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Developers of the animation industry took what the

pioneers had created and added their own twists and
turns to it, resulting in essential advancements. One of
them being Will OBrian, a California animator made
a huge impact on both special effects and animation,
working on the animation of King Kong, and might
Joe young, which goes into cinematic history.

Stop motion animation has been around for a long time, almost as long as traditional film-making. The very
first example of a stop-motion animated short was The Humpty Dumpty Circus, created by Albert Smith and
Stuart Blackton in 1899. Stop motion uses a variety of techniques such as the use of puppets, clay, paper and
even photos of humans in action which were developed by the use pioneers such as Muybridge, Lumineere
Brothers and William Horner. Inventing the zoopraxiscope, Eadweard found a way to project his silhouettes
in rapid succession onto a screen, his pioneering work was cited as a major inspiration.
This also prompted the idea of persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is basically If an object is moving
quickly the human eye will not process it straight away, this leaves a slight after image for roughly one to
twenty fifth of a second, it gives the illusion that the images are moving, when images are shown in a quick
succession, we see it as if its moving. An example of this can be found in the work of Edward Muybridge.
Muybridge was hired by the Governor of California for photographic studies, where Muybridge set up a
series of cameras so that when the horse went round the track it would set off the cameras to take the picture,
Muybridge used twenty four cameras which were twenty seven inches 69 cm apart, The shutters were controlled by trip wires triggered by the horses legs. The photographs were taken in succession one twenty-fifth
of a second apart, with the shutter speeds calculated to be less than 1/2000 s.
When they put all the pictures together it showed that all four legs were off the floor. He achieved an effective frame rate high enough to resolve the horses motion at a time of twelve frame rates per second, this was
ground breaking at the time as no other pioneer had achieved such a thing, the led to progression in the animation industry, artists such as Wills O Brien and Rey HarryHausen went onto develop this further by using
there teqniques that inspired them in their own work.
The Zoetrope created by William Horner, worked as you looked into the slits in the side of the wheel when
it was going at a certain speed, you could also see all the images together making it look like they were moving which is still used today in flip books. In motion pictures, television, and in computer video displays, the
frame rate is the number of frames or images that are projected or displayed per second The Zoetrope uses
the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion. William George Horner proposed a more
convenient device based on Plateaus Phenakistoscope which eliminated the need for a mirror and allowed
several people to view the device at one time.
It works from a simple drum with an open top, supported on a central axis. Picture slips are based on the
inner bottom of the drum. Slots are cut at equal distances around the outer surface of the drum, just above
where the picture strips were positioned. To create an illusion of motion, the drum is spun; the faster the rate
of spin, the smoother the progression of images. A viewer can look through the wall of the Zoetrope from
any point around it, and see a rapid progression of images as shown in the image on the right. Because of
Horner the animation industry has been able to go on and develop the idea of the moving image that create
the illusion of movement, this is because of the zoetrope that things have gone on and developed also aspiring artists from generation to generation to the likes of Willis Obrian and Ray HarryHausen.

His stop motion career started because he was a

sculpture maker and some of his work his work was
displayed in San Franciscos world fair including a
dinosaur that was used in the original King Kong
movie. The picture above shows the character of the
gorilla, he was created with an armature inside (a
metal, flexible, bodily structure.) in order to move
realistically, it may look very old and not very good
special effects, but without OBrien, these effects
would not be as well developed as they are today.
Willis OBrien created movement through the use of
an armature that is covered with hair, and he moves
the body a slight bit at a time and takes a picture,
this method is adopted with all the stop motion
animators of today, Aardmann in chicken run, Tim
Burton in nightmare before chirstmas and many
more, Willis OBrien developed the stop-motion
technique of pixilation and developed it, so that
other animators can carry on his work. OBrien
later become the mentor to most famous off all
stop motion animation artists. In his early pieces,
Willis characters consisted mainly of clay. As both
his career and skills grew, so did the intricacy of
his models. He was able to do this because of the
invention of rear projection effects, (which came
in before cgi effects), which was established around
the same time, along with the complex articulated
armatures covered with rubber skins would dominate the models Willis would build and design.
Some of OBriens designs even included a rubber
bladder that allowed his creatures to breathe. He
did this by inflating and deflating the bladder, his
creations could fight, move, and give the appearance
of breathing, which bought each character to life to
make it more believable on screen for the audience.

Thanks to the likes of pioneers such as Muybridge and Horner which inspired him, he went on onto receive
on Oscar for his special effects. Ray HarryHausen being another animator, OBrien inspired Harryhausen
to work in the field of stop-motion animation keeping the technique alive for three decades, Willis OBriens
achievements in special effects inspired many filmmakers, including Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen has
since become one of the most well known stop motion animators, taking OBriens work further and almost singlehandedly keeping the technique alive for many decades. Ray Harryhausen wanted to blur the
line between special effects and live action. He no longer wanted animation within films to jump out of the
screen and draw attention to itself, but to blend perfectly with the image and become a method for enhancing a story. Harryhausens aims and beliefs regarding these special effects have become the standard goal
for modern CG animation. His work in refining techniques to blend stop motion model/puppet animation
(using similar armature models pioneered by Willis OBrien) has created some of the most well known
special effects scenes in movies, such as the famous skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts. securing the
first commercial job on George Pals Puppetoons shoot. HarryHausens real breakthrough was when Warner
Brother studio hired him to do the special effects for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, in nineteen fifty three.
HarryHausen travelled to Columbia to work on the effects for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in nineteen fifty
three which was his first split-screen film shot entirely in colour. HarryHausen is constantly cited as a major
influence by contemporary artists such as and animators from James Cameron to Phil Tippett.
Ray draws a distinction between films, that combine special effects and animation , with the live action
world, and movies that are completely animated , such as (chicken run , and the nightmare before Christmas) produced by Aardmann and Tim Burton. This clip from Jason and the Argonauts, this shows ray
HarryHausen use of dynanimation. The skeletons are models that are moved by hand and are made to look
like they are alive. Which is used by many animators today (Aardmann, Tim Burton).HarryHausen pretty
much invented special effects. His movies bristled with images that left a lasting impression on cinemagoers, a good example of this is the sword-fighting skeleton army from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) They
inspired a generation of artists and animators to tread similar paths, and films such as Star Wars and Jurassic
Park are testament to the influence HarryHausen had over cinema.
Willis H OBrien and Ray HarryHausen were the revolutionary artists of their time. The stop motion, matte,
and camera effects developed by these masters became the blueprint of Green Screen and Digital effects that
took hold in the late seventies.
Contemepary artists such as Burton, a stop motion animator, most famously known for his work on the
night mare before Christmas and the corpse bride, creates a very realistic medium within the world of
animation. Burton uses several different heads and bodies for his characters, this captures the most human
expressions and emotions.

Inspired by the work within character movement by HarruHausen, Burton went onto develop this further
by creating realistic characters through the use of armatures, which are metal structures that can bend just
like the human body, this gives the animator the opportunity to create characters with realistic movements.
Burton uses a twenty four frame per second rate, this creates slick and smooth movements within the characters. Creating a creepy realistic atmosphere, technology has also improved dramatically since the developers
of animation, all film is now in colour and frame rates run smoother due to higher advanced technology, The
Dutch tilt is a camera technique that appears in many of Burtons animations, which makes him stand out
against all other animators.
Corpse Bride has a surprising choice of camera for feature cinematography, the Canon EOS-1D Mark II, a
commercial digital SLR camera designed for still photography, making it the first stop motion feature film
captured with a digital still camera. Early DSLRs did not have live view, a feature where the camera can
provide a video stream of the image through the lens. So, the studio had to use a secondary video camera to
provide the video assist. This is a tremendous change in the state of the art from five years ago, when Aardman Animations used custom-built film camera heads based on converted Mitchell cameras for the animated
feature Chicken Run.
Aardman Are an animation company who specialize in clay-motion and cgi animation, they have had many
successful films & Shorts (chicken run, morph, and flushed away) to name a few. The best way to show how
Aardman uses stop motion animation is through the hit film Chicken run Created through the use of stop
motion animation, chicken run is has a 24fps frame rate, meaning that every second has 24 images within it ,
It takes a week in the studio to create one minute of film. The chicken run characters are designed around an
armature. Having more advanced technology, it has allowed creators of stop motion to progress and do a lot
more within the industry, it has also allowed directors to create more characters and storys
Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation
for TV and films comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation
has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios.
The first stop motion film is showed in the cinema, when Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton made The
Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1898. However, it wasnt until 35 years later that America truly woke up to stop
motion animation, and it was down to one man, Willis OBrien, However as time and technology as progressed, animation can come in the forms of television, DVD, cd and online and sites such as Netflix.
The majority of animation used in films nowadays is Computer animation. Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) has allowed filmmakers to create images that would have been impossible before. Whereas such
scenes would have required hugely expensive and believable models to be built and filmed, they could now be
achieved effectively entirely within a virtual environment. The techniques used in CG animation are similar
to the traditional methods of cel animation. Before, the chief animator would draw the key frames for a scene
and junior animators would create the images in between. Now that menial task is taken over by the computer, generating the in between frames (known as tweening) based on the key frames set by the animator. This
saves both time and effort and allows more complex animations be to achieved and experimented with.