WATCH: Can you make an animated film in less than 48 hours?

When Toy Story was first released back in 1996 it was the culmination of seven years of ground-breaking work by Pixar.

Even now, with multiple advances in technology, a studio movie typically takes four to five years of hard graft.

But a city-based studio challenged themselves to create an animated film in less than 48 hours.

The team of just six people worked non-stop for two days in order to create a film festival-worthy short film.

Liam Gilbey, co-founder of Cut the Mustard said: "Our primary motivation for this was, as an animation company, we don't get to make our own stuff enough.

"We also felt we didn't utilise the film festival circuit as much - so we came up with this good, if not stupid, idea.

"Our first challenge was to see if we could actually make anything within the time limit and our second challenge was to see if it would be any good."

Some of the sketches used in Cut the Mustard's animated film 'Little monkey in big monkey world.' (Image: Cut the Mustard)

So at 10am on April 22 the Norwich University of the Arts graduates started working on their 48 hour film.

The 23-year-old added: "We started the whole thing from scratch, which included the premise, for the film - we had to approve characters, approve the story, then just jump in.

"When you usually make something it gets sent out and you'd get feedback on it - this can around a day between every choice we make.

"But with this challenge you had to become your own worst critic because when we came up with an idea or created something we immediately moved on to the very next thing due to the time constraint.

Cut the Mustard took on the 48 challenge on April 22. (Image: Cut the Mustard)

"The technical side was also difficult as certain things take time to save and render - we certainly pushed our tech to the limit.

"The biggest challenge was continuity - having everyone start animating at the same time and maintain continuity was tough.

"Usually you start with the background, make the characters and then animate them - but we would still be doing backgrounds while animating."

But with around two hours to spare the team completed their film called 'Little monkey in big monkey world'.

The company came together in 2019 formed by four graduates from Norwich University of Arts. (Image: Submitted)

Liam said: "We're very proud of what we've made - especially in such a short amount of time.

"The process was very stressful and long but relatively pain free in the long run.

"We're looking forward to showing it off at some festivals."