Elliot Dear for BBC One's Christmas Launch

Elliot Dear has directed a short film to launch BBC One’s Christmas season, titled The Supporting Act. The film sees a young girl obsessed with dancing and keen to gain her father’s attention, though his work sees him increasingly distracted approaching the Christmas season. It culminates in a heart-warming moment at the school talent show, where it’s revealed her dad was noting her talent, and moves, all along.

The film also showcases Elliot's ability to take a simple story and turn it into something truly magical. The characters were animated using stop-motion but the facial expressions were created and mapped on the puppets using CGI to bring them to life. The dance routine was choreographed first in live action and then an expert team of animators recreated the moves one painstaking frame at a time. You can check out the making of below.