wanna start making things?

AB: I think to offer advice to young filmmakers in animation and claymation, I’d say you basically wanna keep it simple. It’s like my son when he tries something. He just goes so ambitious right away, and you kind of fail. But if you keep a simple idea and do it well, I would say that’s it. It’s simplicity. Just have one set, and put all your effort into that one set and have a good gag. Simplicity is the key. Don’t get overexcited.

JM: You have a lot of good gags. We had the first movie, which was fantastic, the second movie was sci-fi and a lovely story with that. Now we’ve got a Halloween. And you’ve done the Christmas special. Have you thought about other holidays, other genres, other things? What would you wanna personally see with these characters in the future?

AB: What would I personally [wanna] see? We’d have to talk to the writing team. It could be quite nice to have an Indiana Jones type adventure, couldn’t it? Going to Egypt or something. But I think why this film is doing so well… With Shaun, if you take him too far away from the farm, he struggles. I think that’s part of the beauty. You’ve got to keep him in that environment, and maybe they could find hidden treasure caves and mummies and things underneath the farm. But I think you’ve gotta keep it at Mossy Farm, basically. I think you’ve gotta keep it there.