Techniques and Formats:

Timelapse: The benefits of using Timelapse are that the resolution of the image looks extremely clear and picks up extremely minute and small details of whatever it is that is being filmed. The drawbacks of using timelapse is that because the resolution of the image being used on timelapse is so clear, it means that more data is taken up because of it, which means that more footage has to be deleted in order for new footage to be filmed.

Plastescine: The benefits of using plasticine are that it can give off an extremely vivid and unique look and since the technology surrounding plasticine stop motion animation has developed so much, a lot can be accomplished using it. However, the drawbacks to using plasticine are that it does take a lot of time to get right, and if not edited correctly, footage using plasticine could come out extremely choppy. Making plasticine models can also be extremely time consuming as it takes a lot of time for a model to be realistic and lifelike. 

Claymation: The benefits of using claymation are that clay models can be relatively easy to make and can be moved to the desired position extremely easily without any major problems. The drawbacks to using claymation however are that the models may still look extremely unrealistic and the lighting/heat from light equipment may dry the models out, making them much harder to work with. Some prominent examples of Claymation include Morph, as well as many Aardman productions including Wallace and Gromit and their latest offering Early Man (2018). 

Found Objects: The benefits of using found objects are that they can create a unique and striking object from the simplest items, such as kitchen cutlery or old mechanical equipment. The drawback to using found objects however are that they can be extremely time consuming to produce which may be difficult when they need to be used in a small amount of time.

Cut out: The benefits of using cut out are that they can give off a unique and striking look using very little material. TV shows such as South Park have achieved very striking and iconic images with very little material. However, like found objects this approach can be extremely time consuming and takes a lot of patience, as it can be hard to get right. South Park is an example of a cut out animation that has achieved worldwide success, showing that cut out animation cut be an extremely popular method of animation in order to create tv shows and other forms of media.  

Puppetry: The benefits of puppetry are that the variation in which puppets can be made is extremely large, ranging from classic (Punch and Judy) to more disturbing and surreal (Spitting Image). The downsides to Puppetry are that they can be time consuming to make and operate, which means there needs to be lots of time spent learning how to operate them. A TV show like Spitting Image is an example of a TV show that has achieved moderate popularity through its use of puppetry. 

Human Stop Motion: The benefits of human stop motion are that a unique and wacky look can be made from using it, which can make this technique stand out among other similar techniques. The downsides to it are that it needs to be edited extremely well otherwise, it may look messy and choppy when finished, and not have the original effect it was originally intended to have. An example of Human Stop Motion Animation would be the music video for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" (1986), which was extremely progressive and almost unheard of for it's time.

TV: An example of a TV show that uses stop motion animation is Creature Comforts, and this TV show in particular really is ground-breaking for the time it was made. The reason why Creature Comforts is considered so groundbreaking in terms of its style and execution is because it marked a cultural shift in the way advertising was used in UK Television. It showed a shift from the consumerism and egotism of the 1980s to what was deemed a more sensitive and caring approach in the early 1990s and Creature Comforts has always been considered a prime example of this phenomena. It's use of humour is also to be noted as well, mixing surreal and bizarre events with mundane characters to create extremely amusing results, and it is here were Park's work takes a different turn and caters not only to a young audience but also an adult audience as well.

Websites: An example of a website that uses stop motion animation is Aardman.com, and since Aardman is a company that specialise in stop motion animation, their website explains a lot about their company and how they operate. It also explains a lot of the processes of stop motion that go into their films and how the creative process works. It’s use of colourful animation shows that it is aimed at children.

Computer Games: An example of a video game would be Nintendo’s “Donkey Kong.” Released in 1981, the video game was and remains extremely ground-breaking to this day, partly because it used animation in video games in a way that was extremely ground-breaking and unheard of for the time, the other most famous animation is video games up to that point being the rather primitive Pong 1972). The video game used fully animated characters that the player could control fully, and for this very reason it remains a turning point in animation in video games history. Many games that are being made even today are influenced by it, so it’s importance and influence cannot be ignored. It’s colourful and vivid nature meant that it was targeted towards a teenage audience.

Music Videos: An example of a music video would be Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”, released in April 1986. The reason this particular music video works so well and is so effective was because at the time nothing like this had been done before. While there were certain early stop motion animation films, nothing like this had been done before in the form of a music video, and for the year 1986, it is really quite groundbreaking to see something this advanced being accomplished so early on in the life of Stop Motion Animation. The audience for the music video would have been Peter Gabriel fans, so around the age of early 30s to early 40s, and the reason this video works so well for that particular audience is because at that time that audience would not have seen anything like this before, and this video in particular really showed the power of stop motion animation and what it could do.

Advertising: An example of advertising would be the Npower “Insheepulation” advert, made for Npower by Aardman. The audience of this advert is the British Public, and the reason it works so well is because Npower have used 2 characters (Wallace and Gromit) who are so ingrained in British Culture that it makes them so utterly recognisable. The company who produced the advert, Aardman, also play a big role in the reason why the advert is so effective, again being so highly regarded in British Popular Culture that makes them so recognisable. The swift and fast moving pace of the advert is also extremely important to note, as it is here where the advert itself succeeds. The advert is advertising gas and water, which under the circumstances could normally make for quite a boring advert, but here due to the wacky nature of the advert and the fast pace, it works really well here, and certainly grabs it’s intended audience’s attention.

Uses and Audiences:

Feature Film: An example of a feature film would be Early Man (Nick Park, 2018), it’s audience being small children. The reason why Early Man caters to this specific demographic is because, like Aardman’s other work, it’s animation style is extremely wacky and unique, which will make it stand out from other different types of animation and make it appeal more to younger audience. The look of the film is also extremely important in this area as well. The film itself is extremely colourful and vibrant, using a lot of vivid imagery throughout (a trademark of Aardman as a company and recognisable throughout their other work including Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and Creature Comforts. The reason this look is adopted for the film is because it not only helps to make the film come to life in, but also makes it interesting for its target audience to look at and keep their attention. The run time of the film is also important to note as well. The film is only 86 minutes long, which is quite short for a feature film, but it does this so that the film itself does not feel too overlong or drawn out.

Inform: An animation, which would be used to inform viewers, would be the Joe and Petunia series, particularly the “worn tyres” film. The reason why this animation was so effective at inform the audience was, like the Charley Says series, the use of bright colours. This would be used not only to gain the audience’s attention but also to make the film interesting to watch. The Joe and Petunia films in particular was also so effective because while not outright horrifying, they still got their messages across in an effective way, informing the viewers about the importance of the green cross code.

Entertain: An animation which is required to entertain would be the original 1933 version of King Kong, and the reason why the main purpose of King Kong is to entertain is because of how the effects at the time were so groundbreaking, leading the audience into complete and utter awe at what they were watching, the stop motion performance of Kong even stealing the show from the human actors also on screen at the time. The complex use of camera movement is also important to note here, mixing stop motion with live action using the extremely influential “Dunning” Process, which was achieved by passing two reels of film through the camera gate together. The process was extremely stunning and the time, and the influence that the original 1933 King Kong has had is really staggering, giving birth to a number of spin offs which have not seemed to match the raw talent of the 1933 original.

Task 2: Characteristics of stop motion

Educate: An animation which is required to educate its audience may be that of a P.I.F. (Public Information Film), and one of the most famous series of British Public Information films was the Charley Says series. The reason this series of films were so effect was because the films were aimed at a young audience, and got their message across in such a age appropriate yet effective way. The Charley says series has become a staple part of British Popular Culture, becoming so popular as to be revived in 2014 with a new set of adverts. The colourful and wacky nature of the adverts would also make the films extremely appealing and interesting to younger audiences, lending even more power to the cautionary tales the films would be telling.

Nick Park is a British stop motion animator and perhaps one of the most famous and influential in Britain, along with Gordon Murray (Camberwick Green) and Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate (Bagpuss). Nick Park is responsible for a number of productions including Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run as well as his latest film Early Man. The reason Nick Park is considered so influential within the world of stop motion animation is that his work is so utterly ingrained in the world of British culture. Wallace and Gromit are such well known characters that they spawned a series of films, and have also appeared in adverts, video games and other similar types of media. Park has also won many awards for his work including an Oscar and a CBE 1996. Park’s work is suited to a young audience, as is evident through the use of bright colours and weird and wacky characters in his work, and this is reflected by the fact that most of his films are all contained at the same BBFC age certificate category.

Tim Burton is an American animator and film director. His films contain an extremely gothic and dark look and feel to them, and certainly contain similar themes. He is well known for film such as Frankenweenie, Nightmare before Christmas and Sweeney Todd. The reason why Tim Burton is such an influential director is the endless use of techniques he uses in his films and the effect he uses them to. One of them is mise en scene as well as extreme colour contrasts, and the reason these effects work so well in Burton’s work is because they allow the viewer to instantly be pulled into whatever world his films contain, and to also allow the viewers to really become emotionally involved with his characters. This is evidenced by the fact that his films are perhaps more popular today than ever before. The Nightmare before Christmas took an extremely long period to make and included 227 puppets to use in the film, which show the true extent of the creative ambition he has as a director. His work appeals to a young audience as while his films do have dark and surreal content they usual have comedic undertones to them as well.

Contemporary

The Brothers Quay are identical twin brothers and influential stop motion animators. Their films, like Jan Svankmajer’s, contain surreal and dark content. Their influences include Walerian Borowcyzk, Jan Lenica, Franz Kafka, and Bruno Schultz. Their most notable short film is “Street of Crocodiles” from 1986. This film in particular has influenced many filmmakers today, including Christopher Nolan, who even produced a documentary on the work of the brothers simply entitled Quay. Terry Gilliam selected Street of Crocodiles as one of the best-animated films ever. Aside from stop motion animation, The Brothers Quay have also showed their work through many other means, such as music videos, adverts and set design, which truly does show how creatively diverse they can be as artists. The reason they remain so influential is that they explored American gothic before artists like Tim Burton came to prominence, which means that their works itself set the standard for more mainstream efforts such as Tim Burton. The Brothers Quay audience is that of an older one, as their work tends to consist of much darker themes such as those shown in Street of Crocodiles, and they have less of a “family friendly” approach to their work than someone like Burton.

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech filmmaker whose work takes on an extremely surreal style, and has influenced many well-known filmmakers today including most famously Terry Gilliam and the Brothers Quay among many others. Svankmajer’s earliest influence was a puppet theatre he was given for Christmas as a child. Svankmajer’s early work was not as surreal as his later work, but still played an important part in developing his artistic styles. One of Svankmajer’s most famous films is Alice (1988) which is a surreal retelling of the classic story. Svankmajer’s style is that of an extremely surreal and hallucinatory style, which really does make his films stand out among others. An example of this is his short film Down to the Cellar (1983), which has disturbing and even aggressive content but is shown from a child’s perspective. In 1972, the Communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later filmmaking efforts were suppressed. He was unknown to the West until the early 1980s. Today he is celebrated as one of the best and to a certain degree iconic animators in the world and is responsible for influencing other similar artists such as The Brother’s Quay. His films have even begun to work their way into the mainstream, with films such as Little Otik (2000). Svankmajer’s work would appeal to appeal to older audience’s as his use of dark and surrealistic imagery would suit this particular audience, particularly in film such as Little Otik (2000).

Ray Harryhausen was an American born British visual effects creator who was widely recognised for his work on iconic classics such as Clash of the Titans (1981), The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963). His passion for visual effects started at the age of 13 with viewing of Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 classic King Kong. Harryhausen would watch this film a further 80 times over the course of his life. The reason Harryhausen’s work remains so influential is because it showed what could be accomplished at a time when special effects were still extremely primitive, and future visual effects artists would look at this and be inspired to produce their own work, such as Nick Park and Tim Burton. Extremely similar to the way Quentin Tarantino would look at someone like Scorsese and his body of work and be inspired to produce his own work. Even at the relatively young age of 29, Harryhausen was shown to have extreme potential and passion in his work, particularly in the film Mighty Young Joe (1949), which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Harryhausen’s audience would be suited to a much younger audience, as his body of work whilst intense at times is not as dark as animation similar to it, and it always borders on the fantasy genre rather than horror.

Developers

Willis O’Brien was an American special effects creator and stop motion animator who is widely remembered for his revolutionary work on now classic films such as The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933) and Mighty Young Joe (1949), the latter for which he won the 1950 Academy Award for best visual effects. The reason O’Brien’s work is so influential even in today’s world of animation is because it transformed what was possible and what could be accomplished in terms of special/visual effects in films, paving the way for future films such as Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) or Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and O’Brien’s work did for special visual effects what George Melies or the Lumiere Brothers did for modern cinema, in that they all pioneered to create something is taken for granted today. O’Brien also helped influence Ray Harryhausen in his earlier years, suggesting that Harryhausen study anatomy in order to bring more character and life to his creations. Harryhausen’s work is suited for a more younger audience, as his work such as King Kong (1933) consists of a much lighter visual style than someone like Jan Svankmajer.

Edward Muybridge- Edward Muybridge played such a big part in the development of the development of modern cinema partly due to the 1878 photo play “The Horse in Motion”, which plays an important part in the history of cinema due to it not only being one of the first films to ever be produced but also as it established Muybridge as one of the pioneers of photographic motion and motion picture projection. The film first came into being during a debate about whether or not a horse lifted all of its trotters off the ground when running. Muybridge set up 12 cameras along a racetrack and set them all off when the horse began running. When all of the photos were put together and played at an extremely long speed aside each other, it showed the horse to be running. Again although this may seem fairly simply and primitive in today’s digital age, it’s truly amazing that something like this was taking place as early as 1878, and it's interesting to see how the early pioneers saw how cinema could be used at such an early place in History.

Edison (kinetoscope)- Edison is responsible for inventing the kinetoscope, and it was formally introduced to the public on May 9^th 1893 at the Brooklyn institute of art and sciences. Although the invention may seem extremely primitive now, it was an important part of the development of cinema. One of the cons to the Kinetoscope was that it one allowed one person to view it at a time, very different to the cinema many of us take for granted today. Many experimental films were produced exclusively for the Kinetoscope, and these included the “Monkeyshines” films(1890), which were made to test the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope, as well as the “Butterfly Dance” (1894). Although the Kinetoscope was a huge development in the history of cinema, it did have many flaws to it. This included the fact that it could only be viewed by one person at a time, as well as being extremely hard to transport from place to place, but it still played an extremely important role in the birth of cinema and how we see it today.

Lumiere Brothers- The Lumiere Brothers were among the first filmmakers in history, and although their work appears relatively simple in today’s standards, it still stands as an extremely important moment in the development of modern cinema as we know and take for granted today. One of these such moments was the Cinematograph, which was a big step up from the Kinetoscope in many ways, one of them being that the Kinetoscope now allowed multiple people to view it, instead of being restricted to only one person like the kinetoscope did. One of their other big contributions to the history of cinema were the many short films that they produced, the most notable being “Workers leaving the Lumiere factory in Lyon” (1895) and “The Gardener” (1895), and although these short films may seem relatively primitive and simple when viewed from a modern perspective, they are so important as they mark the first short films to ever be made, along with Louis Le Prince’s Roundhay Garden scene (1888). The reason these shorts films are also important is because they provide a snapshot of what life was like at that time, and provides a fascinating glimpse into a world which would otherwise have been lost without valuable historical documents like the shorts films.

Frame Rates are the frequency at which consecutive images (known as frames), appear on a display. Since 1927, the standard frame rate for film has been 24 fps (frames per second). However, 24 fps is not the minimum required for persistence of vision as the human brain can make a continuous moving image with as little as 16 fps, but this mean that the effect filmmakers wanted was still given off in a much less expensive way (higher frame rates would require more film to be used.) Recently, there has been a move for higher frame rates to be utilized in modern films. This came to a head most notably in 2012 with the release of The Hobbit. Director Peter Jackson shot the film at 48 fps, which is twice the normal speed. Jackson did this as he said it made for a better viewing experience (especially in 3D), but the idea was still met with criticism. James Cameron, director of Avatar (2009), is also extremely enthusiastic about using different frame rates for the proposed Avatar sequel, as he believes that it will provide a much more engaging and realistic viewing experience. However many critics have argued that using higher frame rates in films will hinder the emotional value of films, and possibly make the films look too superficial. 

Stop Frame (A.K.A. Stop Motion Animation) is an animated film making technique in which objects are physically moved in extremely slight ways between individually photographed segments so that they will appear to be moving individually when played back at a fast sequence. Well known examples of this include Wallace and Gromit and Early Man, both products of the Aardman studio. The technology regarding stop motion has increased greatly over the three decades Wallace and Gromit has been around, with the differences between the show’s 1989 episodes and the much more polished episodes being greatly noticeable (more realistic looking animation, choppy editing etc.) Although various types of Stop Motion Animation look simple, the work that goes on behind them is complex. For example, Tim Burton’s 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas took three years to create at 24 fps. The completed film has around 110,000 frames, and more than 400 different heads were created were created for the character of Jack alone. Nick Park, creator of the Wallace and Gromit franchise, said he made the decision to not include a mouth on the face of the character Gromit when he could not reach past the character’s eyebrows to adjust the face. Park instead felt that a small eyebrow movement could have just as much effect on the character. Stop Motion Animation also caters to a more adult audience as well, the most notable example of this being Robot Chicken (2001-).

Task 1- How do these techniques and early Pioneers impact on the future of stop motion?

Persistence of vision refers to an optical illusion that happens when the eye’s visual perception of an object does not stop for a period of time after the light coming from it have stopped entering the eye. By showing a series of images in quick, rapid succession, the viewer interprets them as a continuous moving image. Persistence of vision works as the human eye and the human brain can only process 10 to 12 separate images per second, keeping an image for up to a fifteenth of a second. If a different images replaces it in this period of time it will create the illusion of movement. Examples of this include the Phenakistoscope, which was a device that used images to create an illusion of fluid movement. It was marketed as a children’s toy and was extremely popular in it’s heyday. It was invented by Joseph Plateau in 1841, and consisted   The problem’s it presented where that it could only be used by one person at a time, unlike the Zoetrope and it successors. The Phenakistoscope has also influenced many animation techniques and devices even today, with the GIF working in an extremely similar way. While early designs were relatively simple, later versions of The Phenakistoscope included much more intricate and complex designs. Women danced and animals moved in short repeating animations.