Introduction to Stop Motion Animation

What is Stop Motion Animation and How does it work?

Stop Motion, is the process of manually manipulated an object to appear as if it is moving. The creation of this process is credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph’s ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’ in 1897.

The process is done by moving your chosen object into slightly different positions  and taking a photograph each time as you do this . Which when you play these photos within a sequence it should appear as if it is moving. A good object to use within Stop Motion is either move able jointed dolls or clay models as they are easier to be used  due to the ease of their re-positioning.

If plasticine is used then the name used becomes Claymation which is a highly used method in the Stop motion technique and you can see this through many well known films e.g. Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run which was created by Nick Park and  Aardman Animations.

Within Stop motion it is not always necessary to use objects within your animations, this is because you can also use humans or household appliances which tend to be used to create some form of comedic effect. 

Where did the Process of Stop Motion Animation originate from, and How did it Evolve?

Joseph Plateau - The Process of Stop Motion began when a man named Joseph Plateau patented his device known as the Phenakistoscope in 1832. born October 14th 1801 and died September 15th 1883, he was a Belgian physicist who was the first person to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. He created this by using counter rotating disks with a series of repeatedly drawn images each with small alterations of motion on one and then a series of regularly spaced slits so when they were both rotated at the correct speed the synchronisation of the windows created an animated effect. In 1829 he submitted a doctoral thesis to his mentor, it was only 27 pages by formulated a large amount of important conclusions. It contained the first results into the research of the effect of colors on the retina and also the mathematical research into the intersections of a revolving curve. When he investigating counter rotating disks he named these Anorthoscopic discs.

William Horner - Born during 1786 and died on the 22nd of September 1837, he was a British mathematician who looked extensively at functional equations and the approximation theory. Although known greatly for his mathematical abilities and studies he can also be attributed for the creation of the zoetrope, or in 1834 this was known as the Daedaleum. The zoetrope is a device that creates the illusion of movement from rapid rotation of static images. The term zoetrope was taken from the Greek language meaning ‘zoe’ which means “life” and ‘tropos’ which means “turn”, this word can be seen to also mean the “wheel of life”. This invention consists of a cylindrical object with vertical slits cut into the sides. On the inner surface of the chamber was a series of images which when the cylinder was spun and the user was looking through the slits the image would appear to be moving. 

Emile Reynaud - Born 8th of December 1844 and 9th of January 1918. he was a French pioneer who was responsible for the first projected animated films. He also created the Praxinoscope in 1877.

This device was the successor of the zoetrope, being very similar it also used a strip of images placed along the inside of a cylindrical object which is then spun. But although it was similar it improved on some aspects by replacing the vertical slits with a series of mirrors on the inside. This was done so the reflection of the images would appear stationary in position once the wheel was turned, so when it was rotated they would appear to create the illusion of motion and would create a brighter less distorted picture.

As well as this device in 1889 Emile also developed the invention of Theater Optique which was an improved version capable of projecting images on a screen from a much longer roll of images. This also allowed him to show hand-drawn cartoons to a much larger audience. But was later shadowed by the photographic film projector created by the Lumiere Brothers.

Eadweard Muybridge - Born 9th of April 1830 and died 8th of May 1904. he was an English photographer well known for his work in photographic studies of motion and within the motion picture projection.

He is well known for his work involving animal locomotion in 1877 and 1878 which he used a series of cameras to capture the motion in stop motion photographs. He is also known for his Zoopraxiscope which was a device for projecting motion  pictures that predated the film strips used within cinematography, he patented this within 1879 and may be considered as the first movie projector.

The Zoopraxiscope projected imagery on  glass disks which once spun in rapid succession would give the impression of movement. Initially the imagery was painted onto glass as silhouettes but was later changed between 1892 and 1894 to a series of outlined drawings which were printed photographically and then finished by being painted by hand.

Some of the imagery was seen to be quite complex as it harnessed a mixture of human and animal movement within the frames,

Below are a few examples of his work.

Thomas  Edison - born the 11th of February 1847 and died the 18th of October 1932. Edison was an American inventor who developed many devices that have had a great influence on life throughout the world, these included the motion picture camera and the electric light bulb.

He was one of the first inventors to use the principles of large scale teamwork and mass production. Because of this he can be credited for the very first industrial research laboratory.  Within society he is known a the fourth most prolific inventor within history, his work had a massive impact on the world as he contributed to the invention of mass communication especially telecommunications .

One key invention that he can be a counted for is the  Kinetoscope. This device was an early motion picture device that was  used for exhibition purposes, the device was designed for one person to view through a peephole  window at the top of the device. Although it was a film device, it was not designed to be a movie projector, so introduced a basic approach to the standard of cinematic projection before the invention of video.

He began to pursue the invention of motion picture development as he was inspired by the photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge.

The Lumiere Brothers - Auguste and Louis or more formally known as the Lumière brothers  were the sons of the well known portrait painter Antoine Lumiere, they both held technical minds and always excelled at science and therefore were sent to a Technical School. Due to the new financial photographic processes  discovered Antoine decided to leave his passion for art and create a business manufacturing and supplying photographic equipment. Louis later joined him where he began to experiment with the photographic equipment.

During his experiments Louis discovered a process that assisted the development of photography. He began to develop a new dry plate process in 1881 when he was just 17 years old. this became known as the Etiquette Bleue. This process gave the business a welcoming boost. Later they built a factory to manufacture these plates within the Lyons Suburbs.

By the year of 1984 they had been producing 15,000,000 plates a year making there father a very successful businessmen. At this  time Edison had created his tool the Kinetoscope which they were invited to view, although being a very clever piece of technology the brothers found many faults. With the key ones being the equipment's overhauling size and weight which meant it must be kept in a studio and secondly the fact that the equipment only allowed one person to see the picture at a time. After finding these faults and improving on them the brothers  in 1985 had created there own device called the cinematographe which was a combination between a camera and a printer which was patented February 13th 1985. With the device being very lightweight and hand cranked at only 16 frames per second meaning that less film was required and also the noise was reduced to make it run more quietly. Louis’s most effective idea was incorporating a similar device to that of a sewing machine, they decided to keep their invention closely guarded and then only showed it to small groups with their first being a film of workers exiting the Lumiere factory.

George Pal - born February 1st 1908 and died May 2nd 1980. He was a Hungarian-born American who was best Known for his animation and film production. associated specifically within the genre of science fiction. After emigrating from Europe he had become an American citizen, during his time he had been nominated for Academy Awards for Best short Cartoon for seven consecutive years between the time of 1942 and 1948, in which he had received an honorary award in 1944, making him the second most nominated Hungarian exile.As an animator, he had made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which had led to him being awarded the honorary Oscar in 1943 for his development of novel methods and techniques in the production of his short subjects the Puppetoons. Although Pal had later switched to live action films with his piece The Great Rupert in 1950.

Willis Harold O'Brien - Born March 2nd 1886 and died November 8th 1962, he was an American motion picture, special effects and also a stop-motion animation pioneer. who according to ASIFA-Hollywood he was responsible for some of the best images in cinema history, and is best remembered for his work on the 1925 silent fantasy adventure film and an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World, King Kong and The Mighty Joe Young, for which he won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Raymond Harryhausen - Born June 29th 1920 and died May 7th 2013. He was an American visual effects creator, writer, and producer who had created a form of stop-motion animation which was known as "Dynamation." His most memorable works included the animation on Mighty Joe Young which he made in 1949 with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien, this won him the Academy Award for special effects; also known for his films such as  The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, his first color film; and Jason and the Argonauts, which features a famous sword fight against several skeleton warriors. With his last film being Clash of the Titans before retired. his innovative style of special effects in his movies has inspired numerous people including directors John Lasseter and Tim Burton. here is just an example of his work, showing the skeleton scene from Jason and the Argonauts which i spoke of earlier.

Jan Švankmajer - born September 4th 1934,  a Czech filmmaker and artist whose works span over several media types. He is a self-labelled surrealist best known for his animation and features, that have greatly influenced others including Animator Terry Gilliam, and the Quay Brothers.

Švankmajer has gained quite an impressive reputation over a series of decades for his distinctive stop-motion technique, and the ability to create surreal, nightmarish yet comical imagery.

His trademark includes exaggerated sound effects, and often creating a very strange effect in all of his eating scenes. He has often used fast-motion sequences when people are interacting within scenes. With movies often involving a series of inanimate objects to life through stop-motion techniques. Many of his films also include clay forms in motion, which can also be known as claymation.  As well as these techniques he has also been known to use pixilation in many of his films such as Food and his 1996 project the Conspirators of Pleasure.

Although a majority of his projects such as the short film Down to the Cellar, are made from a child's perspective, at the same time they are often truly disturbing and even have quite an aggressive nature. In 1972 the communist authorities had banned him from creating films, and many later projects had been suppressed. Making him almost unknown in the West until early 1980.