Aardman's 'New Mindset' Wins Gold and Silver at The Drum Awards 2019

Aardman’s short film ‘New Mindset’ has won a Gold in the Animation category and Silver in Best Sports/Health at the Drum Awards as well as a Craft Silver at the PM Awards. The film was directed by Danny Capozzi and narrated by Stephen Fry, and was premiered by United for Global Mental Health on world mental health day last October. 

The ‘New Mindset’ film underlines how mental ill health is a global issue that affects everyone, everywhere, and was created to help the global mental health community to win support for change to how mental health is funded and treated. Since its release, it has been played for important audiences at four high profile global summits including; UK Summit, Davos World Economic Forum, Global Dubai mental health summit which was translated in Arabic.

Chief creative officer at Havas Lynx Group, Tom Richards, said; “It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to work on a project that can change lives, potentially millions of lives for the better. It’s been an absolute pleasure collaborating with Aardman, and the United for Mental Health team, and we’re immensely proud that we’ve played a small part in the global initiative.”

When speaking to executive producer Jason Fletcher-Bartholomew about the success of this project, he said “This has brought value to the global mental health community who use it at numerous events regularly and shared it with great enthusiasm when we launched. It’s an evergreen piece of content and invites newcomers to the issue of mental health into our world with thought-provoking creativity.”

Aardman director, Danny Capozzi, said: “We’ve taken the thinking of the world’s best minds on mental health and turned it into a film to help the global mental health community win support for change to how mental health is funded and treated.

“This film was a real labour of love with a lot of care and attention to detail. Working with miniatures like the hugging wooden figures, the untangling worry dolls and the authentic wooden mannequin hand was a real challenge, but the fast-paced hard work resulted in a wonderfully rich, and heartwarming short film.”

This film was filmed in a beautiful antiques shop in Bristol. The trinket head was then made in CGI to look exactly like a vintage printers block tray. The trinkets and props inside were carefully handcrafted, then stop-motion animated in the Aardman Studio. All the components were cleverly composited together to appear as if the whole trinket head was truly coming to life inside an attic.