BEN C, DOMINIC F, ROSALIE M, SIMON H

                   S t o p   M o t i o n

                   A n i m a t i o n

 

What is Stop Motion Animation?

Stop Motion animation or Stop Frame animation is an animating technique that is considered the most common form of animation as anyone can do it!Whether you have an expensive £100+ DSLR or are using a camera on a phone, all you need is patience and creativity. So what is stop motion animation? well, it is a way you can make even the most inanimate object seemingly come to life as if you play a sequence of pictures at a high speed it will trick your brain into thinking it is a real life moving image and I will explain how you do this later on! A standard smooth stop motion animation would use around 24 frames per second, this may not mean a lot to you but if you take into consideration that some feature length films are made entirely through stop motion, you would need 1,440 for 1 minute so to make a full 90 minute feature you would need to take 129,600 pictures!!

Styles of Stop Motion

Stop motion can be divided into styles, the most popular being Pixilation, Claymation, Cut-out and Silhouette.

Pixilation - Pixilation (not to be confused with Pixelation) is a stop motion techique whereby a live actor is used as a puppet, it involves using a real person and taking a picture of them in some kind of pose, then moving ever so slightly into a different postion then taking another picture and continuing this process until you get a frame by frame animation that makes it look like the live actor is really moving. The benefits of choosing this technique is that it requires the least effort as all you need is a camera and people!

Claymation - Claymation is not a different animating technique, it is however different as it uses clay models/backgrounds. Claymation has its advantages and disadvantages, advantages such as the freedom you have to create whatever you like (within reason!) out of the plasticine clay and you also have freedom of movement and are not restricted to a specific character model. Disadvantages include the problem many animators who animate with clay have and that it continuity! Continuity is an issue with claymation as because you do not have a specific model there is nothing stopping you from accidently altering the model during frame capture as the plasticine can easily be marked and mistakes can be made due to the properties of the plasticine clay.

Cut-Out - Cut-Out animation involves creating character models out of paper or card or some similar material and cutting them out. The style of animation remains the same; take one frame, move the model, take frame, move the model, take frame etc.. Cut-Out animation may not be many peoples favoured type of stop motion purely because of how time consuming it can be but on the other hand like with claymation you are also given the freedom to create whatever you like as you are not using a fixed model you create your own!

Silhouette -  This technique has been around since the early 1900's, silhouette animation intertwines with Cut-Out animation as with Silhouette animation one of the primary ways of animating is to create character models out of paper or card or any similar material and using lighting to reflect the characters to make them appear as shadows. This animation style is interesting as it is fairly simple to accomplish but the final product is impressive, Silhouette stop motion may be the ideal choice if you are looking to make an animation with a dark / gloomy atmosphere.

A Brief History of Stop Motion Animation

Stop Motion Animation has been around for a very long time and has evolved throughout the past 100 years from mere 20-30 second animations to full feature length films! The very first recorded use of stop motion animation dates back to 1897 when Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith of Vitagraph Studios created a stop motion known as 'The Humpty Dumpty Circus' in which a toy circus is seemingly brought to life.

Stop motion has been used throughout the years since 'The Humpty Dumpty Circus' but some of the most popular use of Stop Motion was in Nick Park's 'Wallace and Gromit'. Nick Park is an animator who created the widely Successful 'Creature Comforts' which is a simple animation in which animals are interviewed about their feelings of living in the zoo. Moving on from this he went on to make  'A Grand Day Out' the animation that first brought Wallace and Gromit to our screens. 'A Grand Day Out' was released in 1989 and ran for 24 minutes, in this animation Wallace and Gromit build a rocket to travel to the moon to collect some cheese. Park continued to release sequels to 'A Grand Day Out' such as 'A Close Shave' and 'The Wrong Trousers' and even a full feature 'Curse of the Were-rabbit'.

Stop Motion is also used in all sorts of ways in a lot of other films dating all the way back to the original King Kong, yes that's right some of the Kong and Dinosaur sequences were done through the use of Stop Motion! However a lot of films are fully created through use of Stop Motion with a majority of them utilising puppets rather than clay and cut out animation. Check out the following list of successful films that are made through use of stop motion.

1	Chicken Run	DW	$106,834,564	2,953	$17,506,162	2,491	6/23/00
2	Coraline	Focus	$75,286,229	2,320	$16,849,640	2,299	2/6/09
3	Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas	BV	$75,082,668	1,671	$191,232	2	10/15/93
4	Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	DW	$56,110,897	3,656	$16,025,987	3,645	10/5/05
5	ParaNorman	Focus	$56,003,051	3,455	$14,087,050	3,429	8/17/12
6	Tim Burton's Corpse Bride	WB	$53,359,111	3,204	$388,166	5	9/16/05
7	Frankenweenie	BV	$35,172,453	3,005	$11,412,213	3,005	10/5/12
8	The Pirates! Band of Misfits	Sony	$31,051,126	3,358	$11,137,734	3,358	4/27/12
9	James and the Giant Peach	BV	$28,946,127	2,268	$7,539,098	2,262	4/12/96
10	Fantastic Mr. Fox	Fox	$21,002,919	2,304	$265,900	4	11/13/09
11	Monkeybone	Fox	$5,411,999	1,748	$2,685,078	1,722	2/23/01
12	Wallace and Gromit	N.Arts	$1,009,577	-	n/a	-	6/14/96
13	The Adventures of Mark Twain	Atl	$849,915	221	$226,525	221	1/17/86
14	The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb	Tara	$70,441	3	$12,214	3	11/4/94
15	Toys in the Attic	Hann.	$64,918	27	$19,913	27	9/7/12
16	Gumby: The Movie	Arro.	$57,100	21	n/a	-	5/12/95

Image courtesy of www.boxofficemojo.com


As you can see Stop Motion has also proved to be a hit with the box office too!

How To Do It Yourself!

Our Quick Video Tutorial on Stop Motion:

You Will Need:
- 1 Camera
- 1 Tripod (only if not using camera on phone)
- An Idea!

Step 1 - First things first, you need to choose the technique of stop motion you wish to use and come up with an idea

Step 2 - If you have an idea and it involves creating any models whether it be out of clay or cut-out now is the time to do so! (Keep in mind the scale of the models)

Step 3 - Once all props / backgrounds / character models have been created now it is time to set up the shoot, set up your camera on the tripod and set up the models in front of the camera

Step 4 - Time to shoot! Whatever your chosen animation is, it is recommended that you take 24 fps (Frames per Second) that means that if you take 24 pictures, that will account for 1 second of realtime video. Now time to start, start by taking the first frame then move the models SLIGHTLY, then take the next and continue to do so until you have enough frames to turn into a realtime video.

NOTE: It is not a good idea to move the camera unless you are actually switching angles / scenes

Step 5 - Once all shooting have been done now it is time to edit, you should insert the SD card from the camera into the computer and import all images. Once imported, open up your editing software and import your pictures into the project. Once all images are in your project area you must now select all of them and drag them into the timeline. Now it is time to edit the length of the images down to fit 24 frames in 1 second. To do this simply highlight the entire sequence and select 'Chage Speed/Duration' and change each image to around about 0.04/0.05 seconds.

Step 6 - Now is the time to create the soundtrack to your animation, whatever it is it MUST have sound of some kind, whether it be music, ambience, sound effects or even voices you must have a soundtrack, as the animation and soundtrack is like bread and butter. It will also make your stop motion animation a lot more enjoyable to watch and brings it to life more

Step 7 - Time to render and export!  Once the whole animation is edited down to 24fps you must now click 'File' then 'Export Media' (or it may be a case of clicking 'Save As' and selecting WMV format) then once it is exported you can now watch your animation back.

Follow these steps and you have successfully created your own stop motion animation!

Thanks for reading!


Here's an example of a stop motion animation made by Ben for a college assignment -