StopMotion.1 Introduction

Stop Motion animations are produced by playing a series of still photographs at a continuous interval in sequence, creating the illusion of movement and motion. In most cases, the main differences between video + film and stop motion are 1) the photographed subjects are not actually in-motion and 2) these subjects are not being filmed in “real-time”. Instead of drawings, stop-motion animations typically work with physical objects and scenes. The captured “movement” usually comes from adjustments applied to subjects, the scene and/or the camera in between photographs. Each frame is composed and photographed, then the objects and/or the camera are either moved slightly to compose the next frame, or there is some other type of natural movement or transformation that changes the framed image (such as a the sun moving during a time-lapse).

Since this technique typically works with non-moving objects as subjects (and in some cases, relies on this, as it can be very difficult to work with animals or other independently moving subjects) many stop motion animations involve narratives where non-living objects suddenly come to life or every-day objects begin to move and behave in unexpected ways.

StopMotion.2 History

Stop Motion animation is another form of animation that was first explored in the 1900s, and was also heavily intertwined with early film. The first applications of stop-motion - with the use of the “jump cut” - were utilized to create the first special effects in early cinema. The director would stop the camera, make changes to the actors and/or other subjects within the frame, then continue filming to produce the effect that there was no break in the time to the viewer. While this technique is not considered "Stop-Motion Animation", the principle behind it is very similar, and it achieves a similar transformative effect.

George Melies + Early Special Effects

Below are several examples of early special effects produced by french director / cinematographer George Melies between 1895 - 1920. Many consider him a pioneer with special effects, and most of these were achieved with these simple jump cuts. Melies’ creativity and innovation, however, pushed these films to be more than just a simple trick. When viewing these examples, consider how Melies used these effects to enhance the narrative or drama of what was being shown on-screen.

 A Trip to the Moon

Scroll ahead to 4:00 for some jump-cut and stop-motion examples, full viewing optional

Willis O’Brien + Ray Harryhausen

Starting in the 1930s, the basic concept of this stop-motion effect started being used to animate characters. These animators truly pioneered in this time: instead of working with the technique to make objects or actors appear or disappear, it was used to animate figures or puppets that could bring mythic beasts, monsters and dinosaurs to live-action film narratives.

In these first applications of the technique, stop-motion scenes were intercut with actual filmed sequences, or overlayed so that one would be in the background and the other in the foreground. Willis O'Brien, starting with King Kong in 1933, was one of the first artists / designers to explore this early type of stop-motion animation, which laid the groundwork for contemporary "claymation" and stop-motion puppetry. This exploration was continued by special effects artist Ray Harryhausen into the 1950s through the 1970s, who further developed the use of stop-motion animated creatures combined with live-actors and live-filmed action sequences.

Trailer for King Kong (1933) + "test footage" for another Willis O'Brien animated film Creation

Scroll through video below to view some of Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures. Full version optional.

Slightly More Recent Uses of Stop Motion in Special Effects - Star Wars: Episode IV HoloChess

StopMotion.3 Contemporary Clay-Mation + Stop-Motion Puppetry

When many people think of stop-motion animation, they think of claymation films like Wallace and Gromit, or puppet-animated films such as Isle of Dogs, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. Claymation and puppet-animation is a type of stop-motion animation where the characters, settings and scenes are made of some kind of moveable, moldable materials, and then photographed one tiny movement at a time.

Since this type of animation developed hand-in-hand with film and cinema, and especially because these early applications of the technique delivered impossible, amazing visuals that audiences had never before experienced, I think it makes sense that these feature films are usually the most recognized examples of stop motion animation. The visual impact that these puppet and claymation rigs can produce is captivating - because they are actual, objects, they possess a physicality and “realness”. I believe there is a true sense of magic communicated by these visuals, through seeing these real objects move and interact in ways that we know are not possible. When viewing the example clips below, compare them to 3D animations produced by Pixar. In your opinion, how are they similar, and how are they different? How do you as the viewer “recognize” that something is 3D animated v.s. stop-motion animated?

 Isle of Dogs - Wes Anderson (2018)

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson (2009)

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Henry Selick (1993)

 Stop-Motion Works by Animator Pamela Chavez (UCSC Alumni)

Note how Chavez incorporates social and personal topics and themes into these stop-motion animations. How does the visual quality of the clay figures and puppets influence the meaning of the dialogue and overall narrative? How do you feel the application of this animation technique produces a different effect than a film with human actors might, given the same narrative content? We will be viewing more of Chavez’ work in the Module 4.

These films and this style of stop motion is visually striking, but are usually very demanding animations to produce. Each character needs to be constructed to a high-degree of detail, and also require a full range of motion. The scenes need to be physically constructed to allow for filming, and usually require green screens, lighting and camera rigging. These complex  setups usually need to be housed in large studios. More recently, 3D printing has even been used to print out different facial expressions and mouth movements for different puppets, leading to even more realistic puppets, but, again, very technically complex.

Claymation and puppetry is a daunting place to start with when first working with stop-motion, especially when time is a factor. For the Module 2 projects, you will not be creating any kind of character-based stop-motion, and will instead be starting with more straightforward, simple objects and abstract visuals. If you are interested in developing a character-based stop motion animation for this course, don’t worry, this will be an option for the Module 4 projects. 

StopMotion.4 Outside of the Box

Below are a series of contemporary stop motion animations that work with materials or stop-motion principles in new or unexpected ways. When viewing these examples, think about how these animators are still working within the fundamental concept of stop-motion to create their animations, but are able to produce visuals and effects that are very different from more common claymation or puppetry animation.

These animations can be a good place to start when considering materials and/or image-composition methods (ways to construct visuals out on unconventional materials) for your Stop-Motion projects. Some of them even “visualize” audio through abstract patterns, colors, shapes, movement and other transformations, either as a component or a central element. I will be sure to point these instances out, as they fit what we are looking for conceptually in these Module 2 projects.

2D materials, paper cut-outs + collage

When working with stop-motion, I think it is easy to overlook “flat” or 2D materials, such as cut-out photographs, paper, sheets of fabric or materials like glass, wood or metal.  These materials actually can provide a wealth of variety for visuals, and still communicate that all important stop-motion “magic”, where you have actual objects moving in a physical space in impossible, life-like ways. In these cases, the stop-motion technique (along with some of the imperfections that occur) separates these animations from one’s created completely within a digital space.

Animal BeatBox (2011)

2D cut-outs are placed in a very simple 3D scene. The materials are very obvious, and “realism” is not a concern for the animators. Instead, they use the stripped nature of the materials to match with the fun-theme of the audio. While this is a music-themed video, it is not quite abstract enough to fit the Module 2 project requirements.

Animations by Jodie MAck

Jodie Mack is an animator and artist who often works with stop-motion and found or every day materials. The works below are all excellent examples of abstract audio visualizations and how to build images for stop motion out of very simple materials. Don’t underestimate paper - it is affordable, comes in different colors, patterns and textures, can be easily stacked, cut and layered AND it can be folded to eventually transform into a more 3D object.

Shogu Tokumaru - Katachi

This animation shows the complex visuals that are possible even when working with easy to manipulate, physical materials such as paper or, in this specific case, different shades of foam core. The layers of foam core expand along a horizontal plane instead of being stacked vertically, and thus create a compelling 3D form that is at most times abstract. These abstract visuals - which are mostly just different scales and layerings of expanding, shrinking and morphing geometrical shapes - correspond with the the audio, and are along the lines of what we are looking for in these Module 2 projects.

Revolution

Chris Turner, Helen Friel + Jess Deacon collaborated to film the stop motion below, which shows the cycle of a drop of water. This stop-motion required the expertise of a photographer, an animator and a sculpture / designer / artist to build out the functional pop-up book features.

Frame Animation / Stop-Motion Hybrids

Some stop-motions produce animated visuals that are very similar to frame animations, in that the stop motion scenes contain drawn images that also change in sequence at the same time interval. What separates these from regular frame animations (at least to me), is that either the drawings are constructed out of physical objects, and/or the drawings interact with physical objects or the physical space where they are located.

COMBO - Blu + David Ellis (2011)

This is a stop-motion time-lapse video that captures the “frame-animation” of paintings and graffiti applied to a large building space and courtyard. Note how time begins to play a factor into these images, and also consider the choices the artists made when choosing which photos to include in the final animation - in some frames, the artists are absent from the shots, the only evidence that they were there is the change in the painting from one frame to another. In others, the artists are captured within the shot painting on the walls and floors of the space. Think about how this contributes to the rhythm and the overall visual impact of the piece. While some of these image are less recognizable, I would consider them more surreal than abstract. They usually relate back to some kind of symbol or representative element, and while the visuals work with with the sound, they are not directly visualizing it in a way that would work for the Module 2 project.

Son Lux - Change is Everything

The frame animation in this stop-motion is produced by pins and thread used to draw out images. Some of these images are representative, while others are more abstract (such as the waveform at 20 seconds and the rotating shapes at 1:00 minute) - these abstract visuals could easily fulfill the project’s required Abstraction and Audio Visualization requirement.

Bonobo: Cirrus Music Video

The animator below worked with video and photographic “cut-outs”, layering them together and moving them like collaged 2D elements in a stop motion animation. If this were photographs only, it could have been possible to produce with traditional stop motion, however, the use of video make it likely that after effects was used to composite everything.

Building Blocks

Legos have been frequently used in stop-motion animations, and have inspired an entire genre. I believe this is because they are a standard size, color, are interlocking, and can be easy to measure when it comes to making adjustments, even in 3D spaces (one grid space or one block level at a time). Most of these animations are, however, character based, usually putting the lego people at the center of a narrative and the world built around the.

The examples below work with these materials differently. Both, at some point, use the physical grid-like lego blocks to build images similar to 8-Bit video games or very pixelated photographs and videos. They also play with depth, shadow and camera focus in interesting ways. Rymdreglage’s 8-Bit trip also begins to work with abstract visuals related to the audio track, such as the wave of legos and the different audio level animations, interspersed with more representative animations (such as the video-game characters). They continue to work with abstract audio visualizing in their Brainglass video.  

White Stripes - Fell in Love With a Girl

Rymdreglage - 8-bit Trip

Rymdreglage - Brainglass

Every-day Materials Acting in Unexpected Ways

This can be a broad category (as it could apply to MOST forms of stop-motion) and it can be the confusing for this project because in many examples, it involves more of an abstract idea than a visual abstraction. I think it is still very important to demonstrate, however, as this is such a integral theme to so many Stop-Motion animations. In the examples below, every-day objects are behaving and/or being used in ways that are unexpected or physically impossible. With these animations, consider how the stop-motion technique allows the animators to play with how we expect an object to function or behave. This is a way that animators can use visuals to play with meaning, and the meanings that viewers assign to these every-day objects.

PES - Fresh Guacamole

This animation plays with meaning by taking an every-day cooking process and showing it happen with unconventional, but similar looking ingredients, cooking tools and utensils and methods. I never thought a grenade would look delicious, but this video made it happen. This type of stop-motion would not work for the Module 2 project, but could definitely work for the Module 4 narrative project.

Delta Heavy - Get By

Get By has a very similar theme to Fresh Guacamole, in that it describes cooking pasta and making sausage with popular board game pieces and other components. In between these more narrative-driven bits, however, the board game pieces abstractly visualize the music (examples at 00:25, 00:40 + 00:53, just for starters). In these parts, the game pieces are being used as visual elements to construct the audio visualizations. Their colors, shapes, sizes, boards and movements all lend themselves to the abstract visuals being animated, and they begin to take on a double meaning. As viewers, we cannot separate the hungry hippo characters from those physical pieces, however, in seeing them describe something totally unexpected, they have new meaning as well.

If you are planning on using game pieces or other objects that already have meanings and functions associated to them as elements in your Module 2 Project, be sure to think of them as visual components or building blocks, and not as characters. It can be very difficult to add a new meanings and functions to things that already have heavy narratives associated with them, especially any kind of human / animal figurines, but I want to encourage folks to take on this challenge for this project. 

Black Books - Favorite Place

This animation’s visuals are achieved through changes in lighting, camera angles, and more traditional stop-motion elements such as thread, spools and pins moving within the frame. It also works with embroidered text and plays with the physical properties of the thread used to construct the words. This will be an animation to keep in mind for Module 3 as well, but for this module, all of the non-text elements are excellent examples of abstract visuals that relate directly to the audio. While these materials are not necessarily behaving in ways counter to their intended function and meaning, this animation portrays them in a new way, as beautiful components of a striking visual image, which could be considered “unexpected” when thinking about common sewing materials. 

Timescales + actors in Stop-Motion

As I mentioned before, it can be very difficult to include people, complex camera movements, animals and/or large, uncontrolled environments in stop-motions. The 2 videos below all do at least 2 of these 4 things. Both are music videos for the band OK GO, and they show that when done successfully, all of these elements can create incredibly unique animations that start to play with time-scales and the passage of time in very interesting ways. Think about what these animations do to your perception of passing time as the viewer. How do you think the director planned for and shot these stop-motion animations? Does the fact that these animations include subjects that are alive change their impact? (Think about how long the OK GO band members probably spent shooting the video filmed at Silver Lake, or even just how long they had to spend standing in one spot for 5 seconds of footage).

OK GO - End of Love

OK GO - OBSESSION

The background visuals produced by the printer grid in this video are similar to the abstract visuals we are looking for in the Module 2 project (obviously can be simplified).

STOPMOTION.5 Technical specifications

Stop motion usually runs at “2 up” at 24 - 30 FPS. Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects both have automated processes for importing photographs taken in sequence and placing one in each frame. If you are doing this in After Effects, you can then create additional animations on layers above each frame, run different stop-motion sequences together, blend 2 stop-motion sequences together, and/or apply effects to entire sequences the same way you apply effects and adjustments to still images in Photoshop. Dragonframe is another industry standard stop-motion animation program, with student rates between $250 and $200.