Unit 23: Characteristics: Techniques and Formats

• Time Lapse:
• A commonly used technique by amateurs and starting up photographers by slowing down the frequency of at which the film frames are played meaning that you can capture something moving faster or slower. Examples are often of of a sun setting or rising, or in lots of cases someone ageing drastically.

• Plasticine + Claymation:
• Famously popularised by Aardman, and the characters of Morph, Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and many other famous pioneers, character-wise. It is done in one of the most famous ways of animation such as making said characters in clay and animating them by moving the characters each frame.

• Found Objects:
• This is a way animation by using utensils and tools that aren't typically used in the art world, such as animating food of perhaps spoons. This style often took place on YouTube, most notably by an animator called PESfilm, who is the animator of the shortest ever film to nominated for an Academy Award for 'Fresh Guacamole'.

• Cut Out:
• This is a form of animation by using paper and layering up different pieces of paper and moving them around whilst going through the same process.

• Puppetry:
• A famous director is Tim Burton who always utilises puppets in his films, such as corpse bride and A Nightmare Before Christmas. His way of animating is very precise but also slightly higher frame rate to show the supernatural nature of his creations.

• Human Stop Motion (pixelation):
• This type of animation is pretty much as the same as the one preceding this list. Given that you are not using any dolls or clay, you are using real life actors.

Unit 23: Characteristics: Uses and Audiences

• Feature Films: 
• Depending on the content of the stop motion, the audience is broad but most widely used for children and teens - different directors are often linked to different audiences. Burton for example has mastered a very gothic genre so his audiences significantly older than someone like Nick Park given his career with Aardman and characters like Shaun the Sheep. 

• Advertising + Music Videos:
• Advertisements and Music Videos run under the same banner a lot of the time as they have a similar length. The audience is varied, depending on the product being advertised. With music videos there is no specific audience, given that is down to the bands reach of listeners. Famous examples would be 'Fell In Love With A Girl' by The White Stripes - famously directed by Michel Gondry.

• TV:
• Back in the late 90's and early 00's, music channel MTV and alternative channel Adult Swim were pioneers of stop motion and claymation animation as their shows would be animated in that style, shows such as Robot Chicken and Celebrity Deathmatch paved the way for it being the mainstream and the public eye.

Unit 23: The Characteristics of Stop Motion Animation

Purpose: 

- Educate:

Stop motions can be used for education to teach people about the origins of animation - given that back in primary school, children would make flip books.

Below is stop-motion designed for children learning about maths and creativity.

They can also be used to transfer information to the younger generation such as primary school children to give an easier format to encourage good behaviour. A good example of such is 'Charlie Says'.

- Entertain:

Stop motions are used for entertainment as a version of animation, widely used for children's animation - famously by Nick Park of Aardman. There are also the darker sides of entertainment such as Tim Burton's gothic style. Other adult rated stop motions would include Celebrity Deathmatch and Robot Chicken.

The example below is a scene from Celebrity Deathmatch episode where Marilyn Manson performed a song called 'Astonishing Panorama of The End Times'

- Inform:

Stop motions are used for informing people publicly, people have used the stop motion technique in the likes of advertisements and infomercials.

The example below is a McCoys Advert for celebrating 100,000 followers on Facebook.

Unit 23 - Examples of the Development of Stop Motion - Tim Burton - Post 5

Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an icon in the world of goth and peculiarity, a symbol to the young community for no hiding you individuality and showing the world that you don't have to follow in everyone else footsteps. Known for his work on The Nightmare Before Christmas (my all-time favourite), Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice and Frankenweenie.

Known for his work with what are essentially toy dolls that he has designed in his signature creepy style. Burton was primarily inspired by Harryhausen in his way of models - this inspired Burton in 1971 super-8mm short featuring cavemen and dinosaurs. Burton's animating style is often described as 'crude elegance' - so realistic its unsettling.

Burton also uses music a lot in is work as he has said before that the music can give something life - working often with Danny Elfman.

Below is a short clip from Corpse Bride, a tender scene of the two lead characters, Emily (the Corpse Bride) and Victor playing a duet on the piano.

Unit 23 - Examples of the Development of Stop Motion - Ray Harryhausen - Post 4

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen was one of the earliest developers of stop-motion by creating a new form of stop motion in the style of "Dynamation" with the use of models either made out of clay and lots of other materials. He went on to create pieces such as 'Jason and the Argonauts' (1963) and 'Clash of the Titans' (1981).

From 'Jason and the Argonauts', one of the most famous scenes from film history came about in the form of the skeleton army and the fight scene which occurred within that. This was the first wide-scale example of dynamation which would go on to inspire so many famous films and directors to follow in his footsteps.

Below is an extract from the 1963 film, Jason and the Argonauts which contains the aforementioned skeleton army fight scene.

Unit 23 - Techniques of Stop Motion - Post 3

Techniques

These are crucial to the past, present and future of animation and stop motion - with out these early and techniques, we wouldnt have Dreamworks, Disney or anything in between.

Persistence of Vision:

The human brain subconsciously stores images for around 25 frames per second. This therefore should be the amount of frames per second to be used in a stop motion animation.

The persistence of vision also refers to the optical illusion that happens when visual perception of an object that doesn’t change over a period of time after the beams of light proceeding from it have stopped to enter the eye.

Frame Rates:

Frame rate is the measurement of the frequency of frames in a moving image. Since 1927, frame rate has been a standard 24 fps. This changes depending on region such as PAL being 25 fps.

The future of such is much different – take The Hobbit, where director Peter Jackson shot the film in 48 fps as he argued it made for a ‘clearer film’ but this decision was met with criticism from other filmmakers. This was because of research made by scientists into ‘consciousness perception where the human brain sees the world at a rate of around 40 conscious moments/frames per second – after its release people said that it gave The Hobbit too much reality for a film.

Summary:

These early techniques and developers are essential for the world of animation and stop motion as they would not have inspired the likes of Walt Disney and Ray Harryhausen to do what they did to revolutionise the world of animation as we know it.

''Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?'' - Tim Burton

Unit 23 - Early Animation Inventions - Post 2

Early Inventions

Phenakisticope:

Joseph Plateau invented the Phenakisticope in 1832 with his sons – this consisted of two wheels spinning in opposite directions to imitate movement.

Adjacent is a drawing of the movement needed for the animation to take place.

Often the images would consist of small cartoons of people walking, planets and stars and much more.

Zoetrope:

Invented by William Horner, who initially called it a Daedalum which meant ‘wheel of the devil’ invented the Zoetrope which was one of several pre-film animation machines. These showed progressive phases much like the last one where the device was spun, it imitated movement. Often marketed as toys for children, depicting images of people walking or dancing and often animals such as horses running. Opposite is a modern version of the device with extra inserts to change over the images depicted inside.

Thaumatrope:

John Aryton Paris is usually credited to have invented the Thaumatrope which came about in the 19^th century. It is a very simple device which consists of two imaged printed on each side of a paper disc with string on each ends so you can twist the string to reveal the image on the other side – rapidly rotating such gives the illusion of the image moving.

They are very simple to make which made them appealing in primary schools as you could make them in under an hour.

Flip Books:

Another very simple animation technique which has been suggested to have been around much longer than any other animation device however the first account was in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett under the name of a ‘kineograph’ which means moving picture. They don’t always simulate a story but usually has some form of motion.

Flip books are not always self contained books as lots of children's magazines and books had them in the corner of pages as an added feature in the book.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3q9MM__h-M

Praxinoscope:

Commonly referred to as the sucessor to the Zoetrope, this takes the same idea as the zoetrope as it rotates rapidly – however this animation device utilises light to give the animation a projected look to the animation. Light goes through the slit projecting the image onto the surface in front.

This was revolutionary for the time – invented by Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1877 in France – the projected nature of the device didn’t come out until 1889 so it could be used in theaters. These were not devices for children though, these were for projecting more sophisticated images.

Unit 23 - Example of a Stop-Motion - 'Fell in Love with a Girl' by The White Stripes - Post 1