history of stop motion

Stop motion animation is also called stop-frame animation.  This technique includes capturing frames at every movement to produce a moving film. 

Some early examples of stop motion animation is seen the ‘Humpty Dumpty Circus’ (1898) by Albert E Smith and James Stuart Blackton. The audience at the time were shocked at what they saw because they had never seen anything like it before. 

Stop motion has changed since the early 20^th Century and hardly used anymore, only in some advertisements and children’s TV shows.  With the development of 3D animation it became much easier and a faster process and allows the characters to seem to be alive and flow better. 

pixilation

Pixilation is the only form of stop motion animation that has people posing frame to frame instead of an object.  Pixelation involves using live talent and shooting them frame by frame, just as with other forms of stop motion. “El Hotel Eléctrico” (1905) by Segundo de Chomon is an example which also features object animation. 

The type of media Pixilation is currently used for is in music videos, advertisements and feature films.  A strange and creepy feature film was made in 1993 ‘Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb’ by the bolexbrothers using the exact technique you can see in part 1 of the ‘ below.

The target audience for this type of animated film using pixilation is adults as the content would be too creepy for a young audience.  The influence behind this animation was the Christmas season but was rejected by the BBC for being too dark for the festive season. 

I think it is effective because it shows a good comparison and contrast between stop motion where live actors and puppets share the same frame.  It works because they seem to blend in with each other to make this type of animation effective. 

claymation

Claymation uses plasticine characters and objects in this type of animation.   Claymation is used in the same way that stop motion animation is created by taking the pictures in a sequence and adjusting the clay as you do so and is most probably the main associate of stop motion animation.

Claymation was created around 1908 when the 'Sculpture Nightmare' was found to be a big hit with the viewers and so four years after it was created Claymation became really popular and became more frequent after 1897 when an art teacher invented plasticine which was so much easier to create moving objects. In time animators began putting wire skeletons which made models move like people with more ease for example. Wallace and Gromit use this technique with the wire skeleton frames.

Claymation is often now used in cartoons, TV and advertisements.  One example of a famous claymation is Wallace and Gromit which is a British series consisting of four animated short films and a feature film.  The characters are made out of moulded plasticine on metal armatures.  The characters are influenced on the very stereotypical British, which makes it appealing.  The target audience is mainly teenagers and adults but can also appeal to children. 

I think that it is successful because the concept behind Wallace and Gromit appeals to most people and the claymation technique improves the appeal because the concept may not work if real actors were used instead, for example, the bully dog character in ‘A Close Shave’ (1995)

puppet animation

Puppet animation is a development from object animation where instead of using objects, puppets are used. Puppet animation is a development of stop-motion animation, rather than using objects in different frames puppets were introduced due to their human like quality’s so directors can move the puppet freely and more easily to show different movements.  It works by taking pictures and moving the puppet in different frames. 

The film ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’ (1908) created by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert smith receives credit as the first stop-motion animation film that features puppets.  

The history of puppet animation then carries on with the pioneer puppet animator from Russia, Ladislas Starewitch who was a film maker who created ‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’ (1912) and later produced his feature length puppet animation ‘Le Roman de Renard’ (1929-1930) which translates as ‘The Tale of the Fox’. The story was based on the 11^th century tale of ‘Reynard the fox’.

These days puppet animation is most commonly used in children’s cartoons and films.  An example of puppet animation used in cinema is in the film King Kong (1933).  The writer/director Tim Burton often uses puppet animation in his work for example, Corpse Bride (2005) which is a stop motion animated horror musical.  The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) is an American stop motion musical fantasy horror film directed by Henry Selick.  It used 227 puppets to represent the characters in the film and also 400 heads were used to allow the expression for every possible emotion. 

The target audience for this type of puppet animation is mainly teenagers and adults because of the dark themes.  I think these types of films are successful because of the use of puppet animation and the voice of famous actors.  It would not be as successful if actors were used instead of puppet animation.  Puppet animation is used as an advantage to show different character types and personalities. 

Object Animation

Object animation is a type of animation which only uses objects.  The technical process involves taking a series of images of any object, such as a shoe and moving the shoe slightly and taking a photograph at every movement.  These are then linked together by uploading the images onto final cut pro and then adjusting their frames per second to create a sequence of film.  This type of animation is currently used in adverts and children's animation films. 

Object animation is the oldest stop motion technique and was first used at the turn of the 20th Century.  "The Humpty Dumpty Circus" (1898) by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton is a first example. 

A current example of object animation is used in the TV advert:  EDF Energy Blue to attact members of the UK public to switch over to EDF Energy.  This is a good example of the application of comtempory object animation and is acheived by a using a 'morph' type character as the main focus who is shown moving from two levels of emotion - from dull and gloomy to bright and joyful once the background music changes from sad piano to the famous upbeat Hawaii Five O soundtrack. 

An influence of it's production seems to have come from a past childhood character 'Morph' who was formed using clay.  This advert's character has no features apart from a large pair of eyes.  This would make the viewer have empathy with the character.  The voiceover in the advert also encourages viewer reaction. 

The animation is very simplistic but effective in a sense because the actual character does not move very much but it doesn't really need to as the soundtrack and voiceover helps to generate audience reaction and emotion. 

This is a sucessful example of how object animation has been used in current adverting because it is memoriable due to the soundtrack and use of the little character.  Reviews on Youtube suggest that most people who have seen the advert have found it catchy because it has been influenced by music from the past.


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