Exploring the Concept of Stop Motion : Differnt Types of Animation...

As a form of animation, stop motion is created by physically manipulating real-world objects, photographing them one frame of film at a time, allowing the illusion of movement to be created. There is many different types of stop-motion animation (the types are usually names after the medium that is used to create the animation).

PUPPET ANIMATION
 


This typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, therefore this is contrasting to the location which is used for model animation, as this usually involves interaction in the real-world. The puppets are created with an armature inside which enables the structure to keep firm and steady during the movement and photographic stages, as they are constrained to move at particular joints. One of my favourite directors Tim Burton, who is behind the creation of 'Edward Scissor Hand' among other inspiring  quirky, and at times dark films is a key example of director who applies puppet animation, two examples being 'Nightmare Before Christmas' (1993) and 'The Corpse Bride' (2005). Other examples are 'Coraline', a film directed by Henry Slick (2009) and the American stop-motion animated comedy series 'Robot Chicken' (2005-Present).

PUPPETOON

Unlike traditional stop-motion where the puppets are made with movable parts, which allows them to be repositioned between frames that in turn creates the illusion of motion, in puppetoon animation the puppets are rigid and static, therefore between each frame a different, near-duplicate puppet is used. Therefore meaning many separate figures are used for each frame. The technique was created by George Pal, and through the technique he made the series puppetoons in the 1940's and was awarded an honoury Oscar for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as puppetoons" (however from 1950 he started making live action films). George Pal's puppet films were memorable because of their use of replacement animation; they used a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets for each frame

CLAY ANIMATION

 

As a term is can be referred to as claymation. Figures are created using clay or a similar material  such as plasticine  The figures may have an armature or wire frame, to create a skeleton which can be easily manipulated in order to pose the figure in between frames. Alternatively the figures may be formed entirely out of clay, in turn morphed into a variety of shapes between the frames. There are a variety of examples of successful use of clay animation. Such as 'Morph' shorts, Morph being an animated plasticine stop-motion character who appeared in one minute "shorts" which would be inter-speared throughout the show, it was produced by Aardman Animations (which is also famous for Wallace and Grommit). Morph has also now been joined by a cream-coloured animated plasticine stop-motion character called Chas. Within the shorts the characters could change their morphology (example = becoming spheres to move around), they could also mimic others animals or objects. From 1944 to 2008, Morph and Chas appeared in the children's TV series Smart. Other examples of clay animation in shorts is the 'Wallace and Grommit' shorts. The series consisted of four short animated films ('A Grand Day Out' 1989, 'The Wrong Trousers' 1993, 'A Close Shave' 1995 and 'A Matter of Loaf and Death' 2008) produced by Aardman Animations, Wallace and Grommit as characters were moulded from plasticine with metal armatures.

CUTOUT ANIMATION

This stop-motion technique is produced by moving two-dimensional characters or shapes, which are cut out from materials such as paper, card, clothe or even photographs. The world's earliest animated feature films were cutout animations. Today however cut-out animation is frequently produced using computers, with scanned images taking the place of physically cut materials. A main example of how cutout animation has developed in in the series 'South Park' originally it was made with paper cutouts before switching to computer animation. However one famous animator Yuriy Norshteyn is still using traditional cutout animation today, and had done throughout his career in his short films such as 'Hedgehog and the Frog' (1975). A more recent example, is the children's TV series 'Charlie and Lola'

 

SILHOUETTE ANIMATION

 

 

This is a variant of cutout animation, in which the characters are only visible as black silhouettes. This is established by back lighting articulated cardboard cut-outs. As a technique it was inspired by European shadow play and silhouette cutting. Examples of silhouette animation 'Princes et Princesses' (2000) and 'Tales of the Night' (2011), by produced by Michel Ocelot.

MODEL ANIMATION

This referred to the type of stop-motion animation which is designed to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world, in order to create the illusion of a real-world fantasy sequence. In order to blend the stop-motion characters or object with live actors and settings inter cutting, matte effects and split screens are employed. It was pioneered by Willis O'Brian  and first applied to the film 'The Lost World' (1925), as well as his other films such as 'King Kong' (1933)

OBJECT ANIMATION

Object animation is a form of stop-motion animation that involves the animated movement of any non-drawn objects such as toys,blocks and dolls. It is considered a different form of animation that is distinct from model and puppet animation as these two forms of stop-motion usually use recognizable characters as their subjects, rather than just objects such as Lego bricks or construction toys. Object animation is often combines with other forms of animation is order create a more realistic effect (example = a toy car can be animated but is more often animated with a character easily seen driving the car). The use of animated objects in film has been present since the early days of cinema, an modern object animation example is 'Robot Chicken', which combines object animation with a variation of puppet animation.

 

GRAPHIC ANIMATION

 



 

Graphic animation consists of the animation of photographs and other non-drawn flat visual graphic materials such as newspaper and magazine clippings, which are sometimes manipulated frame-by-frame in order to create movement or at other times the graphics remain stationary, whilst the stop-motion camera in moved in order to create on-screen action. An example of graphic animation is in Jan Svankmajer 1967 short 'Historia Naturae'.

 

BRICK FILM



 

 

This is a sub-genre of object animation, as it involves using Lego or others brick toys in order to make an animation. As a form of animation, it has recently had a boost in popularity, due to cheap cameras and animation soft wares available, people can have there own go at animation and then post it on sits such as YouTube. Brickfilm can also contain a mixture of stop-motion and live action.

 

PIXILATION

 

This animation techniques involves the use of live actors as stop-motion characters, therefore the actors are used as frame-by-frame subjects in an animated film. The actors repeatedly pose whilst one or more frames is taken, they change pose slightly before the new frame, therefore the actor becomes a living stop motion puppet. Pixilation allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the grounds and other such effects. There is many examples of pixilation such as 'Angry Kid' shorts and 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb' by the Bolex Brothers. Jan Svankmajer made a numerous number of pixilations, but one of the most famous is the pixilation 'Food' (1992).