Stop Motion Animation

By Max Posnett
Stop motion (with a hyphen in the middle when it is an adjective) is an
animation technique. Lots of still frames are shown in a fast sequence that
creates the illusion of movement. Everything from setting to characters to
props can be made from different substances and/or items depending on
the type of stop motion animation. It is similar to the time lapsing as that
includes photographs played in a fast sequence too.
A few examples of types are:
Clay animation (Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the
Sheep, Chicken Run)
Puppet animation (Thunderbirds, Team America
World Police, The Muppets, Sesame Street)
Cut-out animation (Southpark)
Pixilation (Angry Kid)
Object animation (Robot Chicken)
Silhouette animation (Some scenes in a Donkey Kong
game)
Drawn animation (Simpsons, Disney films)
Computer generated animation (Pixar movies, Tim
Burton movies)
The stop motion animation technique has been used since
the late 1800s and has developed greatly since then. It was
often used as magic in the films it was featured in and was
for a comedy effect. The first use of the stop motion
animation technique was in the 1897 film The Humpty
Dumpty Circus. Albert E Smith and J Stuart Blackton had a
toy circus of acrobats and animals come to life fir Vitagraph
studios movie. Nowadays it is used for lots of reasons in
movies and for many genre pieces. Also, the visual quality of
the animations has increased due to the advances in
technology over the last decades.
Clay Animation ( or Clay-
mation or plasticine
animation)
In, the most commonly known, clay animation, everything is
deformable so is made of malleable substance. The plasticine
clay is sculptured around a wire skeleton called an armature
then is arranged on set. Slight changes create the illusion of
movement but placement and lighting as well as smudges, dirt,
hair and dust can accidently alter the clay and hinder the
continuity. It can be used for films, games and other mediums
normally take between 10-12 frames per second. Normal films
run at 24 fps with double framing. 12 changes are usually made
for 1 second of movement. Shooting a 30 minute movie would
take 21,600 stops. 90 minutes would take 64,800 or more.
Different types of clay-mation are freeform clay
animation which has the shapes of the clay change
radically, strata-cut animation which has a long bread
loaf like piece of clay with many images inside it being
cut to show a story and clay painting animation which
has paint being painted onto a flat clay canvas. In
1908, Edison Manufacturing released a trick film
called The Sculptors Welsh Rarebit Dream. The most
famous franchise of this type of stop motion
animation is undoubtedly the Wallace and Gromit
series of movies.