We had a sneak peek at Pat's technology collection - he's had more mobile phone updates than we've had!
But then again, we expect our postie to stay current...
1. When the postie has a better mobile phone than you do
2. Keep on the lookout for sharks
Jaws fan?
Look out for the brand new Special Delivery Service boat, which was inspired by the Orca from the classic shark-tastic film.
3. Does anyone have a tiny iron for tiny clothes?
Thank goodness we don't need to borrow Pat's tiny iron for our own ironing mountain!
4. Quick, call the Puppet Doctor!
If the characters are feeling unwell, there's someone to take care of them. The Puppet Doctor is on call for any emergency surgery or repairs.
5. How many eyes and mouths does it take to make one Pat?
Every expression a character makes requires a change of mouth and eyelids – each character has seven mouth shapes and two pairs of eyelids.
6. Who'd expect Pat to have high maintenance hands?
The characters’ hands are very small, so they have flexible wire instead of ball and socket skeletons inside their fingers. As their fingers are manipulated over time, the wires weaken and can break. It can take a day to make a new pair of hands, so the production team always have a dozen or so on standby.
Over the course of a production, they’ll make hundreds of new hands!
7. The man made of metal
Pat’s quite futuristic under his uniform…the highly engineered ball and socket skeleton is known as an armature.
8. It takes how long to film Postman Pat?!!?!?
Still beautifully crafted with stop-frame, an animator on Postman Pat typically completes about 10 seconds of footage each day, which is 250 teeny-tiny movements!
You need a lot of patience – each second of finished animation is made up of 25 separate frames, and for each frame the animator has to move the puppets 25 times. There are six animators all working on different shots from different episodes, and between them they make around a minute of finished animation per day!
Over the course of the production they will shoot almost 250 000 unique frames.
9. Pat is a wardrobe diva
Our Pat is a fashion guru - he needs frequent wardrobe updates. His uniforms wear out quite regularly, and as there are five Pat figures, the production team have to make about 20 new uniforms over the course of a series.
10. Home sweet home
Some of the houses in Greendale are original structures, which date back to the first series of Postman Pat, 35 years ago!
