WONDERFUL THINGS
Leigh Haggerwood
2025
4 min
United Kingdom
English
In a Victorian Christmas setting, three children transform everyday household objects into handmade tree decorations. Through stop-motion animation, simple wooden pegs become marching soldiers and delicate fairies, brought to life by the children’s imagination. The tiny characters perform, dance, and play music before fulfilling their intended purpose as decorations on the Christmas tree. As night falls, the magic gently passes, leaving sleeping children, a decorated tree, and a final wink from the angel above.
Leigh Haggerwood is a songwriter, composer, and producer with over twenty-five years’ experience creating music for screen and performance. His work now extends into visual storytelling through The Florin Street Band, an audio-visual Christmas project drawn from a developing musical. Wonderful Things marks his directorial debut, combining live action and handcrafted stop-motion animation.
Wonderful Things exists as a small, self-contained story within the wider world of Florin Street, an audio-visual Christmas project developed as part of a musical. Set in a Victorian Christmas, the film focuses on the act of making – children transforming everyday objects into decorations through care, play, and invention. Stop-motion animation felt essential to this idea. Bringing the peg characters to life frame by frame mirrors the handmade process within the story, allowing the magic to feel earned, fragile, and temporary.
As songwriter, performer, and director, I was able to develop the music and visuals in tandem, and I was fortunate to collaborate with a very talented cast and crew who shared my vision. I wanted every detail in the film to feel authentic — from the antiques featured in the specially built set, to the traditional materials used in creating the tree decorations.
Roos Mattaar, a talented stop-motion animator and model maker who regularly works with Aardman Animations, spent several months crafting the animation. Cinematographer Louie Blystad-Collins fully embraced the smoky, low-light atmosphere, helping to create warmth and texture through the use of vintage lenses. Visual effects artist Ferriol Tugues delivered exceptional compositing work, adding the final touches of magic to the animation. It was very much a team effort and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.
Leigh Haggerwood
