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.