Watch This: BBC One Christmas Film 2017 'The Supporting Act'

Every Christmas in the UK media companies and ad agencies compete to create the seasonal advertisement that most captures the public's imagination. This year, the clear winner seems to be the BBC, who recently revealed The Supporting Act, their BBC One Christmas Short Film for 2017- and it's animated.

The two-minute film (which you can see here) tells the simple story of a father and his young daughter, and her school talent show. To say much more would be to give away the surprise- but suffice to say this is a very sweet story that will melt all but the most stubborn of hearts.

The short has been winning plaudits from animators and animation fans around the world, as it features some simply stunning animation. It employs a mix of stop-motion and CGI  to great effect. The puppets are created by McKinnon and Saunders (best known for Fantastic Mr Fox and The Corpse Bride) and the film was created by Blinkirk in association with BBC Creative. The director is Elliot Dear.

Also working on the project were set builders Clockwork Frog (who worked on The Pirates: An Adventure with Scientists) lead animators Andy Biddle and Dan Gill (Wes Anderson’s upcoming Isle of Dogs and Charlie Kaufman/ Duke Johnson’s Anomalisa)  director of Photography Toby Howell (Fantastic Mr Fox) and lead CGI artist Rune Spaans (Trollhunters)

"The story is about an emotional connection between a girl and her dad," the director says. "We wanted to make a film that had the charming, handmade qualities of stop-motion animation, the tiny imperfections that let you know it's been done for real. The aim was to combine this with CG animation, which we used for the faces, in order to capture the tiny nuances of human facial expressions, enabling the characters to be very emotive without the use of dialogue.”

The short is also being using for branding across the channel over Christmas, and the characters are also starring in the BBC One idents this December.