I had this idea for the movie while eating a sandwich with chicken salad and curry in London, in 1996, long before Chickenrun came out, but it took me some more years to find the total finance, 200 000 dollar believe it or not…I also asked Aardman to finance it but they were not interested.


For the texturation of the chickens, we had a chicken (death) in the company fridge that did rotten for a few weeks and then we used this stinky chicken as a reference.



Chickendales has been made entirely with Light wave and project Messiah for the animation in Belgium eating whole day chocolats, for some of the camera movements we used a program called stitcher to give it more dynamic. The backgrounds are pictures token in a supermarket next door, they did not want their brand on it, even mentioned. I was very lucky because the main actor is a very known actor here in Belgium, and he loved it.


The film has been on almost 30 festivals and had one prize! one of best cutting in Italy and one mention of the Jury! Thx for that…he was always in competition with the chubchubss (who is much better) The freak, and that other film from Pixar, I could not participate at US festivals due to stupid budget reasons, US festivals ask money to participate and I am broke and have no job. Anyway on this moment I try to find finance for another flashy project…something very funny, so if anyone out there is interested.

Best,

Niko Meulemans

Director CHICKENDALES
Niko@chickendales.com