Stop Motion: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
'''Stop Motion''' is a technique of animation involving physical models as opposed to drawings or CGI. The models have to be moved for every frame. This sort of thing can take a ''very'' long time to film.
The models used can be made of anything, from hard plastic to foam rubber to metal. Rogue independent animator [[Mike Jittlov]] has been known to animate anything and everything with Stop Motion, including himself (see his famous shorts ''[[Fashionation]]'', ''[[The Wizard of Speed and Time (short)|The Wizard of Speed and Time]]'' and ''Mouse Mania'').
At one time, this was the default method for producing a non-human characters in special effects, along with puppetry. Stop motion characters would be matted into shots along with live actors. [[Ray Harryhausen]] was a leading practitioner and innovator of the art; his last stop-motion film was 1981's ''[[Clash of the Titans]].'' The technique has been supplanted almost entirely by CGI from the 1980's on.
Stop motion animation can be done on ''live actors'' as
Was very often used in Eastern Bloc children animation, perhaps even more often than the classical drawn cartoons.
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Some common features to stop-motion figures are an interchangeable mouth, so that lip sync can be done without resculpting the mouth every time, and barely-visible holes or clear pegs in the pupils of the eyes, to make pointing the eyeline easier. On human figures, the mouth is usually a mostly-flat stuck-on piece with a black background to suggest depth. Aardman figures actually have a full set of sculpted mouths.
During the animation process, each character normally has his own "performer"
Even though the art itself is painstakingly "low tech" compared to CGI there is some variations on how the final product ends up. Some like to keep true to the original methods in keeping ''everything'' in the view of the camera while others like to use digital touch ups for the more complicated subjects like fire, water or flying objects.
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== Claymation (clay figures) ==
* The Aardman studio's specialty:
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** And the coin-op ''Trog'', presented in "[[Incredibly Lame Pun|Playmation]]". It has cute little claymation sprites.
* Claymation Comedy of Horrors.
* The 'Just a tiny amount' sketch on ''[[The Fast Show]]'' showed a very dull claymation director demonstrating how his films are
* ''[[The Wrong Coast]]'', an entertainment [[News Parody]].
* The children's television show ''[[Bump in the Night]]''. The animation was excellent. Unfortunately for the show, which was cancelled after one season, the writing was less so.
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** The ED for ''[[Futakoi Alternative]]''.
** The ED for ''[[Manabi Straight!]]''.
** The audience warnings (no smoking, no mobile phones etc.) for ''[[
* Anything by [[Voltaire (
* ''[[Klay World]]''.
* ''[[Moral Orel]]'', a show parodying ''[[Davey and Goliath]]''.
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* ''[[The Adventures of Mark Twain]]''
* The opening titles and closing credits for ''[[Brain Donors]]'' are done with Claymation by Will Vinton (of California Raisins fame).
* ''[[Community]]'''s [[Community/Recap/S2
* Several scenes in [[Takashi Miike]]'s surreal comedy ''[[The Happiness of the Katakuris]]'' are done this way.
* Some of the characters from ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]''.
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* Also the music video for [[Cage the Elephant]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZBmcSBoRAE&ob=av2e "Aberdeen"].
* All work by Bruce Bickford, an [[Deranged Animation|unusual animator]] with a [[Cult Classic|Cult Following]] whose work can be seen in [[Frank Zappa]]'s ''Baby Snakes'' and other home video releases, including one specifically devoted to Bickford's animation, ''The Amazing Mr. Bickford''. There's also a documentary about Bickford, ''Monster Road''.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uk9IcoQ0w This music video] of by Primus performing The Devil Went Down To Georgia.
== Puppet stop motion (non-clay figures) ==
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* The second word in this trope is [[Ray Harryhausen]]. He's important enough to bear repetition.
* The Third word is Phil Tippet, who now has a [http://www.youtube.com/user/PhilsAttic youtube channel]. He's worked on a few small movies like ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[RoboCop]]'' and ''[[Terminator]]''. He made the switch over to CG effects and keeps in the business.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20120802042406/http://www.cartoonbrew.com/stop-motion/phil-tippetts-mad-god.html He seems to be going back to stop motion, however.]
* A lot of work written or produced by [[Tim Burton]], including:
** His first short ''Vincent''.
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** Parts of ''[[Beetlejuice]]'', like the sandworms, the snake-banister, and facial transformations, which gave the movie a charming George Pal quality.
* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', created by Seth Green of ''Buffy'' and ''[[Austin Powers]]'' fame, was made using modified action figures.
* The film ''[[Chicken Run]]''
* ''[[Davey and Goliath]]''
* [[Rankin/Bass Productions]] holiday specials were usually puppet stop motion (a process R/B called "Animagic"). ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'', ''[[Here Comes Peter Cottontail]]'', ''[[Santa Claus is Comin' to Town]]'', and ''[[The Year Without a Santa Claus]]'' are the most widely known.
* The French film ''Max&Co'' combines puppet stop motion and CGI.
* [[
** ''[[Action League NOW]]'' is perhaps the most notable example; it used obscure (usually Dollar Store brand) and custom action figures and referred to the process as being "Filmed in Chuckamation"
* ''[[Return to Oz]]'' blends live actors and puppet stop motion.
* Used in the ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' episodes "My Sister = Slut", and "My Mom's A Freak!".
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* Some of the characters from ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]''.
* The yarn dolls used to represent the characters in the film of ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'', when the spaceship enters the Infinite Improbability Drive. The cut from the live action to the stop motion scenes is seamless (live-action Arthur even throws up some yarn!).
* Brisk iced tea had several commercials with stop motion versions of celebrities, like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPWoIwZCybs this one here.]
== Cutouts ==
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* ''[[The Moomins]]'' were felt cutouts.
* [[Emile Cohl]], one of the very first auteur animators, tended to use cutout animation in conjunction with everything else he could get his hands on.
* ''Worker And Parasite'', the cartoon-within-a-cartoon of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Krusty Gets Kancelled]]'' (and quite an accurate spoof of Eastern European cartoons), was done this way.
* [[Terry Gilliam]]'s animations for ''Do Not Adjust Your Set'' and ''[[Monty Python]]'', mostly using found images in surreal combinations.
* Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's (see above) series ''The Saga of Noggin the Nog'' and ''Ivor the Engine'' were executed entirely with cutout animation, as were some of the stories-within-the-show in ''Bagpuss''.
* Some of the characters from ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]''.
* The [[Animated Music Video
* [[Jaga Jazzist]]'s music videos for "Animal Chin" and "Day" (both made by Acoustic Kung Fu Films) both involved animation of cutouts from photographs and magazine pages.
* Disney's ''It's Tough To Be A Bird'' (1969) and ''Dad, Can I Borrow The Car?'' (1970) both include cutout animation segments.
* [[Mike Jittlov]]'s short ''Fashionation'' starts with a sequence of animated images cut from catalogs and magazines. In fact, much of Jittlov's work involves cutout animation; in order to make up for missing footage (and a budget shortfall) on the feature-length version of his ''magnum opus'', ''[[The Wizard of Speed and Time (
== Other ==
* [[Built With Lego|LEGO]] is popular as a medium for stop motion for amateurs or professionals. [[LEGO]] even promoted this with their LEGO Studios line of toys back in 2000, which included sets like exploding buildings or giant dinosaur heads with moving jaws. One set had a camera that you can use to make the movies, and it can even attach to your LEGO bricks in the case you need to prop it up somewhere. The LEGO Studios website even had a few tutorials on how to do various specials effects like making minifigs run. Eventually the lineup ended with a [[Spider-Man]] theme in 2002.
** Others go on to make custom LEGO characters and pieces to make stop motion videos of other properties that LEGO isn't involved with. Such as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua5qh40x4KA&feature=relmfu this video] for ''[[Gears of War]]'' called ''Bricks of War.''
* ''[[Phantom Investigators]]'', which was half stop-motion puppets and half live action, made by the same company of ''[[
* The film ''[[Better Off Dead]]'' includes a brief stop-motion sequence where the protagonist Lane, while toiling at a fast-food restaurant, imagines himself as [[Doctor Frankenstein]] bringing burgers to life.
* The web series ''[[Arby 'n' the Chief]]'' uses ''[[Halo]]'' figurines to represent the titular characters and some secondary characters. Most of the other characters are represented by off-screen voice-overs.
* ''[[Humorous Phases Of Funny Faces]]'' uses stop motion and a mixture of chalk and cardboard cutout animation.
* The short film ''The Polos of Death'' uses a [[Star Wars|Boba Fett]] figurine and a lot of polos.
* Norman McLaren's 1952 short film ''[[wikipedia:Neighbours
* The Sumatran Rat Monkey in ''[[Braindead]]''.
*
* [[Mute Math]] has used stop motion for a couple of their music videos [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2mjAgFTaI&feature=artist Blood Presure] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry6GAwDCI2I Spotlight].
* The ''[[Paddington]]'' TV series from the 1970s-80s used [[Medium Blending]] with a stop-motion bear for the main character and animated paper cutouts for everyone else.
* As the [[Transformers]] toys became more poseable and screen accurate it has become more common for fans to create their own stop motion Transformers ''series'' or recreate a battle scene, especially from [[Transformers Film Series|the movies]] for their memorable action sequences.
*
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Show Genres]]
[[Category:The Golden Age of Animation]]
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