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.