Wallace grew up in Bristol and developed an interest in animation through short films made by
Aardman Animations, the Bristol-based studio known for its stop-motion
clay animation techniques. Wallace has also worked in theatre, and has likened the process of working with animators, and of animators getting to grips with puppets and the characters they represent – building an atmosphere informing the work – to directing a theatre play. Wallace and Vácz had met as students on "Animation Sans Frontières", an animation course, and have collaborated on a number of projects over the years, In 2017, Wallace created a critically acclaimed stop-motion puppet music video for the
Sparks song "
Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)". Depicting a surreal adventure set in 1930s' Paris, the video used wire puppets moving in cardboard scenery with painted backgrounds and was completed in just six weeks' time. Wallace was given a great amount of artistic freedom for the video and Sparks were very pleased with the result, pronouncing it a "work of art in its own right" that perfectly captured the song's mood, and "perhaps Sparks' best video ever". Wallace subsequently created animated sequences for the 2021 British-American Sparks
documentary The Sparks Brothers. Directed by
Edgar Wright, the film reviews the 50-year career of
Ron and
Russell Mael and had its world premiere at the
2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021. 2018 saw Wallace make a music video for
Parker Bossley's track "Chemicals", using
cut-out animation, a technique Wallace had previously employed in a short film titled
Natural Disaster. Bossley had seen
Natural Disaster and was interested in a video using a similar type of collage animation technique to depict a psychedelic trip in which the lead character metamorphoses into various animals. Wallace has also been working for some years on
Salvation Has No Name, a 16-minute stop-motion tale about the refugee crisis, and was invited by Aardman Animations co-founder
Peter Lord, who admired Wallace's work, to set up production in Aardman's studio. The film is executive produced by
Game of Thrones star
Maisie Williams and BAFTA Cymru winner Lowri Roberts through their company RAPT. Production was interrupted by the
COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with about a third of the film's shoot completed before moving to Manchester to resume filming in 2021. The film had its world premiere at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival on 13 August 2022. ==References==