# A Matter of Loaf and Death

Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations and created by Nick Park. It is the fifth Wallace & Gromit film, and the first short since A Close Shave (1995). It was the last Wallace & Gromit film before the retirement of Wallace's voice actor, Peter Sallis, in 2010. In the film, Wallace and Gromit operate a bakery and are targeted by a serial killer.
A Matter of Loaf and Death was one of the most watched television specials in the United Kingdom in 2008 and received acclaim. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, and won a BAFTA and an Annie Award for Best Short Animation and Best Animated Short Subject in 2009.

## Plot

A serial killer has murdered twelve bakers. While on a delivery for their bakery business, Wallace and Gromit save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up model for the Bake-O-Lite bread company, and her nervous poodle, Fluffles, when the brakes on her bicycle fail. Gromit finds no problem with the brakes, but Wallace is smitten. He and Piella begin a romance, and Gromit is angered when she redecorates their house. Fluffles and Gromit share a sensitive moment when she returns Gromit's possessions, discarded by Piella.
Wallace sends Gromit to return Piella's forgotten purse that night. At Piella's mansion, Gromit discovers numbered mannequins representing each of the murdered bakers, and a book of photographs; Wallace is her planned thirteenth victim, completing a baker's dozen. When Gromit shows Wallace the evidence, he is too distracted with his engagement to Piella to listen.
Gromit installs security measures in their home. After Piella tricks Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her, Wallace muzzles Gromit and chains him up. Gromit watches helplessly as Piella prepares to push Wallace into the grinder; Wallace is saved when Fluffles strikes Piella with a bag of flour. After an angry outburst about bakers, she leaves, but returns the next day to apologise with a cake. Gromit, suspicious, follows her home, where Piella captures him, reveals the cake contains a bomb, and throws him into a storeroom with Fluffles.
Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, Gromit and Fluffles arrive at Wallace's house as he lights the candle on the cake. After a struggle, the cake falls onto the floor, revealing the bomb. Wallace and Gromit are attacked by Piella, who reveals she detests bakers after her weight gain ended her career as the Bake-O-Lite Girl. She is just about to kill Wallace with a wrench, but she is attacked by Fluffles in a forklift truck. In the chaos, the bomb falls into Wallace's trousers; Gromit and Fluffles neutralise the explosion with dough while Piella leaps onto her balloon. Her weight drags the balloon into the crocodile enclosure in the zoo, and she is eaten by the crocodiles. Gromit tries to console Fluffles, but she leaves, ashamed of her participation in Piella's crimes. Dejected, Wallace and Gromit decide to take their minds off things with a delivery, and are joined by Fluffles, who returns and reconciles with Gromit.

## Cast

* Peter Sallis as Wallace
* Sally Lindsay as Piella Bakewell
* Melissa Collier as the vocal effects of Fluffles
* Sarah Laborde as the singer for the Bake-O-Lite company's advertising
* Geraldine McEwan as Miss Thripp, reprising her role from Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
* Ben Whitehead as Baker Bob

## Production

In October 2007, it was announced that Wallace and Gromit were to return to television after an absence of ten years with a new short film titled Wallace & Gromit: Trouble At' Mill. Filming began in January 2008; creator Nick Park commented that the production period for the short was significantly quicker than that of the feature-length films Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which each took five years to complete. A Matter of Loaf and Death was the first Aardman film to be made using the software Stop-Motion Pro. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets.
Commenting on the fact that the short would be made directly for a British audience, Nick Park said: "I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America — and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying." Regardless, Park changed the title from Trouble at Mill as he thought it was too obscure a Northern England colloquialism. As well as a final title that references A Matter of Life and Death, the film also references Ghost (1990), Batman (1966) and Aliens (1986).
Park said in an interview with the Radio Times, "The BBC hardly gave a single note or instruction on the whole thing", and Park goes on to remark how it was better than his previous work with DreamWorks, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, where they kept receiving calls to change critical things.
Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston. Although unfamiliar with her role as Shelley Unwin in Coronation Street, Park said "Sally has a lot of fun in her voice, flamboyant almost, and I was also looking for someone who could be quite charming too, but with a slightly posh northern accent. Piella needed to at times sound well to do, and then at others sound quite gritty".

## Release

A Matter of Loaf and Death debuted on ABC1 in Australia on 3 December 2008, and was repeated the following day on ABC2. In the UK, it debuted on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One with over 14 million people watching, although it had been available on filesharing website the Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008. On 19 December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube ahead of its screening in the UK.
In France, A Matter of Loaf and Death (Sacré pétrin in French) was shown – dubbed into French – on Christmas Eve 2008, on M6. In Germany, one version, entitled Auf Leben und Brot was broadcast on the Super RTL network; the title is a play on Auf Leben und Tod meaning a matter of life and death.
In a similar style to A Close Shave, Wallace & Gromit became the theme for BBC One's Christmas idents for 2008, to promote the showing of A Matter of Loaf and Death. These idents led Russell T Davies to request similar idents for Doctor Who the following year.

## Reception

The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day 2008 in the United Kingdom and secured the largest Christmas Day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the United Kingdom in 2008, with a peak average audience of 14.4 million. The programme had a share of 53.3%, peaking with 58.1% and 15.88 million at the end of the programme.
The repeat showing on New Year's Day 2009 managed 7.2 million, beating ITV's Emmerdale in the ratings. The short was shown on British television for the third time on Good Friday 2009, pulling in 3.4 million viewers. In BARB's official ratings published on 8 January 2009, it showed that A Matter of Loaf and Death had 16.15 million, making it the highest rated programme of 2008, and the highest rated non-sporting event in the United Kingdom since 2004, when an episode of Coronation Street garnered 16.3 million.
A positive review came from USA Today, which gave the film four stars.

### Awards
#### Won

* 2009 – BAFTA Award – Best Short Animation
* 2009 – Annie Award – Best Animated Short Subject

#### Nominated

* 2010 – Academy Award – Best Animated Short Film