Video Essay Planning

Introduction

In this video, I will be looking into the different techniques of stop motion animation,
and the development from early animation, to what we see today in television and
cinema. We will begin by looking at some of the early stop motion animators, what
they contributed towards the development of stop motion, and some of their work.
The first people I am going to look at is The Lumiere Brothers. They are
internationally recognized for devising an early motion picture camera and
projector. However, they also developed the Kinetoscope, which was initially made
by Thomas Edison in 1889. When presented the kinetoscope by one of Edison's
concessionaires, they aimed towards adjusting the limitations Edison had with the
product. They worked towards making the kinetoscope lighter, and smaller, and
looked at manipulating it so that more than one person could view a film at a time.
They also managed to change the 48 fps (frames per second) frame rate, to 16 fps.
meaning they did not have to use as much film when running the production. This
refers to the number of images that are displayed in a second. This is measured in
frames per second. The frame rate reflects how fast the images flicker on and off.
The faster they go, the more realistic and visually accurate the motion picture will
seem. The standard frame rate is 24 frames per second, this was concluded in
1972 and has stayed this way since. In television, the standard frame rate is 30
frames per second. The human brain is able to process a minimum of 16 frames per
second, however the more shots per second in a production, the better quality the
production seems, because the slower the object is moved for each shot, the more
the sequence will flow when the shots are put together and made into a motion
picture.
This resulted in a much greater understanding of how many frames were needed in
order to create a more advanced continuous image. They then went on to create
their own motion picture camera called the Cinematographe and produce some
short films These included:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s

http://iphf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Fratelli_Lumiere.jpg
http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MovieCameraHistory.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Kinetoscope.jpg/220p
x-Kinetoscope.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s

La Sortie de usines Lumire (1894)

La Voltige (1895)
La Peche aux poissons rouges (1895)
La Debarquement du congres de photographie a Lyons (1895)
Les Forgerons (1895)
L Arroseur arrose (1895) Repas de bebe (1895)
Place des Cordeliers a Lyon (1895)
La Mer (1895)

Bibliography
EarlyCinema.com (no date) Available at:
http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html (Accessed: 17 November
2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
EarlyCinema.com (no date) Available at:
http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html (Accessed: 17 November
2016).
(EarlyCinema.com, no date)

Bibliography
Tarantola, A. (2015) Why frame rate matters. Available at: http://gizmodo.com/why-
frame-rate-matters-1675153198 (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
Tarantola, A. (2015) Why frame rate matters. Available at: http://gizmodo.com/why-
frame-rate-matters-1675153198 (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
(Tarantola, 2015)

Another recognizable pioneer is Hungarian filmmaker George Pal. Pal was one of the
first stop motion animators known for created an animated series called
Puppetoons. These were popular because instead of using models made out of clay,
he used replacement animation. This is where different parts of the model are
carved and then replaced, creating the continuous movement illusion. As a result,
this began to develop the way people viewed the movement of the models, as this
was before 3D had been seen in stop motion. Therefore, massively contributing
towards the development of persistence of vision. This is where the human brain is
only capable processing movement of up to 10 to 12 images at a time per second. It
will also retain an individual image for up to a fifteenth of a second. If another
image replaces this during that time, it will create the illusion of continuity.
Persistence of vision has changed over time, and we now have a better
understanding of just how many images the brain is able to process in a second,
meaning that the quality of the continuous image has drastically improved.

Pal then went on to discover unused scripts for the film War of the Worlds whilst
working with Paramount Pictures, and turned it into his own movie. Using the
techniques, he had developed upon to make it a great success.
http://a.scpr.org/i/ebb19f4caee2cbbaefc303e11246e038/78376-full.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=YsCmmxICmOY&list=PLyUjzUUY7MEnziGM_YUXbkmvWsEMZx-72
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9T9f3UbGuo

Bibliography
FutureLearn (2016) Persistence of vision: How does animation work? - explore
animation - national film and television school. Available at:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/explore-animation/0/steps/12222 (Accessed:
16 November 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
FutureLearn (2016) Persistence of vision: How does animation work? - explore
animation - national film and television school. Available at:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/explore-animation/0/steps/12222 (Accessed:
16 November 2016).
(FutureLearn, 2016)
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica (2015) George pal | Hungarian-born
animator, director, and producer, in Encyclopdia Britannica. Available at:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Pal (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
(The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica, 2015)

George pal could not have developed upon movement of models if Lotte Reiniger
had not developed on the very early stages of stop motion Lotte Reiniger was a
German filmmaker who created animations using wire and card and made by hand.
She created the first animated features called Adventures of Prince Achmed in
1926. Her work towards developing stop motion animation involved creating
models made out of wood, designed to resemble small rodents for 'The Pied Piper of
Hamelin' by Paul Wegner. George Pals work because it was creating different and
more effective ways of using models. She this helped George Pal develop his work
because she experimented with frame rates in order to discover that the smoother
the frame rate, the quicker the wooden models appeared to move. She also used
the stop frame techniques to look as if the rodents were also moving around, and
not just in straight lines. Although the wooden models were simplistic, they were
easily more lifelike.
Stop frame animation is created using a single frame at a time using 3D objects,
moving them very gradually between the different frames. One all the shots are
taken and put together with a fast speed, it produces an illusion of movement. Stop
frame has developed as in the early stages only one object was moved at a time,
but in today's age you can move more than one object in a frame.

https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/originals/aa/02/9f/aa029f08093dbb6958fb4a4a24782ab9.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25SP4ftxklg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RFLm5eZuHM

Bibliography
Boult, A. (2016) Who is Lotte Reiniger? The pioneering animator who would have
been 117 today. Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/01/lotte-reiniger-the-pioneering-
film-maker-whose-shadow-puppets-in/ (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations

Bibliography
Introduction to stop motion animation (no date) Available at:
http://www.dragonframe.com/intro_to_stop_motion.php (Accessed: 17 November
2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
Introduction to stop motion animation (no date) Available at:
http://www.dragonframe.com/intro_to_stop_motion.php (Accessed: 17 November
2016).
(Introduction to stop motion animation, no date)
Another well-known developer is Ray Harryhausen. He was an American filmmaker
who began his career by working with George Pal on his Puppetoons series.
Alongside Willis O'brien (another famous developer) He gave films such as King
Kong, Mighty Joe Young, etc. The stop motion creatures seen in these films. With
Lottes work to develop on the look and movement of the models, and George pals
model replacement technique, He developed a technique he called Dynamation.
This is where he used a split screen with rear projection. This is where two frames
are put together in a layer technique in order to see what is on each slide as if they
are together. This allowed Harryhousen to animate a model directly in front of the
screen that was showing a clip of a real life actor, creating the illusion of close
interaction between the two. This early clip shows a cyclist riding over Paris. The
use of this technique was used in many later films to create the illusion that a real
actor and the model were really next to each other, and could have fights, and what
appeared to be physical contact. This massively increased and developed the
movement of models technique. These are some examples of Harryhausen's work:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6dwxjYLVX1qa0q13o1_1280.jpg
http://www.quotationof.com/images250_/ray-harryhausen-
3.jpghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQL9gePK6xM

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

It came from Beneath the Sea (1954)
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
The Animal World (1956)
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1959)
Mysterious Island (1961)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
First Men in the Moon (1964)
One Million Years B.C. (1967)
The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
Clash of the Titans (1981)

Bibliography
The UnMuseum - Ray Harryhausens Dynamation (no date) Available at:
http://www.unmuseum.org/dyna.htm (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
The UnMuseum - Ray Harryhausens Dynamation (no date) Available at:
http://www.unmuseum.org/dyna.htm (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
(The UnMuseum - Ray Harryhausens Dynamation, no date)

All of these techniques are still seen in today's stop motion animation. The Quay
brothers are two identical twins born in America, who moved to England in 1969 in
order to study illustration at the Royal College of Art in London. Their first short films
were damaged and therefore do not exist anymore. However, they are best known
for their development of stop motion animation in order to create short stop
motions film that appeared in the late 70's. Most of their animations featured
puppets and focused on a darker approach to animated cinema. Their best known
work is Street of Crocodiles created in 1886, which perfectly example their
experimentation with both dynamism and kinetic effects to an advanced level, this
developed all of these techniques and bought these skills into modern times with
the more advanced frame rates and movement of models.
http://festanca.sk/2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/quay_brothers.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtT3e3exJA0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNOfsJz4TjABibliography

The Quay brothers retrospective + in conversation 12A (S) (2015) Directed by

Subtitled, 120 mins Watershed.
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
The Quay brothers retrospective + in conversation 12A (S) (2015) Directed by
Subtitled, 120 mins Watershed.
(Subtitled and mins, 2015)
Probably the most famous stop motion animator in today's society is Tim Burton. He
studied at California Institute of Arts in an Animation degree. He worked at Disney
for under a year before going independent to produce many extremely well known
stop motion films including The Nightmare before Christmas, which took 3 years to
make as this film used 227 puppets that had been individually handmade. The main
character had over 400 different heads in order to cover every facial expression he
had, and so that his mouth would change depending on the words, he was saying.
This massively advanced the movement of models and set the bar for attention to
detail very high. The movement of models refers to the ways in which people will
move the objects in their motion pictures in order to make up the sequence. For
example, In the production of the first King Kong stop motion animation in 1933, the
movements of the model are extremely fixed and have little flowing movement.
Nowadays, in the 1976 version of King Kong, you can see that the movement flows
much better, will the movement of the model looking much more realistic, and more
like a continuous sequence.
Burton used a frame rate of 24 stop motion moves per second that resulted in the
look of complete continuous movement. This developed the movement of models to
a level that is hard to improve.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Tim_Burton_by_Gage_
Skidmore.jpg/220px-Tim_Burton_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MotEIVKzoNs/TNI-
zXHEMhI/AAAAAAAAAA8/Vu4pwt5voLA/s1600/nightmare-before-christmas.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOq8IjDMKIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2cw5GmGhdI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr6N_hZyBCk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPblZa10_Pk

Bibliography
(No Date) Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/tim-burton-9542431
(Accessed: 17 November 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
(No Date) Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/tim-burton-9542431
(Accessed: 17 November 2016).
([CSL STYLE ERROR: reference with no printed form.])

Tim Burton also specializes on the darker side of stop motion animation much like
the Quay Brothers, however stop motion animation is also used in many other
genres including channel idents, for example the E4 advertisements use stop
motion animation of many different varieties, however most are very whacky and
alternative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEVkM7oPEpo E4 tend to always
use very imitative stop motion idents as they want to keep the audience watching
their channel, and advertise what kind of shows they are showing. They are often
made by members of the public in competitions and the winner has theirs featured
on the channel. Many of the idents do not always make sense, and can be seen as
quite bizarre.
TV animations such as Shaun the Sheep is popular with kids today and has been
ongoing since 2007 on CBBC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CS4jpY-IDI This is
because the colors and the slightly slower frame rates makes it easy for young
children to follow the movements without getting lost or confused. In addition, as
animals are the theme of this program, using stop motion is the simplest way of
doing this.
The film industry is constantly producing stop motion animation feature films, with
Trolls that came out earlier this year, with an incredible cast behind it including
Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick. This also uses fictional creatures and therefore
cartoon is the only way of doing this effectively, and it is aimed at younger children,
which means that the bright colors and fast action will interest younger children and
make them keep watching without distraction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=xyjm5VQ11TQ
Companies often use stop motion animation to advertise their products on the
television, most recently the Sainsbury's advertisement. This was a Christmas
themed advert and it was effective because Sainsbury has wanted to feature lots of
action and different scenes that would be very expensive to use with real life actors,
places etc. They also wanted a family friendly advertisement and therefore people
of any age can watch it and be entertained. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=bq5SGSCZe4E
A less common stop motion animation genre is music videos, however you still see
the technique used for smaller artists such as Kina Grannis and Oren Lavie. Stop
motion techniques were used in these videos in order to create an alternative and
creative vibe to the videos, as this is the aim of the artists and fits in with their
music style. They are also cheaper to make and as these artists are fairly small,
they will most likely be on a more restricted budget and would have to look at other
means of making a music video that is still entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY