Shropshire Star

Creative Mid Wales company stars at Cannes film festival

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Tony Ward and Matt Jones with a three-metre high Minion

Extraordinary creatures are the order of the day for a company based near Welshpool, which is having its latest project admired by some of the biggest names in film.

Tony Ward and Matt Jones with a three-metre high Minion
The glasses being assembled in the firm’s workshop
The six-metre long pair of goggles on show in Cannes

, based at Castle Court Works in Leighton, creates curious creatures for film sets.

And the company's latest quirky contract – for Universal Pictures – has taken the team to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France.

There they have unveiled a pair of six- metre long goggles to promote the animated comedy film Despicable Me 2.

"It's a huge honour to be doing this for Universal Pictures," said design engineer Matt Jones.

"This is probably one of our most prestigious clients.

"This is our furthest installation, as we have mainly been UK-based."

The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 15 to 26 and the glasses are attracting a lot of attention.

"Lots of passing people stopped to take photos and our piece is the first to be erected at the film festival, so is grabbing quite a lot of attention," Mr Jones added.

"Universal Pictures members came on site and we received some positive feedback."

The master moulds for the goggles were constructed of MDF profiles cut by Welshpool based MTM Interiors Ltd, who specialise in creating made-to-measure kitchens and furniture.

The Big Beasts team was joined by reinforced plastic expert Richard Reeves, of RA Mouldings, for the construction of the goggles, which took one month to build.

Big Beasts was founded by two directors, Paul Barrett-Brown and Steve Merchant.

Paul's background was in film and Steve's in fine art.

In 2008 they joined forces and named the company after their early work, creating dinosaurs for museums and large-scale models.

In February 2012, Paul retired and passed on the torch to Tony Ward.

Last November, Universal Pictures asked the crew to build three-metre high Minions to be displayed in major cinemas across the UK for the release of Despicable Me 2.

Then last month the order for goggles came in.

Matt said: "We were asked to make them as true to the film as possible.

"This includes rivets around the goggle rims, lenses, textured leather straps, metallic colour, realistic eyes looking in a direction, eye lids and metal buckles."

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