Summarising Stop Motion

Finally to sum up my Stop Motion artical i thought i would incoperate a brief summary of all the different types of Stop motion along with their features, advantages and disadvantages.

Claymation
Claymation can be both 3D or 2D. The 2D version uses the same principles as cut out however rather than many pieces being needed onle a few are as they can be manipulated. Claymation itself is the use of modelling clay, putty or other such materials to create figures, they are then manipulated frame by frame and captured using a rigged camera.

Advantages
Claymation allows great control over models and much more flexibility than toymation generally, as models are not limited to set movements due to clay being moldable. As such they are also extremely good at showing fluid, realistic motion. Time taken to produce these are also normally shorter than that of dynamation or cut-out as you need less models and can less filming time.

Disadvantages
Claymation in terms of other stop motion animation methods is generally on par with little disadvantages, in comparison to dynamation particularly the main flaw is that claymation is not able to be integrated into real life filming, as such your unable to say use a clay model in a scene with human actors. In addition another disadvantage is the fact that small changes in factors such as camera position or lighting dramatically effect the consistency of the images.


Dynamation
Dynamation is a spin off of claymation, and as such is the same with the exception of how the images are taken. Dynamation allows claymation to be integrated into real life filming and in order to do this you need to first shoot the real life parts of the film. After doing this a special rigging needs to be set up so a screen displays the stills, the models are then positioned infront of this and manipulated before another camera takes a picture of them through a special glass window. This acts as a layering system and is like overlaying a picture ontop of another (like in photoshop).

Advantages
Dynamation is able to place models into real life filming, as such it gives a much broader use and allows more enhanced visual display and films to be created. In addition to this however the claymation advantages also apply.

Disadvantages
Disadvantages to Dynamation are the same as claymation again all be it without the problem with integrating it into real film. Another point to note with this is that the more specialised rigging means a significant increase in cost, as well as the time taken to create the finished product.


Toymation
Toymation is the use of puppets, or models/toys rather than clay or paper in order to create animation. This method generally is the same as claymation with a change in materials.

Advantages
Toymation generally costs significantly less than that of other methods, this is due to needing less staff and other such specialists, such as modellers. In addition the models themselves are also far more durable than things such as clay. Toymation is also extremely good for start up companies or amateur film making as its very easy to aquire and use.

Disadvantages
The main disadvantage to this method is the static positions models and such are in, they generally are much less flexible and versatile than that of clay, unless more expensive complex models are being used which significantly raises the cost.


Cut-out Animation
Cut-out animation is a 2D stop motion animation method. Characters are seperated into several pieces (generally limbs, body and facial features are all seperate from each other) allowing them to be 'built up', many different versions of each of these will then be created so that they may be interchanged to give the character a different pose. Frame by frame these are then changed in order to give the illusion of motion.

Advantages
Very simplistic and easy to do as well as being incredibly cheap and cost effective.

Disadvantages
Cut out animation is possibly the most time consuming of the stop motion methods. This is generally due to the sheer number of cut outs you need, of which they all but be the same scale, slight variations will dramatically affect consistency.

Contemporary Film Makers & Stop Motion

A large amount of films over the years have utilised Stop motion however only some have done it in such a way they have created a huge client base and raised the bar for stop motion animations or pushed the limits and made something so unique it is hard to forget. As such there are three film makers i would like to discuss.

• Tim Burton
• Aardman Studios
• The Quay Bros

Tim Burton
Another of my favourite film makers, he is best known in the animation scene for films such as 'Nightmare before Christman', 'Corpse Bride' & 'Frankenweenie'. Though he is also massively famous for his large amout of cult films, work with all time super star Johnny Depp and classics such as 'Planet of the Apes'. Tim Burton has always had a passion for making films which was very unqiue, different or have a cult spin on things, as such this is reflected in his stop motion work.

He began his career having graduated from CalArts, his work caught the attention of Walt Disney and he became an apprentice, working there for several years he further developed his skills before deciding to go solo. His career has advanced so much over the years, he is currently working on a 3D stop motion film as well as with Valve a giant games development company.

His work was very unique in the sense of his contrasting blend of light and shadows, as well as the dark themes, generally having two opposing 'worlds' mixing together, an example of this would be his often reoccuring theme of death, and the mix of living and undead living together or interacting in some way. Examples of this would be corpse bride, a human whom is married to a zombie, and Nightmare before Christmas, a friendly 'happy go lucky' skeleton. The conflicting nature of these characters is really what made this work stand out as it is such a unique way to display what is usually perceived as 'the bad guy'. His animation techniques however greatly embody these themes making them also very unique.

Burton favours claymation, and as such clay models. His models themselves however are very unique, using a mixture of dark dull colours, heavily incoperating whites, blacks and browns he creates very eerie themes. The proportions of the models are also very interesting, utilising real life proportions but with odd twists, scaling parts such as the waist and limbs and enlarging the head gives the impression of a weak, deathly figure. Until Burton, no other film makers managed to get this level of depth into models and such emotion. As such Tim's stop motion technique is less about the physical use and more to do with the design. Being one of my personal favourites, i thought i would include the trailer for Nightmare before Christmas as this really sums up the ability and techniques used.

Aardman Studios
Aardman are a British animation company based in Bristol which are extremely famous for their claymation, and more so Wallace & Gromit. Founded in 1972, until just recently (2006) they have been using claymation in order to create visually pleasing films and TV episodes. After 2006 they then switched to Computer animation as it offered much more control and made tasks faster and of a higher consistency.

Aardman has since the beginning mainly focused on shorts and TV episodes rather than films, however has partnered with Dreamworks & Sony to create several films, of which all were successful. Ironically however the movie they created using Computer Animation was infact the worst based on reviews and profits attained, this could be because they are new to using it, or possibly reflect the extremely high standards which went into their Claymation.

Aardmans stop motion techniques generally revolved around the complete use of clay, mixed with scale models for scenery. Utilising this they achieved very high quality, in addition however they favoured the use of bright colours to give a very child friendly, happy vibe. Aardman generally tailored all their work towards children and so were also careful of the models proportions and features ensuring they were not harsh or overly scary.

The Quay Bros
The Quay Bros are another incredibly famous duo whom have created some very ground breaking animations. Inspired by a wealth of key individuals, one of which was Jan Svankmajer whom they named an animation after, these brothers have produced a large amount of shorts, and several feature length animations. The Quay Bros enjoy using alternative stop motion techniques, favouring puppets composed of doll pieces and organic materials, this gives them a very unique look that has never been done before. In addition to this they are often dissassembled in some way in order to give a more spooky or eerie feel. Seeing their work it looks and feels very much like it was inspired by punch and judy, though more tame in its nature. A large number of their animations also contain little dialog or none at all favouring the motion of the puppets and music to set the mood, another technique which has not been used that much, the benefit of this is their work is very independant and easy to spot, making it more likely to be recognised.

Their very unique animation has carved out a nice market and allows them to amass more viewers, however the majority of their work these days is not as popular as other makers such as Tim Burton or Aardman studios.

Pioneering Animators

Now some of the most iconic stop motion films have been talked about i'd like to turn your attention to some of the pioneering animators that have really pushed the boundries of stop motion and its capability. As such there are three main people i want to discuss, of which they are:

• Jan Svankmajer
• Willis O'Brien
• Ray Harryhausen

Jan Svankmejer

Jan Svankmajer was known for being a surrealist and renowned for his animations. Born in parague in 1934 Svankmajer developed an interest in animation from his fascination with puppets. He used stop motion in a very unique way which allowed him to make surreal and creepy pictures. His favourite techniques to use were fast motion (he particularly favoured the use of this for when people were moving) and claymation for the hightened control over models.

His work was thought be have been a key influence on the Brothers Quay whom went onto creating several very popular leading animation productions.

Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien most famous for his work on the film King Kong in 1933, was an exceptional animator whom was recognised for his outstanding work with an academy award in 1950 for best visual effects. This man was a master of stop motion and the use of models in conjunction with claymation in order to achieve desirable results.

The advantage of the use of models with claymation was quite vast and allowed a hight quality product to be produced. For static positions models were used as they would offer higher quality than clay, however these were not used throughout due to them not being very posable. This is where claymation came in, replicas were created however these were fully posable and so allowed motion transitions to be created inbetween the static posses of the models (an easier way to explain this would be to take a model of a monkey on all fours, then one on its hind legs. Going straight from this would result in poor quality, and so clay models were used to bridge the gap and give motion). This procedure however was short lived when Willis employed Richard and Marcel Delgado, master model makers, in order to create custom fully posable models, this was a very advanced procedure using high detailed rubber skins placed over a complex metal frame.

It was these models which saw Willis to the top of his animating career, making both clay and normal models obsolete, and it was these which helped him create some of his best works.

Ray Harryhausen
A personal favourite, and my Stop motion idol, Ray Harryhausen was responsible for some of the most cutting edge and most fascinating stop motion techniques and films ever created. His style was easily recognisable, his models (favouring claymation) were very highly detailed and physiques were extremely close to realism. The man was a genius, even inventing his own stop motion method which completely revolutionised the use of stop motion, broadening its use and making it more seamlessly fit in, so much so that it actually was capable of being in the same scene as actors and such, which til now was not possible.

Dynamation was in effect the overlaying of a image upon another, this meant stop motion models could be worked with then the images overlayed on the live action film, this made it look as if they were real and were interacting with the actors, massively enhancing viewing quality.

But how did this work? Well the process was incredibly simple basically a projector would display the still images of the film onto a rear screen, then the models would be placed in front of this, next a glass screen would be placed in front of the models, this was used to remove the surroundings (i.e. the place where this process is taking place, for instance walls furniture etc), finally a camera would when the model has been positioned take an image through the glass pane, this would set up would act like layers in effect and create a single 2D still. I have found an image below to help explain.

This methods main advantage was the massive improvement upon visual quality and transition of stop motion in live action films. However two negative to this process was the increased creation time due to the film needing to be completely filmed and then models manipulated and overlayed, as well as the increased cost of creating a film in thsi way due to the additional equipment. There is no doubt however as to the dramatic quality gained from this and the leap in stop motion technology, for this reason i personally would say this was a necessary step as well as a positive one.

Inspiring, Key and Successful Stop-Motion films

There has been a wealth of films created since the invention of Stop motion, however some have been more ground breaking, revolutionary or simply spectacular entertainment. As such i thought i would highlight some of the key films that have inspired the use of stop motion in film and made box office successes in doing so. As such there are three main films i would like to mention.

• King Kong (created in 1933 by Willis O'Brien)
• Jason & the Argonauts (Created in 1963 by Ray Harryhausen)
• Star Wars Trilogy (Created in 1970-80s by George Lucas)

Not only are these three films iconic, revolutionary and have achieved fame like almost no other, they are also known world wide by a huge amount of people. These films are legends amongst stop motion films and have all shown the ability and use of stop motion in their own way.

King Kong
One of the first globally recognised stop motion feature length films, King Kong was partically realm filming with a mixture of stop motion. The stop motion aspects were used on scenes which were unable to be recreated due to budgetting, safety or other methods being unrealistic. Such examples are King Kong himself, and the famous climb of the empire state. Models and toys were used in order to do this. A camera rig is set up in several locations depending on the angle needed and then scale models are used in order to renact the scene. Frame by frame the models must be repositioned and another image taken, this is a very long process and generally conditions need to be kept the same such as lighting and time of day the images are taken, this is vital for this form of stop motion as failing to use the correct lighting shows dramatically in the images and consistency is affected dramatically (resulting in poor quality). In addition time of day unless using artifical lights and other such stuff needs to be kept the same as conditions throught the day change, such as light, air pressure (wind), etc.

King Kong when it hit the cinema was a massive success and began revolution in stop motion picture, making it a popular trend to make stop motion films that were not cartoons. This lead to the creation of a large number of other iconic films such as the two below and helped develop animation more which was vital to get animation to where it is now.

Below is the scene where Kong is on the empire state, as you can see it doesnt look very realistic and it is clearly stop motion by the jumping camera and poor consistency but for the time it was revolutionary, and if you compare this to the star wars video the development of stop motion is astounding!

Jason & the Argonauts
Another incredibly ground breaking stop motion film (and a personal favourite) is Jason & the Argonauts, created by Ray Harryhausen an incredibly resourceful and inventive director and stop motion enthusiast. Jason & the Argonauts used the stop motion varient (technique) known as claymation. Claymation is the use of clay, or other such modelling putties in order to create visual effects. This was not very influential by this time, however Ray took this method and invented his own technique called Dynamation, this was in effect still claymation, however the rig used to capture still images was modified. This was done by creating a window which the models were infront of, the entire point of this was to make the models able to be put into a realistic film, by overlaying this onto the original images. This was a very early form of what is still used in digital animation packages to date, enabling transparent layers which show the layers below them, allowing for animation components to remain seperate and so not interfere with others.

Using Dynamation allowed the claymation models to be animated, captured and then overlayed on the film, this then meant using good choreography it looked like the models were infact real and interacting with the actors, as well as being to the correct scale and give the illusion of motion. The use of mixing stop motion animation and real film in this way was brand new and became a very popular move standard, resulting in a large amount of films by many different creators in a short space of time. This film was such a success that Ray Harryhausen went on to create several others similar to this (such as clash of the titans) and from their success modern day remakes of these have been composed using state of the art digital animation techniques.

Below is one of the more popular and technically brilliant scenes of the movie, note the extremely good transition from full stop motion to a combination.

Star Wars Trilogy
One of the most successful films of all time star wars broke the record for most money made in the box office and through merchandising. It combined the use of normal filming with stop motion animation, using several different stop motion techniques in order to produce an inspiring film which took the cinemas and world by storm. The benefit to using stop motion in this way meant that scenes that were impossible to do or too costly were very easy to produce, and with the right props looked very high quality and believable (at the time of release). As such Star wars used two main Stop Motion Animation techniques, the use of puppetry, and the use of models. These two different methods act completely different and allow very different things to have been created. Puppetry was used in order to create the character 'Yoda' after problems meant the initial concept could not be done, this immediately shows there is a stigma associated with the use of stop motion and it is generally not a first choice if possible, however from the use of this stop motion came one of the worlds most iconic characters which has risen to a cult figure. The use of a puppet was very simple having a puppet master control a puppet meant images could be taken with greater control, but more importantly realistic positioning and motion could be created through the much more enhanced control over the 'model'. As such this highlights another Key advantage to the use of stop motion, it is broad, and highly adaptable.

The next use of stop motion within Star Wars was the use of models for scenes relating to futuristic machines, for example the scenes in space (for the vehicles and scenes relating to them such as space fights) and more iconically the attack on 'Hoth' (for the AT-AT & AT-ST vehicles). These futuristic designs were far beyond the ability of computer animation to replicate at this time, let alone replicate to a level which could be viewed as realistic or atleast believable. As such this helped not only in being cost effective and so budgetting but also meant they could have more enthralling, immersive and visually pleasing scenes in the film which would captivate the audience.

The use of stop motion in this sense was key to the film and in doing so the film reflected the usefulness and ability of stop motion. The time this film was created also helps to show the fact stop motion was also still very much thriving as a main animation format.

Below is a small clip showing one of the most popular scenes in the star wars films, pay close attention to the vehicles when they are flying past the AT, can you tell they are stop motion? a very good piece of stop motion and camera trickery!

The Kinetoscope

The Kinetoscope in my opinion was one of the most vital and key animation devices created to date and is easily responsible for modern day cinema. The kinetoscope was invented by Thomas Edison the world famous inventor.

The Kinetoscope was a very early form of motion picture, as such cinema. The design of this animation device was like no other to date, it was far more advanced than that of the Zoetrope or Phenakistoscope, even though it was near 50 years after these its design was still far more advanced and within a very sort period of time evolved into an early stage of what we call cinema. The Kinetoscope worked in the same way as other animation devices, using stop motion it had a large number of frames (still images) which would be viewed in a window. So far this is very similar to the other devices however the rest is very unique. Rather than using a drum that rotates to display a limited number of images, the drums were used as a way of feeding a strip of images (stills) to the window which had a remote closing shutter this shutter would open and close at extremely fast speeds so the changing of an image was not saw, as such when the machine was on it would give the illusion of movement like the others.

The benefit of using this system was that the amount of frames that could be used and so the length of the animation was massive. These could still be looped like other methods however animations now could get more complex and incoperate so much more than the simplistic designs to this point. This was a revolutionary device as it now allowed feature length animations to be made and in 1984 the first ever motion picture was created using 10 Kinetoscope.

The success of this device was massive, this rapidly became the most talked about thing in many states in america and Edison realising the importance of such a device did not seek patents for it in europe allowing many copies of this device to be produced, this was a very important step for the evolution of cinema as it allowed many other inventors to understand the device, reproduce it and expand upon it. within only afew years the Kinetoscope had grown so large it was beginning to be installed into venuses as an entertainment form and many businessed began to produce images for use within these (later to be known as animations and then cartoons). This grew further in the early 1900's and ended up with the later upgrade on the Kinetoscope being produced which was in effect cinema we have know al be it without sound.

The main flaw to this device unlike others was the fact only one person could use the device at a time. Though this was not a dramatic flaw, it could be argued this infact helped speed up the development of this into a motion picture projector as the demand was so great. Another disadvantage was the sheer size of this device made it both expensive and unrealistic as a home use device, again however this is arguable as it could be seen to be a good thing as it was the spark to making media a more puplic event. Unlike other devices the advantages were vast, animations could be much longer, viewing could be more easily monitored in public and film could be used in these (a reletively new invention coming from cameras, this meant not only cartoons and drawings could be made but realistic movies).

Below is the first ever motion picture to be shown on the kinetoscope, and the first ever copyrighted film ever made.

The Phenakistoscope

The Phenakistoscope was an early animation device created by Plateau. This device was created just after the Zoetrope and its reception was much better recieved. This device like most stop motion devices uses the theory of persistence of vision in order to work. Persistence of vision was a theory of the optics and how eyes view images (see Joseph Plateau post for more info).

The Phenakistoscope worked very similar to the Zoetrope using a circular disk attached to a mount which allowed it to spin 360 degrees, spinning it at high speed would make the still images on the disk look as if they are moving. Slits were then cut into a disk that was positioned infront of the image disk and looked through. The images on the disk would then look as if they were moving. One disk varients of these were later created in which a mirror was required as the images were printed on the back of the single disk, though this made the device smaller and lighter, it did however limit usability. To the right is an example of a Phenakistoscope being reflected in a mirror.

This design was recieved much better than that of most animation devices of the time, this was because of its more condensed size and easily changed disks, infact it was as simple as lifting the disk off and replacing it with a new one. In addition another very important point to reference was the fact the Phenakistoscope was the first portable animation device, this meant they were much desirable than other early animation devices and made for good toys.

Comparing the Phenakistoscope to other animation devices is difficult, though they use the same techniques to animate, such as a rotating drum, and 'windows', they are actually rather different from an engineering standpoint. The Zoetrope is a upright device which the drum spins along the horizontal axis. This means it can be placed on a surface and looked straight through. Where as the Phenakistoscope is meant to be portable and as such rotates along the vertical axis. This means the Phenakistoscope was very popular and is very good for animation on the go, however it generally was of much lower quality in terms of materials and durability, which resulted in a easier to break device. Another major difference with these two animation devices often seen as being the same (but one a portable version) is the Phenakistoscope did not have a light source attached, this therefore ment you needed natural light in order to use it or a well lit room, whereas the Zoetrope (not all models) were underlit due to them not being portable, this meant they were usable in the dark, this was later picked up on and the Zoetrope was expanded to be one of the first 'night lights' used as a childrens 'bedtime' lamp. This was done by having the still images cut out and held in place rather than being stuck to the inside of the drum, when the underlit light then hit them a shadow would be cast on the ceiling, further improvement on positioning of these also lead to the projection being animated. This could have perhaps been some of the earliest froms of projectors.

Below is a short video of the Phenakistoscop being used.

The Zoetrope

The Zoetrope was a very primitive animation device, created in 180AD by Tin Huan under the name of 'chao hua chich kuan', it was a very basic device which was used as a way of warding off spirits, rather than entertainment, and the way in which it worked was not completely understood.

It wasnt until its reinvention in 1833 by William Horner (the mathematician) that this device (renamed Daedalum, meaning the wheel of the devil) began to be understood, however despite the reinvention and bringing into the forefront of animation, it wasnt a very successful device and wasnt popular until the 1860's when it was patented in America by William Lincoln and in Britain by Milton Bradley, where it was given the current name Zoetrope.

The Zoetrope was created shortly before the device created by Plateau, though both devices were incredibly similar, utilizing a circular drum as the core of the device. The Zoetrope itself works by having a circular drum with slits in the top of the drum, these will be looked through like windows. The drum itself is fitted to a mount which allows the drum to spin 360 degrees. a paper or card insert with several still images will then be placed on the inside of the drum, when spun at speed looking through the window it will give the illusion of motion.

The Zoetrope however was not a very successful animation device, partically because of the Phenakitoscope being released so closely and as such it was in the shadows until 1860 when it had a boom due to patenting. There has been many different forms of Zoetrope and spin offs from the original device all varying the method used to display and make it easier to view. One good example of this was the use of a centre pole which had mirrors attached to it, doing this meant that it would reflect the images off the paper in the middle and removed the need for viewing windows.

In modern days the Zoetrope is pretty much extinct, it is a very impractical way to animate due to its limited frames available, increasing the number of images means either scaling the device up, taking more space and money, or making the images smaller, which will result in harder to view animations as the sizes are reduced.

There has been some modern day Zoetropes created using modern engineering and digitalisation to create a device with no limit to frames, this works by instead of using paper using tv screens which each displayed different images that would swap when they were used this meant much longer productions could be created, however the creation of this modern spin was a gimic more than any form of evolution.

Overall evaluating the device itself it was a very old and interesting attempt at a animation device, mainly used as a source of entertainment but its value as anything else is to say very lacking due to its frame limitation. However the size of this animation device does mean however it was both affordable and usable in homes.

Below is an example of a zoetrope in use (thanks to youtube):