What is Stop Motion?

Stop Motion is a visual film technique which pioneered in 1897. In its most simple form, it is the idea of taking lots of photographs of one thing and playing each picture in such quick succession that it appears the whole thing appears to be a moving picture. This is an illusion to the eye as all of the frames are separate pictures but will appear as one continuous motion. In order for the illusion to appear as a real, continuos motion, it must be shot in at least 16FPS.

The very first example of stop motion is Albert E. Smith and Stuart Blackton’s ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’, which is pictured below.

This production features lots of different little characters moving about and interacting with eachother. It appeared as though everything was filmed as the frame rate of the pictures was too high for the human eye to process everything as a different frame. The film was made in 1897, suggesting that audiences would have received it with lots of surprise as nothing of the sort had ever been done in cinema.

Strengths of stop motion are that it is a rather simple way to create effects in terms of inanimate objects moving. Prior to stop motion, the only way to have inanimate characters would be puppets. In stop motion animation, you can use inanimate objects and move them around in between taking pictures. This creates the illusion that the object is moving by itself. Another strength is that it can be done by just one person. The camera can remain stationary and just one person can alter the set and move everything around.

There are also weaknesses to stop motion. The main weakness is that it can be an extremely time consuming process. This is because, in order for movement to appear to be flowing and continuous, you have to move the objects in tiny amounts. This means that it can take a very long time to take pictures of even the quickest movements so that it appears continuous.

Stop motion is still a very popular technique in modern times. It is how huge shows such as ‘Wallace and Gromit’, pictured below, are produced. It is still a very time consuming method of filmmaking but can produce very good results in terms of audience reception. With modern improvements in filmmaking, stop motion can be done on a huge scale with lots of different animators working on one project.

Animation Evaluation

This blog contains everything to do with my animation evaluation. There will be a link to the responses from the questionnaire, the focus group and the evaluation itself.

Animation Questionnaire – Google Forms

Focus Group

Animation Evaluation

My Finished Animation: ‘A Thousand Pictures’

After a few weeks of planning, filming and editing I managed to complete my very own animation short. I named it ‘A Thousand Pictures’. Link is below.

FPS and Frame Rates

FPS is effectively the amount of frames that are captured every second. This means that the higher the FPS, the more frames that are captured. In stop motion, filming is always in 24fps. This is important because it means that the picture is smooth if enough shots are taken and edited together. The FPS will determine how quickly and smoothly shots can flow together.

The strength of the frame rates of stop motion productions are that if you do double shots then the process can be less time consuming. However, these can sometimes effect the quality of the production. ‘Shaun the Sheep’ uses this technique but the quality remains the same. This means that, although the editing process may take slightly longer due to the larger amount of shots, the filming process won’t take as long.

The biggest weakness of stop motion animation is that it is very time consuming if you want to keep the smoothness of the video and want to keep the quality of a high grade. This means that a lot of work has to go into producing even a short stop motion video. If a normal video is filmed in 24fps then 24 separate photos would have to be taken and edited in every second in order to reach the same levels of quality. This can take an extremely long time to film and edit.

An example of a use of stop motion using 24fps is Aardman Studios’ animated film ‘Chicken Run’, pictured below.

‘Chicken Run’ flows smoothly picture-wise as it uses a high fps. It doesn’t run as smoothly as a normal video might but certainly looks to run more nicely than a video filmed in 12 fps would.

Persistence of Vision

Persistence of Vision is the theory that the human eye sees images 1/25th of a second after we stop looking at them. This is what creates the idea of motion perception, so when humans look at stop motion images being played next to one another they see the illusion of the images being one continuous loop. If a stop motion video is shot in less than 16fps then our minds will interpret separate images and will see through the illusion. A very early example of stop motion images in 24fps, so that our eyes can interpret everything as a full video, is the ‘Galloping Horse’ animation, made in 1878. Separate images are played next to one another so quickly that the human eye will begin to perceive the separate still images as being one continuously flowing video.

A screenshot from ‘Galloping Horse’

Different tools are used so that humans can see images quickly enough for them to be perceived as a moving image. These include the Zoetrope and Praxinoscope, which both work by being spun around on a pivot very quickly. A Zoetrope, (left), and a Praxinoscope, (right).

As cameras have developed, they have been able to start shooting in higher frame rates. This effectively means that more images (frames) will be played per second. This means that the eye will see more images and will perceive the moving illusion to be more smooth as it closer to the frame rate in which the eye sees things in real life. This means that the use of animation in film and television is improving as it is becoming easier for filmmakers to produce a higher frame rate with their better equipment.

Genres and Forms – Music Videos

The White Stripes – ‘Fell in Love With a Girl’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q27BfBkRHbs

Gotye – ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

Stop motion animation is a very popular filmmaking technique when it comes to music videos. It can be a very artistic way of getting the director’s and artist’s view across. Lots of artists and bands nowadays try to appeal to the more ‘indie’ style of consumer, and so will try to make videos a bit more edgy and out there. Stop motion is the perfect way to do this.

Whilst it is a very popular technique in modern times, I am looking to the past for my first example of stop motion. In the White Stripes’ ‘Fell in Love With a Girl’, lego is used in stop motion so that it looks like a band of people. Each lego person has their own instrument and is shown ‘playing’ their instrument when you can hear said instrument being played in the song. Used in time with the music, it creates the illusion that the lego people are actually making the music. This animation technique works very will with the fast paced style of the music as it adds a level of interesting imagery that the music also creates. This implementation of stop motion works well with the music as it is completely in time and cuts to the beat. A slight disadvantage to how this video uses stop motion is that you cannot see any of the band members’ faces, meaning that they will not be able to gain any sort of recognition for who they are as people. This might not matter for the White Stripes, however, as they are a very famous band.

A screenshot from ‘Fell in Love with a Girl’. You can see the lego pieces that have been made to resemble the roles of the band members.

Stop motion animation is also used in a more modern example, Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’. In this video, paint appears to move across the room and colour in Gotye’s body. This works well as it gives the video a clunky, arty feel as it slowly moves across him. It also works well with the theme of the song, which involves adaptability and change. The animation of the paint is a good metaphor for the idea of Gotye changing and adapting to his new state as a single man. From a production standpoint, lots of photos would need to be taken of the paint slowly being drawn onto Gotye. This will create the image of the painting moving or growing by itself. This makes the painting and the video itself appear to be alive and in synch with the singing. The genre of the song would probably be indie and the painting animation compliments this by fitting the pastel trend that is associated with indie living. A screenshot from ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’. You can see the paint which has made it across the singers’ bodies.

Stop Motion in Advertisements

Stop motion advertising is basically what the name suggests. It is using the animation technique of stop motion in order to advertise a product. All the same conventions will still be used in the stop motion video but will tend to revolve around the product or cause.

An example of stop motion used in an advert is the 2013 John Lewis Christmas advert. In this advert, the bear and hare are on a Christmas related adventure. The setting is a snow covered forest, meaning that a large amount of production was needed in making a set with such a wintery theme.

 A screenshot from the John Lewis ad, featuring the snowy setting.

Whilst making the animation, animators used lots of precisely drawn cut-outs of all the characters, including the bear and the hare, in order to create movement. This was done by moving and changing each cut-out and taking pictures of each movement. This would, after production, create the effect of the characters appearing to move seamlessly, although they are actually just a multitude of pictures being played very quickly.

The strengths of using stop motion animation in advertisements for a company or product are that, if done well, the animation could be memorable and people will automatically relate the animation to the product, creating good publicity and synergy. An example of where this is done well is the Reggae Reggae sauce ad, pictured below. In this production, stop motion is used to make dancing food. This is fun and is remembered by audiences, potentially increasing the likelihood that they will try Reggae Reggae sauce.

 A screenshot from the Reggae Reggae sauce ad.

Another strength of stop motion animation in advertisement is that it can lead to the creation of a character that will be associated with the company. This could then create huge buzz for the company if the character is received well by audiences. An example where this is done well is the Underdog Insurance advert, in which a clay dog is explaining the perks of getting insurance with the company.

 The use of a the dog character means that people may view the adverts and the company with a more light hearted tone, meaning that they may be more inclined to use the company as they will feel more warmly towards it.

There are also weaknesses to using stop motion animation in advertisements. It can be a very time consuming process. In comparison, it is fairly simple to employ an actor to say a few lines. Lots of precise production needs to go into making an animation look believable, seamless and with good continuity. This can also take a lot of money, and depending on the size of the company they may not have a huge budget to spend on the production of their television ads.

Another weakness is that it can also be quite difficult to make sure that the product being advertised is clearly known and visible within the ad. Too much emphasis can be placed upon making the animation as impressive and possible. This means that, if not handled correctly, too much emphasis can be put on the animation and not what is being advertised.

Praxinoscopes

The Praxinoscope was invented in 1877 by a Frenchman named Charles Reynaud. It was the first device to overcome the issue of picture distortion which was caused by looking through moving slots. It was better than the Zoetrope because instead of having to look through the viewing slits you can look into an inner circle of mirrors. We see the reflections instead of the actual drawings. Because of this advance is swiftly replaced the Zoetrope in being the most popular device for viewing animation.

A strength of the Praxinoscope are that it produces a clearer image than its predecessor. The image is much less distorted due to the viewing slits and mirrors. There are also some weaknesses to the Praxinoscope. Like the Zoetrope, they are expensive to both buy and make.  It is also difficult to use in terms of creating your own animations. The boxes that you have to draw in can be difficult to use as they spiral round, meaning that images can appear construed and distorted.

An image of an early Praxinoscope.

One of the earliest examples of a Praxinoscope animation was a variation of the ‘Galloping Horse’ animation. This was similar to the animation on the Zoetrope and featured the same ideas of tricking the viewer into seeing a moving object when in reality they are just seeing a variety of similar still images.

Aardman – Pioneers of Animation

Aardman is a British animation studio started in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. One of their first notable pieces of work as a studio was the creation of Morph for the children’s program ‘Take Hart’.Morph is now a very famous character to a lot of people in Britain as ‘Take Hart’ was an extremely popular children’s television program in the 1960’s.

Despite aniamtion being largely popular with children, Lord and Sproxton wanted to develop an adult audience and so dabbled with more mature themes for their animations. Films such as ‘Early Bird’ showed people that real people can be given new depths by animating puppets in to real life conversations with them.

Puppets were animated to appear as though they were real people. This proved to be popular with audiences of the animated program.

In the 1980’s Aardman collaborated with the director Stephen Johnson and the band Brothers Quay to make a rock video for one of their songs; ‘Sledgehammer’. Its unique style and visual flair was boosted by their oddball ideas which included a puppet’s face being pulled around as though his skin was loose. The video went on to collect almost every award available to it in the year of its release.

Aardman won an Academy Award in 1993 for its Lord and Sproxton’s work on the animation for Nick Park’s ‘The Wrong Trousers’. The film, half an hour long, won over thirty awards world-wide and is seen to be one of the most successful animated films ever made.

Nick Park and Aardman collaborated on lots of different ‘Wallace and Gromit’ films.

Aardman continued to have great success throughout the 1990’s, earning Lord and Sproxton producer credits for their work on Nick Park’s third Oscar winning film ‘A Close Shave’. It was at this time that Wallace and Gromit were becoming household names in Britain as the starring characters in Park’s greatly successful films.

In 1998, Aardman made a series aimed at kids as well as adults called ‘Rex the Runt’ and claimed an impressive amount of international awards. It was shown on the BBC and directed by long time Aardman associate Richard Goleszowski.

‘Chicken Run’ was released in 2000 and was Aardman’s first full-length film to be funded by Dreamworks. Both Lord and Park directed it. ‘Chicken Run’ was released in both the US and Britain and was reviewed excellently, grossing over $220M worldwide.One of their greatest commercial successes, ‘Chicken Run’ is still an extremely popular film to British audiences despite being 15 years old.

Aardman’s success with Dreamworks continued in 2005 as Wallace and Gromit’s first ever feature film ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ was released in October. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a BAFTA for Best British Film. It also did very well at the box office, topping charts and grossing healthily. As ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ was released, a warehouse containing lots of models and props caught fire, creating a bittersweet ending to 2005 for Aardman.

‘Flushed Away’ was Aardman’s first ever CG film and their third collaboration with Dreamworks. It was nominated for a BAFTA. In the same year, ‘Shaun the Sheep’ debuted on British television. The series has garnered huge acclaim and is now aired world wide.

The studio has also made other films in the last 7 years, including ‘Arthur Christmas’ and ‘Pirates!’. They have also been doing work off set to promote animation and filmmaking. This has included exhibitions at the Tate Museums.

In 2015, ‘Shaun the Sheep the Movie’ is set to be released. This will be the first taste of the big screen for the character and is Aardman Studio’s most ambitious project yet.

Aardman’s characters and content have also created demand for huge commercials and branded content. This has meant that Aardman now boasts a considerably prestigious list of clients including Chevron, Nike, McVities and Kellogs.

Aardman are also contracted to make their own original animations for companies. This is seen here as they made an animated advert for Nike using puppets.

Peter Lord and David Sproxton can be seen as real developers and pioneers of animation as they found ways to take stop motion and claymation into huge feature films. They helped to establish Wallace and Gromit as household characters and have created a simplistic style of characters.

Tim Burton – A Pioneer of Animation

Tim Burton was born on August 25th 1958 in Burbank, California. Burbank is known for its links to the movie industry; particularly animation studios. He made short films in his garden using 8mm film. These included ‘The Island of Doctor Agor’.

A youthful Tim Burton.

Burton was not a very good student at school and his pleasures lay in drawing, painting and watching films, which his parents encouraged. He cites his early childhood heroes Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss as being huge influences upon his work. At college he studied character animation and graduated in 1979.

Burton’s work as a filmmaker has propelled him into the status of an industry great. Before Burton’s work on productions such as ‘Vincent’, animated films tended to be geared heavily towards the lighter side of fantasy with animals and princesses often being the subject. Burton had extremely different ideas. It was these ideas that lost him his job at Disney only a year into his contract. He was originally employed as an animator for ‘The Fox and the Hound’, however his ideas for character design were seen by bosses as being too outlandish. They felt that he did not conform enough to the Disney style of design. They still recognised his potential though and gave him a much freer role as a conceptual artist. His designs were still just not in the style that Disney wanted to produce, and so he and the company parted ways after just a year.

‘The Fox and the Hound’ went on to become a very popular Disney film.

Tim Burton’s departure from Disney ended up being a great move for his career. It was during his post Disney times that he established himself as a real developer in stop motion. His work on ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ gained critical acclaim. He influenced lots of other filmmakers as he rewrote the genre-old rule that animation had to conform to certain things. His stop motion had connotations of horror and audiences fell in love with the zany worlds he could create.

Burton is classed as a developer in the stop motion industry as he has pioneered new ideas that have never been attempted before. He has used stop motion as a way of animating his weird concepts and drawings that otherwise would never be able to be brought to life.

A still from ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ that is also used as the title shot. Its dark and gothic tones are vastly dissimilar to other Christmas films that have been released previously.

More modern animated work of Burton’s is the 2012 film ‘Frankenweenie’. This film fell into his traditional pool of films as it was very gothic and contained both elements of fantasy and horror. The biggest difference between Burton’s modern and traditional animated work is the changes in technology behind the animation. More impressive feats of animation can be had as computer software can assist the stop motion animation process. There is just all round better production throughout the modern movies. This includes the lighting and the quality of the shooting, as you’d expect from the advancement in the technology.

A still from Frankenweenie. More detail can be seen in the faces of characters than in previous work.

It is clear in much of Burton’s original animated work that there is a theme that he tends to stick to. This is the gothic imagery and characters that all exhibit the same features. These include the skinny limbs and big eyes.