The Greater Manchester puppeteers, who created the stars of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, were "thrilled" their film won an Oscar.
Altrincham-based Mackinnon & Saunders teamed up with the Hollywood director to create miniature stars for Netflix's stop-motion animation. The film won the Best Animated Feature Oscar at last night's 2023 awards ceremony. It had already became a BAFTA and Golden Globe winner prior to this.
Pinocchio is the first puppet to be made from 3D printed stainless steel. This new process was responsible for creating the internal skeleton for the puppet from it's feet to his nose. The results made the stop motion animation used the movie much easier. This innovation was made possible through the 'Made Smarter North West Adoption Program', a government-funded initiative to help SME manufacturers digitalise, decarbonise and drive growth through new technologies and skills.
Financial support and advice enabled Mackinnon & Saunders to test new 3D technology with a Belfast-based rapid prototyping services bureau called Laser Prototype Europe (LPE).
Peter Saunders, co-founder of Mackinnon & Saunders, said: "We are thrilled to have played a part in creating such a successful film which has been watched and loved by so many. It means the world to our team to have worked on an Oscar-winning film. It is also testament to what can be achieved through programmes like Made Smarter, who gave us such valuable technical support and facilitated our exploration of this game-changing technology."
It's this king of innovation and creativity with Stainless Steel that we love at DSM.
...and finally we were going to end with a Pinocchio joke, but we had a feeling everyone might already nose it.