How Stop-Motion

Came to Be!

Stop motion or frame animation, is an animation technique

where everything is captured
one frame at a time, at a specific
frame rate with the movement of
model, for example: clay people,
LEGO figures or even drawings
on paper, that are moved around
between frames to give the impression of the objects moving.

Those first few short films that used these

stop motion techniques were: Fun in a Bakery Shop, which was produced in April, 1902
and was contributed by Thomas Edison and
The Teddy Bears, which was produced in
1907 and was produced by Thomas Edison
and was directed by Edwin Stanton Porter.
You can find the links to those short animation films, mentioned above, below.
Fun in a Bakery Shop - https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=u20lu6NAtPU
The Teddy Bears - https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=FKsGdZeRaVE

The way stop motion animation

was introduced, was that it first
used in several short films at the
start of the 20th century. The animating of the following examples, took a serious amount of
time to produce. One which took
over 50 hours to animate just 1
minute.

Throughout the past history of animation and the techniques being

involved in the whole sector, there are many pioneers that started
the rise of animation. There are two main ones that started to make
stop motion animation well known.
A man called Joseph Plateu was born in Belgium, on October 1801 and became a physicist. He was one of the very first people
to discover the illusion of a moving image
in animation. He had a strong interest in
physics after he was impressed by a certain
lesson in school.
When Joseph was older, he created an animation device called the Phenakistoscope,
in 1832. Which are counter rotating disks
with repeating drawn images in small increments of motion, creating the impression of
moving models on paper. The frame rate of
the Phenakistoscope depends on how fast
the device spins around.
Another pioneer who help to encourage the
rise of stop motion animation, was another
man called William Horner. He was born in
Britain, in 1786 and he was a mathematician.
He founded his own school called The Seminary when he just 27 years old.
When William was working as the headmaster, he created the animation device called
the Zoetrope in 1834, just two years after
Joseph created the Phenakistoscope. The Zoetrope is similar to the Phenakistoscope, but
it is a cylinder version with the pictures on
the inside. When people do look through the
Zoetrope, the persistence of vision was not
limited, because it could allow more than one
person to use it at the same time.

Those pioneers were respected for their work, but then there were
many developers that improved the way animation was made and
produced.
One developer was another man called Willis H. OBrien. He was born in March 1886,
in California and he worked as a motion
picture special effect artist and stop motion
animator.
In 1916, he made a short film of 5 minutes
long and it attracted the attention of businessman Thomas Edison and OBrien was
hired by him to animate many short films
with a prehistoric theme to them. OBrien
moved to sculpturing, that were mostly
human and animal figures, with moulded
rubber added onto their surfaces to their
skeleton models to allow the freedom of the
movement of the models.

Another developer who helped the improvement of stop motion animation was a woman
called Lotte Reiniger. She was born in Germany, in June 1899 and worked as a film director
and was the foremost pioneer of silhouette
animation.
When she was in her teenage years, Reiniger
was very fancied by the work of cinema, so she
attended a lecture that focused on the possibilities of animation.
She used her silhouette animation techniques
in many of her films that she directed. The
frame rate of her animations was low, like
about 10 frames per second but it did give the
impression that her characters were actually
moving at a smooth enough speed. Also, Reinigers legacy of silhouette animation even got
used in todays films.

Those developers made a big difference on stop motion animation

films, but even now in the early past and the present, stop motion
techniques are still being used in todays films. There is also some
contemporary work that is inspiring lots of people lately.
Those developers made a big difference
on stop motion animation films, but even
now in the early past and the present, stop
motion techniques are still being used in
todays films. There is also some contemporary work that is inspiring lots of people
lately.
One of those contemporary work, is the animation studio Aardman Studios. Aardman
Animations is British animation studio that
is located in Bristol and was founded 44
years ago in 1977, by Peter Lord and David
Sproxton. They are best known for their
films that used stop motion clay animation
techniques.
They founded Aardman as a low budget
project. After they started to produce short
animations, they began to find more animators, produce longer animations and even
teamed up with more famous animation
studios. Their most notable films and shows
are: Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts and Chicken Run.
Aardman made their clay stop motion
animation characters with metal endoskeletons build into the clay, so their characters
would bend and move easily into whatever
shape is needed. Their animations also have
smooth moving with the higher frame rate
per second, they also had a much bigger
persistence of vision so audiences can see
way more stuff in their animations.

Tim Burton is an American film director,

producer and animator, born in August, the
25th on 1958. He is best known for his dark
and fantasy themed movies, such as Edward
Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.
Burton used to make short films in his
garden when he was young, using crude
stop motion animation techniques. He then
studies at Burbank High School, but he
didnt do pretty good in school. He was only
really interested in drawing and watching
films.
When Burton was a student at CalArts, he
got offered an animator job at Walt Disney
Productions when the saw one of his short
films.
Burton then began to become a director
and a producer when his early feature
length films really attracted the attention
of the public. His most famous films that
he worked on was: Corpse Bride and The
Nightmare Before Christmas. His early
films used a crude or raw stop motion technique to make them look like they were
made in the early years.
Stop motion now, is being used in many different genres and forms imaginable. They can be used in
different ways now. For example, they are used in television programmes, such as: Cartoons or exclusive
short movies just for the specific channel.
They can also be used in channel idents, which are little breaks before the start of a certain programme.
Stop motion can also be used in television adverts, such as for supermarkets and car companies.
Volvo Car Stop Motion Advert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htlh1IieikQ
Sainsburys Christmas Stop Motion Advert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5SGSCZe4
Also, stop motion can be found being used in music videos, because the producers and directors want to
make the music video stand out more than the other ones out there. Finally, stop motion animation can
be found in the cinema, because maybe someone wants to try something new and creative, that makes it
look and sound unique.