Genre's and Formats

Commercial entertainment

Stop motion techniques such as cutout animation, the use of construction paper and computer animation were/are used in the american tv series 'South Park'. Whereby, the pilot episode used
cutout animation which mean't the character were used as paper cutouts. Also, for the original animated shorts for the programme, construction paper was used. However, subsequent episodes have been produced by computer animation, one of the reasons because it took far less time. The target audience for this tv series is adults, because of its crude language and surreal humour. The use of animation is inspired by the paper cut-out cartoons made by animator, Terry Gillian, for 'Monty Pytho's Flying Circus'.
Also another television series that used stop motion techniques was 'Pingu'. Whereby this tv series used clay animation.
Below is a video of the pilot episode of South Park used with construction paper:

the television channel, E4, uses stop motion animation in a variety of their channel idents. There idents seem to have a theme of different types of rooms. The techniques being used is stop motion on objects and furniture etc. For example the illusion that the curtains close on there own, shown in the example of a E4 Channel Ident below:

"We wanted something that reflected E4's personality - beautifuly random, joyously daft and generally not taking things too seriously."

- Neil Gorringe, the creative director of E4

As well as this, in 2007, BBC Two used a zoetrope in one of their channel idents. Therefore, promoting one of the first ways that stop motion was put in place.



Music Videos

A zoetrope was used in the filming of a music video for 'My Last Serenade' by Killswitch Engage, where there is the illusion that the band is playing the song in the slits of the zoetrope.

Also, stop motion is used in Oren Lavies 'Her Morning Elegance' which was viewed by over 15 million people. Therefore advertising the use of stop motion and it will live on to be one of the celebrated uses of stop motion in our time. The video shown on the right is the music video and they shot it in 48 hours without any breaks. This is extremely creative, and it has a great uniqueness to it. I very much enjoyed watching this piece of stop motion and I'm not surprised that it was viewed by so many people, its exceptional!

Cinemas

Stop motion animation has proved popular in the cinema with releases such as, Chicken Run (2000) and Coraline (Feb 2009).
By September 2009, Coraline had grossed over $120 million worldwide and when Chicken Run was released it grossed $227 million worldwide..
Coraline is a stop motion 3D fantasy film. Whereby thousands of high-quality 3D models, ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs were printed in 3D. This resulted in the transformation of computer designed drawings into high-quality 3D models than could be used on set.
Chicken Run is a stop-motion animation comedy made by Aardman Animations, which was directed by Nick Park. Who is a director at Aardman Animations who has won several Academy Awards for Best Animation.
Below is a video behind the scenes of the film, Coraline, about bringing the characters to life. Including content on the models and words from the animators:

Computer games

One of the most spectacular use of model animation for a computer game was for the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos game Magic and Mayhem (1998).
The game's creatures and characters were constructed by animation expert Alan Friswell, using the stop-motion techniques used in the films of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen.
The figures were made of modelling clay and rubber, over an armative of wire and ball-and-socket joints. I think that using this technque is not only clever but it's what makes the computer game so realistic.
Also the 1996 computer game The Neverhood, which features the technique of clay animation.

Websites

The internet has allowed many people, especially young people who wish to experiment in movie making with stop motion, to do this with modern stop motion software. (http://www.stopmotionpro.com/)
Over the past couple of years stop motion has become more popular on the web, with stop motion videos ranking up thosand and even million of views on websites such as Youtube.
On Youtube, because anyone can uploas images it means that people who are experimenting with stop motion animation can upload their videos onto the web for others to view. Therefore, not only advertising forms of stop motion animation but for the creators to get a sense of accomplishment as their video views continue to increase.
A wide range of stop motion techniques have been showed in videos on Youtube. Such as, Clay animation, animation with action figures, objects and more.
The top ten viral stop motion videos are listed on this website. See link: http://socialtimes.com/stop-motion-videos_b11092


My favourite creation of stop motion animation video on Youtube is called T-shirt War. It is also very popular on Youtube as it has almost 10 million views. I like it because it is a very creative idea, and when I first saw the video I hadn't seen anything like it before. Therefore, its unique and I find it amazing how they managed to make it look so real!!
You can watch the video below:

Advertising

An example of the use of stop motion animation in advertising, is the success of Evian's Baby Inside advert. Evian's previous advert, 'Roller Babies' which was the most viewed viral video of all time, has been succeeded by baby inside. This ad features a lineup of adults wearing baby t-shirts filmed in stop motion, which took roughly 6 months to produce.
The advert is shown below:

Pioneers

Pioneers

Joseph Plateau (1801-1883) created and was the first to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. He used counter rotating disks with repeating drawn images and called the device the Phenakistoscope. It used the persistence of vision principle and was when stop motion animation was first seen and how it was first developed. The same device was invented independently in the same year by Austrian, Simon von Stampfer, who called his the stroboscope. The projection of these photographs, creating the illusion of movement, eventually led to the development of cinema. Joesph's inspiration had come from Peter Mark Roget and Michael Faraday, who had originally invented it, before being developed by Plateau who had the idea of moving the image slightly in order to create the illusion of motion.

The limitations of this technique however, was that only one person could view the moving pictures at one time. But 2 years after the phenakistoscope was invented, the zoetrope was an improvement of this technique and more than one person could view the moving pictures at the same time.
As this device was invented as a toy, I think the target audience may have been childen. They may have been more fascinated and think of the toy as magical. Joseph Plateau was the main reason for the development of stop motion animation and therefore, he would have influenced many of the animators to this day.

The way in which the movement was created by the phenakistoscope, was that as the disks repeatedly rotated the illusion of motion was so fast that it looked like a film rather than a series of pictures. This is shown with the phenakistoscope below:

William Horner (1786-1837) invented the zoetrope. This is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a fast sequence of static pictures. It consists of a cylinder with vertical slits surrounding the outside and then on the inside is a band of images from a set of sequenced pictures. As it spins you look through the slits at the pictures and see a succession of images, creating the illusion of motion. It was invented by William in 1833 and he called it the daedalum. However, it failed to become popular until American developer, William F Lincoln developed it and afterwards named it the zoetrope. The zoetrope was designed to entertain people and was considered to be a toy, which was one of the long lasting toys using the principle of stop motion animation.
In 2002, the crew of Hudzo Design, created a large scale 3D zoetrope which was human powered. This was shown at a arts and culture event in Nevada. This event has thousands of people attending every year and therefore, in 2002 thousands of people will have seen the large scale 3D zoetrope as a form of art.
When the zoetrope was first invented I think that it was, like the phenakistoscope, aimed at children because of its toy features. Also especially as often some of the designs seem to be animals, and therefore, children would find this more magical.
However, as the zoetrope has developed and it has been used in channel idents and at art events the target audience would be a variety of people. Both who like art and see the creativeness of this device at an event, or if they just come across it on television.

Charles-Emile Reynaud (1844-1918) created the Praxinoscope in 1877, which was an improvement of the zoetrope. This occured by replacing the viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less still in position as the wheel turned. Therefore, unlike the zoetrope you didn't have to wait for the cylinder to get fast enough, you could just look through the mirror and see the images straight away. In 1888, he then took this technique and projected it onto a screen at the Theatre Obtique, as the first presentation of moving images to an audience. Then 4 years later he projected the first animated film in public, in Paris called Pauvre Pierrot. Whereby sequences were no longer limited to short cyclic movements. The purpose of the Praxinoscope was to improve upon the zoetrope so that the illusion of movement could be viewed by an audience at a larger scale.
The target audience, along with the stop motion animation devices, I think would become wider. This is because now the animation can be viewed on screens, the audience watching it would have grown. Firstly, because of the public awareness of the device and also because of the amount of people that were able to view stop motion animation at the same time increased.

The impact of this technique on the audience allowed the audience to view animated films without peering through a tiny slit in a cylinder, instead watching animations on a large screen, developing into cinematography.

Eadweard Muybridge, (1830-1904) was an photographer important for his work in studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. In the 1880's he produced images of animals and humans in motion, capturing what the human eye could not see as seperate movements.He experimented with a horse in motion whereby he lined up cameras against a horse race track whereby the shutter of each camera was triggered by a thread as the horse passed. The end result is shown in the picture on the left, whereby he illusion of movement has been created. He then copied the images onto a disc to be viewed in a machine he invented, called the zoopraxiscope. He invented this device in 1879, as what may be considered the first movie projector.The way it worked was that it projected images from rotating discs to give the impression of movement, The zoopraxiscope was one of the inspirations of the kinetoscope, the first commerical film system.
Kinetoscope - It was designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a viewer window at the top of the device. It introduced the basics of cinematic projection before video. It was invented in 1888 by Thomas Edison.
Edison's encounter with Eadweard Muybridge inspired him to develop the motion picture system. Eadweard proposed a collaboration to join their devices today, giving a combination device that would play sound and images at the same time. The collaboration was not untaken. However, Edison later filled for a patent announcing his plans to create a device that did such thing. Emile Reynauds projection device is often referred as a source for the development of the kinetoscope.
The image to the right shows how the kinetoscope was used. It shows someone looking in at the top of the device at the illusion of moving pictures inside.

The Lumiere brothers, Auguste (1862-1954) and Louis (1864-1948), were the earliest filmmakers in history. They began to create moving pictures in 1892 and they legally protected a number of processes leading up to their film camera. The brothers worked to overcome the limitations they saw in Edison's Kinetoscope. They noticed the camera of the device was too large and heavy and therefore, they would make their invention much smaller and more lightweight. Therefore, seen as an improvement.
This device was invented in 1895, combining camera with printer and projector and called it the Cinematographe.
They kept their invention very private and therefore on their first film screening, shown March 19th 1895, would have been the first time the audience has seen their invention. This would have been a big deal for both the lumiere brothers and the audience. Because of their continuous use of private screenings, the audience would have been very loyal to go and watch their films. Then the brothers began to open theatres, what are now known as cinemas.

George Pal (1908-1980) was an animator and film producer of the genre, science fiction. He made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which were animated puppet films using wooden puppets in a stop motion animation technique. A typical Puppetoon required 9,000 individually carved and machined wooden puppets. The technique of using puppets for stop motion animation was created by George Pal.
He is best remembered as the producer of several science fiction and fantasy films in the 1950s and 1960s. Also he was one of the references to the stage musical, 'The Rocky Horror Show'.

He was signed to Paramont Pictures in Holland where many other famous animators worked, such as Ray Harryhausen. Because of his genre of stop motion animation was, science fiction. This shows how stop motion has developed over the years, as nothing like this had been done before. He was famous for his puppets, whereby some had lots of heads. This may have been the influence for the modern film A Nightmare Before Christmas, whereby the model Jack Skellington has around four hundred heads, allowing the expression for lots of emotions.
For the series Puppetoons, I think the target audience would have been children. Especially looking at the television show's poster, shown on the right. The puppetoons are children, the colours and the fact the puppets are on a swing indicate it's aimed at children.

Developers

Willis O'Brien (1886-1962) was a stop motion animation and works with motion picture special effects. He is best remembered for his work on, King Kong (1933) and The Lost World (1925). ASIFA-Hollywood said "he was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history".
Because of O'Briens interest in dinasours when he was younger, this was probably his main inspiration for the concept of his films, such as The Lost World.
For his early, short films he would create his own characters out of clay. However, for most of his career he would employ other people to create much more detailed and complex models, based on his own designs. These included rubber skin built up over metal armatures. The models included a bladder inside the skeleton model which could be inflated and deflated, creating the illusion of breathing. This would make O'Briens models for his films more realistic, and I think it would have showed a clever technique.
O'Brien's techniques included combining realistic stop-motion animated models with live action, shown in many of his films. Such as King Kong.
Thomas Edison was so impressed with Willis's work that he hired him to work with his company to animate a series of short films. Other animators O'Brien did work for included, George Pal. Willis may have seen both of these animators as influences and therefore, he would have found in honourable to work with the pioneers of his work.

On two occasions, O'Brien had film ideas which were then developed by someone else who then made them films. Whereby, O'Brien was not involved in the production.

In the King Kong film, stop motion animation was used. The image above shows O'Brien positioning the models.
The video on the right is a clip of the stop motion animated dinosaurs from The Lost World (1925)

Ray Harryhausen (1920) created a brand of stop-motion model animation known as 'Dynamation'. His work with Willis O'Brien in King Kong inspired him to work in this unique field, while most of O'Briens projects were never realised, Harryhausen achieved considerable success.
In his films, model characters interact with the live action world, with the idea that they are considered 'animation', rather than 'cartoons' such as Chicken Run etc.

In 1947 he was hired as an assistant animator for, 'Mighty Joe Young (1949) whereby in the end Harryhausen did most of the animation, whilst O'Brien ended up concentrating on the technical problems of the film. In this film and in king kong, Harryhausen used his dynamation technqiue. This technique allows live action to be 'split' enabling a model to be inserted into the action and appear to interact with the actors.
Tim Burton considers his movie, Mars Attack (1996) to be a tribute to Harryhausen. Harryhausen's stop-motion sequence Sinbad helped to inspire a generation of filmakers, including Tim Burton.



Jan Svankmajer (1934) is a filmmaker and artist known for his surreal animations. He gained reputation for his use of stop motion technique and his ability to make surreal and yet somehow funny pictures. His trademarks include, very exaggerated sounds. Also he uses the technique fast-motion, when people walk. He often uses inanimate objects with the illusion of being brought to life. Among his best known work are the feature films, Alice (1988), Little Otik (2000) and Lunacy (2005).
Another stop motion technique he uses is clay animation.
Svankmajer influenced other filmmakers, such as Tim Burton and The Brothers Quay.
Personally, even though I don't enjoy the grusumniss of surrealist films. I do think that what Jan Svankmajer does is very creative and what he does with his food animation is clever and at the same time disgusting.
The video below is a stop motion clay animation by Svankmajer:

Present animators

The Brothers Quay

Stephen and Timothy, are influential stop-motion animators. They create films that are surreal and usually involve inanimate objects coming to life. One of their influences includes Jan Svankmajer, whereby they named one of their films after him, The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer.
Most of their animation films feature puppets, often partly disassembled and shot in a dark atmosphere, for a surrealist effect. Their best known work is 'Street of Crocodiles', which was selected as of the 10 best animated films of all time.
I think there work is effective because they have made their work unique and one of the 10 best animated films of all time eventhough they do surrealist stop motion animation, which was the same genre as Jan Svankmajer.

Here is a short clip from the animated film 'Street of Crocodiles':

Tim Burton

Tim is a film director and producer. The sucess of his short film 'Stalk of the Celery Monster' attracted the attention of Walt Disney Productions animation stuido, who offered him an apprenticeship. He worked on films such as, The Fox and the Hound and Tron. However, he chose to work on solo projects rather than with Disney as his choice of style clashed with them.

One of his first films was a 6 minute stop motion animation called, 'Vincent' and one of the latest films is a remake of his 1984 short film Frankenweenie released in October 2012. This film in 1984 was said to be "too quirky and scary for mainstream appeal". However, 28 years later the same film is being released. This shows the development of stop motion animation, that in this context, earlier Disney did not allow 'scary' and 'quirky' films to be released. However, nowadays it's allowed to be released.

The film 'The Nightmare Before Christmas', which was written and produced by Tim, was said to have helped to generate a new interest in stop-motion animation. This film was in production for 3 years, due to the time it took to film the stop motion. I think that it was worth being in production for 3 years because it's a creative piece of stop-motion and an excellent film.
In the film Mars Attack, Tim used puppets that in order for it to look real, hundreds of face models were produced with different expressions. Tim may have been influenced by the animator, George Pal who used this technique in his 1940s TV series.

'Vincent'

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations is an animation studio known for films made using clay animation, particularly those for Wallace and Gromit.
After making a segment called 'Greeblies' in 1975 using clay animation. This became the inspiration for creating the well known clay character, Morph.
In 2000, they created Aardman's first feature film, Chicken Run and in 2005, they created their first computer-animated film feature, Flushed Away.
Aardman made 12 short stop motion animation films using Flipnote Studio from Nintendo DSi.
A technique the Aardman tean used was called pixilation. This was used in Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' music video. Whereby there is the effect that he becomes a human puppet by holding poses while each frame was shot and moving slightly between each shot. Also this technique was used on a series of short films for BBC Three.
Lots of Aardman Animation films were targetted at children, and because of their intricate and realistic character models I think that that is one of the main reasons their films are so popular.
Wallace and Gromit are made from moulded clay on metal armatures. From my research I have noticed that metal armatures are a very popular model design for stop motion animation. This is because they help the shape and structure of the model to make it look more realistic.
Nick Park is part of the Aardman Animations team and has directed a range of popular films. These include, The Wrong Trousers, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Creature Comforts. Nick has won several academy awards for best animation. His work is mainly targetted at children.
As a child I watched Nick Park's and Aardman Animation's stop motion films and really enjoyed them, especially Wallace and Gromit. Only since I've started this BTEC Media course have I found out that some of my favourite childhood films had been made using this incredibly creative technique of stop motion animation. It makes me appreciate the time and effort they put into making these films.

Here is a link showing how Nick Park and Aardman animations did the animation for Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnkqlNPDu1E

The Amazing Adventures of Morph: How it all began:

Flip Book

Flip Book

I have learn't from creating my own flip book that the more images you use the smoother the motion.

A flip book is a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are flicked rapidly, the pictures appear to form a motion.

In my flip book, it illusion of movement shows a person doing a cartwheel and then a star jump. It took me a few practices to get the drawings correct so that it created a smooth motion as a result.

the technique, persistence of vision, is the reason that we can perceive a sequence of frames as a moving image. It's a theory that states that the human eye always retains images for a fraction of a second and therefore, everything we see is a blend of what happened a fraction of a second ago and what is happening now. This principle applies to flipbooks.

Frame rate is the rate at which a device produces frames of consecutive images. The larger the number of frames used per second, the smoother the movement will be.

My Stop Motion Animation

Stop Motion Animation Video

Across two lessons we had to create a short stop motion animation video capturing imaginative photographs of anything we wanted in . First, my group did some research on youtube to get some inspiration for cool animations and music ideas. After watching a range of videos, and discussing ideas between one another we had a few ideas for what we could do.

After that we put our first idea into action by using the college corridor and stairs outside the classroom. The camera shots included, me standing another person in my group's back with my arms out the side. Everytime one shot was taken, I would step of her and she would shuffle, on her tummy, forwards slightly for the next photo.
I really enjoyed making this video, and it gave me an idea of how tough and time-consuming it is to make a short stop motion animation video, let alone a film. I also gave me a better idea of what stop motion animation is, as we did it fairly early on.

in the end, this is what we came up with: