Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation is a technique in animation which is used to physically manipulate objects to make them appear to move on their own. The object is moved by small amounts between photographed frames (sometimes singular on in doubled/triples, depending on the preferred speed of movement), to create the illusion of movement when edited and played tougher.

Aardman Animation is a well know animation studio, and most famous for the "Wallace and Gromit" cartoons and films. Below is a short Studio Tour of Aardman where we can see all rooms and departments involved in the single making of one of Aardmans films.



I have used to enjoy stop motion at Primary School as I used to attend an animation club. This was just animating plasticine and using the Stop Motion Pro (on Mac) software. Recently in AS media studies I did trial a small piece of animation which took a long amount of time and longer to edit which helped me to understand what the process is and the length of time it takes to produce. The physical side of animation is very fiddly and one error can ruin the whole film. 

In my opinion, animating inanimate objects can be more effective and easy as they can be easier to move instead of plastcine which is harder to keep stable for every shot. Also, making something inanimate move can be very effective and is more interesting. An example of this is animation by Jan Svankmajer. An example of his animation is below:

 

Jan Svankmajer (1971) - Jabberwocky



Directed by Jan Svankmajer, this surrealist live-action adaptation of Lewis Carroll's poem The Jabberwocky is, for the most part, centered around the travels of a surprisingly mobile wardrobe. After a brief trip the forest, the wardrobe's doors open to reveal a strange Victorian playroom supervised by an older, bearded man with glasses inside of a photographic portrait. As the wardrobe "grows" a variety of strange looking jars, the toys inside come to life just as maggot-infested shrubbery furiously begins to sprout across the room. This sets the premise for a variety of odd scenes involving a cat, a tea party, dismembered dolls, and a continuous effort to deface the portrait amidst a reading of The Jabberwocky.

I feel the stop motion by Jan Svankmajer are both fascinating and repellent, and Jabberwocky, one of his finest works, is no exception. Svankmajer is not a creator whose goal is to provide comfort; having lived through a repressive communist regime, his work is filled with anger, irony, melancholy, and darkness. Yet it also has its share of humor and even, on occasion, optimism; more importantly, Svankmajer has genuine brilliance, both as a craftsman and an artist, and this is especially true in Jabberwocky. What this short film means is subject to debate, as are the best surrealist works, but meaning is secondary to the associations that each viewer brings to it.

This type of stop motion is very imaginative but also stunning. Walking wardrobes, dolls eating dolls, sailor suits riding rocking horses- Svankmajer plays with these images in a way that makes them unforgettable. Jabberwocky is thrilling and disturbing, a surrealist treat.

 

My Thoughts:

Although I would enjoy creating an animated short film, I'm not sure if it would be wise and time-efficient to produce it, mainly because to create something 4-6 minutes in length would take more than 4 hours to film/produce.

Below is a small example of animation I made. This was created as a recreation for Love Actually. This piece is not professional and not planned at all. The characters are just pre-made examples so not linked to the real characters but just quickly animated as a taster and trial at using Adobe After Effects.