Peter Gabriel — 'Sledgehammer' Music Video, Aardman Studios, Bristol

Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' music video (1986) is the most awarded music video in MTV history, winning nine MTV Video Music Awards. The video was produced primarily by Aardman Animations — the Bristol-based studio later famous for Wallace & Gromit — along with directors Stephen R. Johnson and the Brothers Quay. Gabriel lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours while animators moved objects frame by frame around and on his face, creating a surreal stop-motion sequence involving dancing chickens, animated fruit, a claymation train, and bumper cars circling his head.

The video's techniques included claymation, pixilation (stop-motion with a live actor), and hand-drawn animation. Gabriel remained perfectly still for each frame while the animators worked above him, a physically demanding process that resulted in one of the most visually inventive pieces of filmmaking of the 1980s. The Aardman team, led by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, used skills they had developed on animated shorts and television work. 'Sledgehammer' helped establish Aardman's reputation as one of the world's leading animation studios.

Aardman Animations remains based in Bristol and went on to create Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, and the Wallace & Gromit franchise. The 'Sledgehammer' video is considered a landmark in the history of music video as an art form, demonstrating that the medium could be as creatively ambitious as the music itself. The song reached number one in the United States — Gabriel's only chart-topping single.