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):

Thomas Edison 1847-1931

World famous inventor, pioneer and influencial american Thomas Edison was an incredibly famous, intellegent man, who's greatness helped revolutionise modern day life and improve standards of living for the masses significantly. Throughout his life he invented a wealth of devices, cameras, light bulbs, early day x-rays, and more importantly in our cases, the Kinetoscope.

As well as a prestigious inventor he was also a revolutionist and philosopher, he was a very admiral man whoms views were often depicted as strong however these days they are saw as very knowledgeful and humble. Edison was often referred to as a freethinker for his very strong, but forward thinking ideals. One of his most famous speeches reflecting this was his views on religion in an interview for the New York Times Magazine in 1910 showed how much of a logical thinker he was and though many religious people were offended by the statement, it could not be anything but admired. I've included his speech below.

"Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions."

Another of his most famous quotes was given again in the New York Times when he stated "Gold is a relic of Julius Ceasar, and interest is an invention of Satan." This clearly showed his humble, but strong nature, however many people thought his attitude to money as absurd due to him being an extremely successful, wealthy businessman.

Edisons Life began in Milan Ohio however he moved and grew up in Michigan. Son of a fleeing rebel whom was assumed to have been part of the failed Mackenzie Rebellion in 1837 in Canada. His acedemic life, unlike Joseph Plateau & William Horner was poor, he was branded "addled" and his performance in formal education was so poor he was withdrawn and home schooled. This however was the decision which would shape him into the successful man he was. Taught at home by his mother, he stated later in life it was his love for her that he did not want to disappoint he tried incredibly hard to make her happy.

Edison as a young man was not as successful as later in life. Moving back to Michigan when business declined in Milan he sold sweets and newspapers on trains to support his family. It wasnt until he gained the exclusive right to sell newspapers on the road that he amassed enough money to, along with companions create a business venture, the first of many in which manufactured the Grand Trunk Herald and sold this along with papers. The success of this highlighted his ability as a businessman and this sparked a chain reaction of ventures amassing companies and founding others. Some of these businessed then began to invent products which allured him to become an inventor. His first invention of which was the Phonograph.

Edison began to rapidly create inventions from a broad range of areas. His "addled" mind clearly had been the mindset of a creative person whom enjoyed challenges and could not be pinned down to one task, he was an inventor and enjoyed the thrill and fame associated with creating, it could perhaps be his mindset that lead him to being such a successful man whom created a mass of inventions that made life easier, it could be said due to him not being able to focus on one project this caused him to need a lot of help in bringing his inventions to the forefront, however enabled him to create even more devices.

My Thoughts?
Edison is without a doubt one of the greatest inventors of all time, ranking currently as the 4th most prolific inventors in history (having 1093 parents in just the us alone). He not only had a great mind, however his openness and views are also, and have been influencial. Edison has not only invented things for improving quality of life, entertainment and making tasks easier, he is also accredited for his help in improving the US economy dramatically. In my eyes he is a great philosopher whom should be greatly respected for his life time of contributions to making modern life easier.

However from an animation stand point he was the inventor of the Kinetoscope, which was the main invention behind modern cinema, he was far more influential than most realise. I feel Edison is far more important than that of Joseph Plateau and William Horner, in both society and contributions to evolution of animation, however i do feel that Plateau was very important in allowing edison to understand how the concept of stop motion works (through his work on persistence of vision).

Importance
Explained briefly above Edisons importance was massive, in society he made living much easier, and standards improve significantly. To the economy he contributed to rapid growth and the take-off of mass production (as he was one of the first inventors to utilize this method). To animation he created a device (Kinetoscope) which was the earliest form of cinema and based on its design many more inventions have been created and because of it led to the very advanced animation methods we see to this day. To this point no other method of animation has pulled away from the basic design principles associated with the Kinetoscope, which is the use of many still frames (in a linear sequence) to give the impression of motion. In relation to other animation inventors i feel Edison is definely one of the best and most important as his creation was one of the first which showed evolution and the possibility for successful expandability, as such it could be expanded so animations produced on it could be longer, which was not possible on the Zoetrope, and other such wheel animators due to the circular design.

This isnt to say he alone is responsible for rapid growth of animation, each animator contributed in some way, whether they amassed audiences (Horner), or created base principles which allowed others to create sophisticated devices (Plateau). Edison however i feel contributed to a more mainstream method which is though evolved now still used to this day massively.

William George Horner 1786 - 1837

Horner born 1786 was a very prestigious British mathematician, born to a upper class family in Bristol, in his childhood he was incredibly bright becoming an assistant master at his school, Kingswood. Within 4 small years by the young age of just 20 he had risen to become the Head of the school. However Horner being incredibly passionate about sciences left this post after just 3 years to establish his own school, heavily focusing on mathematics.

Horner had an incredibly sucessful career, writting extensively on a broad range of mathematic theories, (one of which has become a mathematical standard known as the 'Horner Method' referring to an algebraic equation) he also however like Joseph Plateau he was very intrigued in imagry, and more specifically optics, which he had wrote several successful theories. This could have been seen as the start to his journey on creating one of the founding devices which was the basis to modern day animation. He was a regular writer in the 'Philosophical Magazine' on optics and theories relating to illusions.

Some of his most successful pieces of work however were:

• Horner's Method
• A Tribute of a friend - a very moving poem
• Natural Magic - a leaflet on optics

Horner is often thought to be the inventor of the Zoetrope however, this is infact incorrect the most primitive form of the zoetrope was created in 180AD however it is Horner that 'reinvented' the device modernising it and bringing it back into the spot light.

My Thoughts?
Though Horner was a very bright individual i feel his achievements in life are often overlooked, by the age of 20 he was a successful individual that was head of a very prestigious school, this alone was a great achievement, likewise being a regular writer on mathematics and creating a algebraic method was equally as brilliant. These are often in the shadow of his reinvention of the zoetrope however, which was infact nothing special, nor was it anything new. For this reason i feel from an animation perspective he was viewed in a better light than he should have. Unlike Joseph that created a brand new concept and began the research and theory around persistence of vision (which is still in use to this day), i feel Horner was not very important to the animation industry.

Importance
Horners importance is up to debate, it can be argued he did not make a new animation device, nor did he have any such input into very important theories revolving around animation or how optics work. For that reason he could be seen he had no importance and should not be classed as a great inventor. However on the other hand he did successfully get a bigger audience to notice animation and get onboard with the movement to experiment and research optics, for this it could be said many people learned about optics and so it helped drive the concept forward. As such this alone cannot be seen as a important enough event to make him on par with Joseph Plateau. It is undeniable that Joseph was more influential within the animation movement, and that his work contributed to far more.

Away from animation however Horner was an incredibly important figure within science and mathematics of his time, and created many theories which were the basis for more advanced or evolutionary concepts which has shaped modern day mathematics.

Joseph Plateau 1801-1883

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau, or plateau for short was a famous physicist born in 1801 (died at the age of 82) he was famed for his demonstration of ‘the illusion of a moving image’. Though this had been done before (Stop motion animation methods go back as far as 180AD Tin Huan) he was the first to be able to explain how it works and with scientific theory recreate a working device more advanced than any before.

Plateau according to official records was able to read at the age of 6, which given the time period in which many adults still couldn’t read made him a genius, some even going as far to say he was a child prodigy (reference Van der Mensbrugghe biographer & collaborator).

Plateau was always very interested and inquisitive as to the persistence of luminous impressions on the retina (Like when you stare at a bright light then look away!) this was the beginning of his research into his animation device. In 1829 he submitted a thesis revolving around how the retina portrays several different things including, colour, moving images, and reconstruction of images. All of these concepts together in 1832 created his invention known as the Phenakiscope.

My thoughts?

There’s no doubt this man was incredibly intelligent, graduating from the university of Liege in 1829 as a physicist & mathematical scientist, two very high up professions which were only just beginning to take off making ground breaking discoveries and advancements. Becoming a professor in 1835 he made rapid advancement in his own career and social standings. This clearly shows his passion and determination for physics and absorbing as much knowledge as possible.

Importance?
There is no argument that Plateau was a key figure to the evolution of stop-motion, without him and his understanding of what would later be known as persistence of vision, animation methods would not have been discovered. This is a key point to consider, because of his work into the retina it became known that the eye infact can store an image for several miliseconds which when many were played at speed would give the illusion of a moving image, when infact it is just an overlap of imagry in the retina. Without this concept there is not a single animation method to date which would work, as none yet have mastered a way to get movement into a single image. As such to sumarise Plateau is the basis for Stop-motion advancement, and so the evolution of animation as a whole.

Introduction

Hey Hyral here,

So i thought i would give a brief introduction to my blog and explain whats going to be going on. Okay so i want to make a minute (or several) to talk about the development and evolution of Stopmotion and the impact this has had on the rest of the animation industry. Stopmotion is generally overlooked and thought to be a single form of animation, however there are many varients all originating from this. As such my first few posts (or until i say im done) will be focusing on:

• Pioneers of Stopmotion & the devices/techniques they created.
• Key films that used and pushed forward Stopmotion (we've all seen 'Jason & the Argonauts'!)
• Limit breaking animators that have pushed boundries
• Contemporary film makers (GO TIM BURTON!)

Thats about it for the first few posts but expect to see lots of videos, pictures links and all that jazz!!!