Stop motion

A penny being used to show motion

Stop motion is a type of animation in which objects are manipulated in small increments to simulate the illusion of movement. Frames are taken of each still as objects are manipulated and are later combined to show fluid motion. Puppets, clay and plastic figurines, and various toys are the most common objects used for this technique, spawning several independent short films and features films over the decades of its popularity, which still persists today.

History

Early History

Phénakisticope animation by Plateau (1833)

The earliest semblances of stop motion first occurred before the advent of chronophotography. Instances of subjects being captured in different poses exist, but the lack of technology at the time meant that most were not meant to be animated pictures, rather just a collection of comparable stills composed together. Until the creation of celluloid cells in the late 19th century, animation was only able to be presented via the antiquated zoetrope, a pre-film animation device used to mechanically imitate movement via the rotation of slightly modified drawings and/or pictures around a often-times cylindrical base.

A similar device, the fantascope, a type of phénakisticope created by Joseph Plateau, had notes for its improvement published in 1849. The new model was translucent and was able to be used in a way that allowed both eyes to view the picture rather than simply using one eye, which allowed for a more immersive, pleasing way to view the animation. It was also updated to be able to accommodate more than one viewer at a time, something that the previous version of the fantascope was unable to accomplish. After this, Plateau was contacted by the creator of the stereoscope, English inventor Charles Wheatstone, to work in cooperation to create a combination of his own invention and the new and improved fantascope, but the project fell through, likely due to complications with Plateau's health.

The first instance of an exclusively stop-motion film occurred in 1898 in The Humpty Dumpty Circus, a silent stop motion film created by James Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith. Knowledge of the film and its content remains despite the film having been lost, mainly from reviews and Smith's anecdotes.

Notable Figures

Segundo de Chomón

Hôtel électrique (1908)

Segundo de Chomón (1871-1929) was a Spanish filmmaker and early pioneer of stop motion in Europe, and has been compared to Georges Méliès for his fantastical and obscure pieces that often contained stop tricks and other illusions. Le théâtre de Bob (1906), one of Chomón's earliest stop motion works, contains three minutes of stop motion animation using dolls and other small objects to create a fictional theatre owned by a young boy named Bob, who is played by a live action child actor.

Hôtel électrique (1908) can be seen as another example of Chomón using the then-revolutionary stop motions techniques to add to his more contemporarily-safe productions. In the film, Julienne Mathieu's character sits down to have her hair done and what follows is a brief but complicated scene in which her hair is styled by floating hair salon items, being brushed, combed, braided, and styled by an unseen force. Sculpteur moderne, which was released on January 31, 1908, features an early instance of clay being utilized for stop motion animation purposes.

Émile Cohl

Mobilier fidèle (1910)

Émile Cohl (1857-1938) was a French filmmaker, cartoonist, and animator who was heavily inspired by James Stuart Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) and was consequently inspired to implement stop motion into his works as well, becoming one of France's pioneers in stop motion. Cohl, after seeing Blackton's work, immediately set about creating his own stop-motion film, which he completed in 1907, entitled Japon de fantaisie, featuring his own take on the stop motion animation technique.

Cohl would go on to release a number of other films that included stop motion animation. Les allumettes animées (1908) and Mobilier fidèle (1910, in collaboration with French actor and screenwriter Romeo Bosetti) were two other notable examples of Cohl using stop motion. In Mobilier fidèle Cohl uses stop motion to move furniture, a utilization of stop motion that solemn been used by his contemporaries, but had been used by Bosetti in his 1912 film, Le garde-meubles automatique.

Ladislas Starevich

The Grasshopper and the Ant (1910)

Ladislas Starevich (1882-1965) was a Polish-Russian animator who, in a similar vein to Cohl, began his stop motion career in 1909 in Lithuania by filming insects. Starevich found that the stag beetles he wished to film could not survive under the extensive lighting of the camera. Using wires, he would position the dried-up beetles to be used as characters in his stories, such as with Lucanus Cervus (1910), which is presumed to be lost media. In this sense, Starevich is seen to be the first animator to use puppets (in the form of dead insects) for the sake of stop motion animation. Starevich captivated audiences in 1912 with the release of a lengthy stop motion short film entitled The Beautiful Leukanida, a 10-minute long, narratively-complex work. The Grasshopper and the Ant (1913), a 5-minute short film similar to The Beautiful Leukanida, gained the attention of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who decorated Starevich for his work.

Art Clokey

Gumbasia (1955)

Art Clokey (1921-2010) was an American director and animator who became famous for the creation of the character Gumby. A pioneer in the art of claymation, Clokey became one of the first to utilize clay in stop motion animation. Gumbasia (1955) was Clokey's first trip into claymation, which was shortly followed by his TV series Gumby, which lasted from 1955 to 1989. In spite of Gumby's popularity in the mainsteam and with children, Clokey's original claymation works were considered to be highly experimental and focused at times on very abstract notions, such as in his 1977 film Mandala, which was purported by Clokey to represent a methaphorical experience of the human consciousness. The Gumby franchise would become so popular that it would inspire a number of other claymation animations and lead to the creation a movie revolving around the iconic Gumby character, entitled Gumby: The Movie (1995).

Techniques

Claymation

Claymation is a popular form of stop-motion animation that utilizes clay figures for the sake of creation animation on screen. Figures created for the sake of this typically entailed plasticine clay wrapped around armature wires. Parts of figure, typically the arms and the legs, can then be manipulated and shot in traditional stop motion fashion to simulate the figure moving. For the specific illusion of movement desired, 10-12 fps (frames per second) are used in the final cut of the film.

Art Clokey, an American stop motion animator, used clay extensively during his career, and, in the process, created one of the most iconic characters in the history of animation, Gumby. Other modern examples include Chicken Run (2000), which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and the Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment's Christmas-themed series, including popular titles such as Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer (1964), Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970), and The Little Drummer Boy (1968).

Puppet stop motion

Puppet stop motion animation is a form of stop motion animation in which adjustable and movable puppets are used to create the characters of the film. The materials used for puppets in the stop motion industry vary, but wooden puppets can be seen the most often. Many popular films in the past have used this form of stop motion animation, from Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), known for its warm colors and extensive use of texture, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005), and Coraline, a 2009 film adaptation of a book of the same name written by English author Neil Gaiman.