Seth Kaplan
Contemporary Art
Judith Ott Allen
8/05/02 T12STOP-MOTION THEN AND NOW

The field of stop motion animation has evolved drastically from its initial use as a special effects medium. It has gone from the first special effects process to that of full length feature films. Through a comparative analysis of traditional Stop-motion animation to contemporary computer assisted animation I will show you how this field has evolved and how the society in which it is based assisted or decreased from that evolution.
Over the last century stop motion animation has drastically changed. I believe that society plays a vital role in this evolution. Sighting specific examples of techniques and technologies used in some of the major animated films I will show you this change. I will show the methods and the means for these new technologies as they pertain to the field.
One cannot dwell into the art of Stop-motion animation with out an understanding of the beginnings of Film and Motion pictures. A film is an illusion to trick the human eye, also known as persistence of vision. The human eye only retains an image for about one 10th of a sec, long enough so that in this time another image may be substituted. This image slightly differs from the last and thus presents the effect of motion or movement. Cinema is broken down into 24 fps and video is 30fps.

William Henry Fox Talbot devised one of the first methods for Photography using what is known as a Camera Obscura. (Fig.1) This devise enables the artist or photographer to capture a still image of everyday life. Edward Muybridge in 1872 began producing studies in motion both of animals and humans. (Fig.2) He created these images by setting up still cameras to capture and break down the movement into individual frames. Basically showing what the human eye misses or doesn't register. This was in essence, the true mechanics of motion. Animators to this day use these techniques to better understand motion. In 1877 Emile Reynand invented "The Theater Praxinoscope". (Fig.3) This devise was one of the first Motion picture projectors. This used light and mirrors to show a cycle of moving images against a projected background. This invention led to further Techniques created in the middle of the 20th century such as Ray Harryhausens Dynamation which is very similar in design. The Praxinoscope also led to the invention of the Theater as we know it today.
Theater or Cinema was invented in 1895 by the Lumiere Brothers. The first scenes shown were that of everyday life. Factories, Babies Being Fed and People in parks where some of the first movies ever created. The public at first were obsessed with these moving images. It is rumored that in one showing of a train coming towards the audience, the viewers fled the theater screaming in terror actually thinking that a train was going to crash into through the screen. But the audience quickly became bored with these common everyday shows and the novelty wore off. The cinemas and fledgling film makers looked for better ways to catch the audience's attention. Drama, Comedies, romance and Fantasies with animation were invented for the screen. Stop-motion animation was born in these early films.
Some of the first Stop-motion animations were of paint on glass used to create the illusion of smoke. Quickly after this did the field begin to show and tell stories. The Voyage to the Moon (1902) (Fig.4) by Melies was one of the first stop action/Stop-motion animated films. By stopping and starting the film frame by frame he could make a rocket ship appear to fly into the moon. Melies stated in (1902), "I do not hesitate to say that in Cinematography it is today possible to realize the most impossible and the most improbable things." Little did he know how the field would evolve to show wonderful creations never before imagined. Stop motion became the standard for special effects from that moment on. This film led the way for many of the Stop-motion masters to create there wonderful visions and fantasies.
The basics of stop motion animation are simple. Set up a Camera, set and characters. Record a frame of film, move the character or puppet slightly, take another frame of film. Continue this process until the scene is done. That is it. The difficulty lies in the movement of the character to portrait human or believable motion. In the early methods of animation, the animators used basic materials such as wood, metal, rubber, fabric, leather, paper and plastic. Throughout the decades though, Stop-motion materials would evolve into an inexpensive mass produced market of its own and spawned the rise of the special effects business of today. The market of today boasts materials such as Hot and cold foam latex's (Fig.5) which gives the characters a spongy skin that retains its shape throughout the animation. New forms of liquid latex's mixed with Acrylic paints allow the puppets to be painted more lifelike than ever before, and new Aluminums and composite steels make for lighter and stronger armature skeletons that before were just a dream.
A large breakthrough in Stop-motion occurred in 1890 with the invention of a material called Plasticina. (Fig.6) Plasticina was and is a non hardening sulfur based clay that allowed animators to create effects never before seen on the screen. Now animators could sculpt life like copies of dinosaurs and monsters for the big screen that looked and moved with a greater sense of realism. Clay also allowed the artist to make there creations more stylized and fantastic than before giving them more and more artistic license. Plasitcina is still used today and has led the way for many new types of clays. Van Eyken clay is by far the most commonly used clay in the industry. Studios such as Will Vinton and Aardman animations live by this medium. In 1975 Will Vinton copywrited the term Claymation or the Art of clay animation. He has used the substance ever since. Examples are The California Raisins form the late 1980's, (Fig.7) The Noid (Fig.8) from the Pizza Hut advertisements and one of Vinton's greatest films, The Adventures of Mark Twain. (1985) (Fig.9) None of these films would have been possible however if it wasn't for the early work of Willis O'Brien.
Willis O'Brien was one of the early stop motion animators. In 1915 O'Brien and a co-worker created two boxers in clay and shot a short staged fight between the two characters. After showing the film to there families and friends they began work on there second animated short. They pitched an idea about a caveman and a dinosaur to a San Francisco based producer who fronted money for the development of the short. It was entitled The Dinosaur and the Missing Link. (1915). (Fig.10) For this film he created two ball and socket metal Armatures covered in rubber. Hollywood special effects until the late 60's were born with this film. In 1925 O'Brien created the animation for the feature film The Lost World. (Fig.11) To the audience in the mid-twenties all the footage appeared authentic. The producer showed advanced footage to the Society of American Magicians (without declaring its origins) and they were convinced that what they were looking at was actual footage of prehistoric life. Willis O'Brien then created his masterpiece entitled King Kong. (1933) (Fig.12) This was one of the first films to use optical composting. The film showed a giant ape named Kong running around in New York City and climbing the empire state building with live actress Fay Wray in his clutches. The composting of live action and Puppet animation had never been seen before on the big screen and audience members loved it. This film broke box office ratings for years to come grossing some of the highest incomes of the 20's. Stop-motion animation had come along way since the days of skeletons and wires. Now we had eight story apes roaming through our minds and nightmares. But not all animation techniques were used in Hollywood Blockbusters. Commercials used this new medium as well. One artist who created a name early on was George Pal and his technique of Replacement animation.
Another technique used early on was that of replacement animation. This is the process of creating multiple parts to a character and replacing them for each frame. For example, when the character walks you would create different intervals for say a legs movement. A major animator of this process was George Pal. At first George animated cigarette advertisements for German companies. These cigarettes were seen walking around and marching in formation to the themes of the commercial. The audience loved the animated films and cigarette sales soared. But audience complaints about the non humanistic qualities of the cigarettes spurred George to ad more human characteristics. So Pal Created faces legs and arms out of individually carved pieces of wood that he would replace in each frame to show movement. In 1939 George moved to America to escape the oncoming war in Europe. Paramount Pictures signed Pal to a long-term contract to produce a new series of non-advertising Puppetoons. At these studios, some of his now-famous animators included Gene Warren, Wah Chang, Bob Baker, and a very young talent named Ray Harryhausen, who would later become possibly the most famous stop-motion animator of all time Pal was commissioned by the cinemas to create 3, 5 min animations to be shown before the movies and war clips in the cinemas. For these animated shorts he sculpted thousands of wooden replacement parts. Each episode required the fabrication of 9,000 pieces. A similar process was used on The Nightmare Before Christmas.(Fig.13) They were highly stylized with almost mechanical movements and produced a look not unlike early computer animations. Some examples of these works are Jasper in a Jam (1942-45), (Fig.14) and Tubby the Tuba (1947). (Fig.15) A contemporary use of this technique is The Nightmare Before Christmas. (1992). (Fig.16) This film used replacement animated heads and faces to give the characters Jack, Sally and the rest of the cast realistic emotions. Each head was replaced for every scene that required a new head. Quite a daunting task, but very time consuming where as the alternative was to sculpt each facial animation for every frame out of clay.
During these films there were no computers or digital mediums to use. (accept The Nightmare Before Christmas) All of the animations were shot on film. 8 mm, super 8mm, 16mm and later 35mm were the industry standards. The different size denotes the different measurements of the film itself. Also the lower the number, the lower the resolution. This process was very labor intensive and very expensive to produce. The animators had to shoot the animation, send it out to be developed and hope it came back all shoot cleanly without a skip of delay. If there was a flaw, the whole scene would have to be shot over again with horrific costs. Remember, expensive equals your show being canceled. If you can do it cheaper and faster, you get to keep the job. So animators were always striving for faster less expensive ways to animate. Modern animators use Digital cameras to directly input there captured animation onto a Digital tape or onto the computer. This allows for nearly no time lapse in finished product and allows animators to test and retest there footage before putting to final print. Things to look for on a digital camera are that it has a Firewire output, analog output S video output. You have to be sure the camera is capable of taking stills as well as live action, has a sturdy tripod mount and is within your budget. One of the digital cameras used today is the Sony DCR-VX2000. I personally use this camera to animate my shorts and input the frames into my computer using a Firewire. This camera captures NTSC quality at 860x1080 DPI or dots per inch.
In 1953 Ray Harryhausen Created a process known as Dynamation (Fig.17) while working on a film called The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. (Fig.18) It used a split screen and rear projection devise very similar to The Theater Praxinoscope invented in 1877. The first step in this process was to film the background image with the live actors and location for the action. The camera is set up on a real street with real actors. It is important to lock the camera so there is no movement or jump between the live action and the animation. The film is then developed and loaded into a projector back at the studio. It is then projected onto a back projection screen. (A thin piece of plastic tightly stretched across a frame). Unlike a normal screen the image appears on the front when shot from behind. Another camera is locked into position filming the projected screen. This camera will be used to capture the puppet animation and live action. A piece of glass is then put between the camera and the screen. The portion of the screen that is in front of the puppet is blacked out using paint. Between the glass and the camera is where you set up your set. This set includes your puppets and any props the puppet is interacting with directly. Positioning of these elements is crucial so that the distance between the elements is matched. The projector is advanced one frame at a time. With each frame the puppet is moved. After your character is correctly posed, the camera records one frame. Repeat this process until the entire scene is shot.
After completion of the scene, both camera and projector are rewound to the beginning. A new piece of glass is put in this time blacking out all the background elements. The set and character are removed and the whole process is shot again one frame at a time. This time the foreground images that were blacked out before will be exposed over the images of the background and the puppet.
This technique expedited the Stop-motion animation process and allowed Harryhausen to dispense with many expensive and time consuming sets. Also he was able to make his characters interact with the live action actors flawlessly. This has never been possible before. It was now possible for actors to sword fight skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. (1963) (Fig.19) It was absolutely convincing. There were flaws however. It was extremely hard to match up the set lighting with the live action lighting. And at first it was impossible to put the live actors in front of the Puppets until he invented another technique called back projection where he was able to put the figures in front of the puppets. One million Years B.C. (1967) was one of these films. All of these films and animators used one form or another of a technique known as composting.
There are two types of composting. Optical and Digital. Optical is a more classic style which we have seen demonstrated in some of the films I have shown. King Kong and Jason and the Argonauts are a couple of these films. It is a slow process which involves an optical printer. (A group of cameras that permit the combining of multiple layers.) The Optical printer passes the different pieces of film containing different elements to be put together while being filmed by a final camera. In the end a new piece of film is created which has both elements on it. This process usually had to be shot many times before all the elements were in place. Also special lenses were needed with high focus capabilities to capture all the detail.
Digital; composting (Fig.20) is a more resent development. It involves computers and the latest technology and programs such as Adobe Photoshop TM and Adobe After Effects TM. The whole process is again taken in separate elements and put together digitally on a computer. This is a faster and cheaper means to composite because color corrections and other effects can be added to different layers to assure that they all fit together flawlessly.
First the background plate is shot. This is the bottom most element. All the other elements will be placed on top of this image or in the foreground. Next the figures or other elements are filmed in front of a blue screen also known as chromo key blue. A solid blue screen is used to isolate the key elements of this layer so it can be placed on the background. Any color can be used to isolate the elements you just have to be sure not to choose a color found on your character as the composting program my cancel out the elements as well as the background color. This will make you character seem invisible in places. Now a matte is created. This is made so that the elements can be properly exposed to the background plate. The matte is created by using a special filter that turns the blue to white and all the other colors to black. Very reminiscent of Ray harryhausens technique of Dynamation created decades earlier. This leaves a silouette of the object and defines what portion of the film will be exposed on the final composite. White is transparent and allows the background to show through. Black leaves the film unexposed thus allowing the blue screen element to later be exposed as the background. A traveling matte is one that involves animating each frame so that each matte frame moves in conjunction with the element. Once all the elements are ready they are passed through an optical printer. Or in this case a computer that combines the elements as they will appear on the screen.
Another modern animation tool is a Motion Control Rig. This is a computer driven devise that carefully moves wither the camera or the character in precise increments of measurement. This is used to create a smooth motion for the animation or for camera zooms, pans or movements.
Phil Tibbet developed a method of animating called go-animation for the film Dragonslayer (1981). Go-animation was a hybrid of stop-motion animation and the motion-control technology ILM had developed for Star Wars (1977). (Fig.21) A physical model (a dragon in this case) was attached to computer-controlled rods. An animator would position the model as desired and record this position in the computer. Once the two positions were set, the computer moved the model between the two positions while a frame was exposed. This allowed for motion blur which was unavailable with traditional stop-motion animation.
Another technical achievement that was made available in contemporary Atop-motion animation is the Lunch Box Sync. (Fig.22) This is a tool for Stop-motion and Cell animation testing and capturing. "It is the world's best system for animation and is the way to se your animation before you commit the final product to film." Before the Lunch Box Sync was invented animation was done on 8mm or high *mm film by flipping the camera on and off with every frame. Now just about anyone can animate although the necessary schooling is still needed for advanced animation. The lunchbox is comprised of Ram, a storage system far better than a hard drive because there are no moving parts and it is not susceptible to being dropped. All the frames are stored in a digital format. The lunchbox can hold up to 256 frames at 512x256 pixels or 128 frames at 512x 512 pixels. Neither one of these settings are broadcast quality but it give the animator a wonderful means to review there work. It is compatible with all software on the market and can be used with any camera out there. Unfortunately there is no adaptation to the PAL system in the UK. All the frame capturing is done in real time and has real time playback with no delay in captured frames. Mistakes can be corrected by simple reversing a frame correcting the animation and taking a new frame over the old one. The basic set up for the Lunch Box Sync is simple. You hook up your camera to the lunchbox and you hook the lunchbox up top a television monitor. Many of the companies that use the Lunch Box Sync also directly connect to the computer via firewire to the camera and into such programs as Adobe Premiere. These companies include MTV animations Celebrity Deathmatch, Will Vinton studios (The PJ's), and Skelington Studios (The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach).
Another similar technology involves using the computer. Similar to the Lunch Box is a program called Stop-motion Pro. It is a computer designed software package designed for traditional cell and Stop-motion animation. All you need is a home computer, a camera and the program. It works on the same principal as the Lunch Box as far as capturing, playback and real time editing. But the software is a vast decrease in the stability and functionality of the Lunch Box. In my opinion, the Lunch Box is a far superior Devise.
The final area I would like to go into is that of the computer. With the introduction of computers, animation took on a whole new meaning. Many feature films of today had animation incorporated into them for special effects. A film like Star Wars by George Lucas would rely heavily on computer animation mixed with stop-motion animation for many of its special effects. Toy Story, produced by Walt Disney Productions and Pixar Animation Studios, became the first full length feature film animated entirely on computers when it was released in 1995. CGI is significantly altering the role of the cinematographer by allowing an increasing composite image. The best known and most glamorous use of computers is, of course, in CGI - the spectacular realism of the film Jurassic Park (1995). However, the bulk of CGI usage is in *invisible* work like wire removal, location dressing, frame repairs, etc. By cutting down in cost of set fabrication model fabrication and animation time many studios are moving towards the area of computer assisted Stop-motion animation. Computer assisted motion control rigs are being employed more and more in this field. This allows the camera to move in a predetermined line of action that is broken down into framed intervals. An early example of this was 2001 A Space Odyssey. But this technique really took off with the advent of Starwars in 1977. The Motion control rig helped the starships achieve realistic flight through space and could be seen from all directions. What computers added to the medium was a quality unseen before this time. Before today, animators and editors had to composite multiple layers with a loss in generation quality. Nowadays with the advent of computers and digital composting, Different elements can be moved and edited endlessly and effortlessly within the computer. A great example of the merger between traditional Stop-motion animation and computer animation is the movie Monkey Bone (2001). (Fig.23) With his latest film, director Henry Selick (the man behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach) uses the latest methods of computer enhancement to combine human actors with a variety of weird, non-human counterparts (some of which are people in costumes and some of which are not). The most obviously animated of these is the title character, a talking, hyperactive simian named "Monkey Bone". Monkey Bone was a Traditional Stop-motion character comprised of a machined aluminum armature and injection foam body. Hey was animated on a blue screen which was composted with the pre-shot live action of Brandon Fraser. The two scenes were put together to create the final scene that we in before us of the monkey on Brandon's shoulders. But certain things don't work well in CG and shouldn't the computer shouldn't be used for everything involving Stop-motion. It is my opinion that the Wonderful Characters in James and the Giant Peach (fig.24) would not have worked well in CG and I don't think after Jurassic park, dinosaurs can or should be a Stop-motion model. Perhaps it is easy to say that CG is good for making the fantastic seem real were as puppets are more suited for making the fantastic seem creditable.
Throughout the last century the art or field of Stop-motion animation has evolved drastically. With the additions of new techniques and technologies we have seen how this art form has gone from the first special effect to the latest blockbuster hit. Through Melies and the Lumiere brother's ground breaking creations in the motion picture to the work of Willis O'Brien and George Pal, Stop-motion has changed a lot. The industry would not be nearly as far as it is today if it wasn't for Ray Harryhausen's Dynamation or Phil Tibbets Go-motion. These innovations led to the use and incorporation of computers and digital means into the field of Stop-motion animation. I believe Stop-motion animation is evolving. But I believe it is evolving back towards an aesthetical stage where we the animator shows the audience that this is a make believe puppet not a photorealistic dinosaur. That puppetry I believe is what makes the appeal of stop-motion animation. The fact that it is, make believe and most of the time very, very stylized. The fact that the seams are not hidden and if you the viewer look hard enough you can see them. To me Sop-motion animation is the truest for of 3-D animation because it really exists in space. The computer may add to the process by quickening it and reducing cost, but I believe the true art of Puppet, Stop-motion, or Claymation will be around for along time.