Stop-motion Animation

Stop-motion is a type of animation technique in which an object is physically manipulated and photographed in order to make it appear to move on its own. The object which can be anything is moved very slightly between each picture and when the series of frames are placed together in sequence create the illusion of movement.

Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect. Stop motion using objects is sometimes referred to as object animation While researching stop-motion animation i came across this video which i though was very well produced along with being particularly creative and wonderfully imaginative.

Stop-motion animation is very popular due to its uniqueness to animate objects that cannot move by themselves, along with the fact that almost anyone can do it, creatively and patience seem to be the limiting factors with stop-motion animation. All you need is a camera, a computer and an imagination. Nowadays these facilities are common so start-up costs can be quite low, amateur productions can be created with a camera or iPad, however creating an effective stop-motion animation involves specialist equipment with experienced animators not to mention the hours of time they take to create to produce.  

(How to create an animation video)

The average profession animation consists of:

•          24 frames per second, thats
•          1,440 frames for one minute
•          meaning 129,600 pictures for a 90 minute film

There are many advantages to stop-motion animation in education a fun and exciting classroom task to create a stop-motion animation can excite pupils and motivate them to research their chosen subject area along with improving communication and teamwork skills, team work is essential when creating a stop-motion animation and both these are transferable skills which are essential though out life.

More recently stop-motion animation have become very popular on video sharing websites and social networking websites, I have witness many of these first hand and are common on my Facebook new feed and they can be very creative and enjoyable to watch, like with many things that thrives on social networking sites animation has been picked up by businesses for advertising purpose their uniqueness and ability to make an inanimate object appear to move fits in perfectly to many business media marketing strategy and advertising campaigns

http://www.qudos-animations.co.uk/ is one example of this and shows how you can make a successful business from animation.

Another example of this is at the box office, the table shows the amount of money a good animation film can make. So chicken for example made $106,834,564 that is approximately £64,249,772 (when this was published).

Styles of stop-motion animation:

Claymation - in my eyes is the most complicated taking up a lot of time and patience to do well and as the name suggests uses clay models, the advantage are that you can create almost anything and move it in almost any manner the disadvantages are that the clay models can easily be damaged while filming.

Pixilation – is the use of live actors as puppets/characters, with the slight movements between frames gives the illusion that the person is moving, this technique is popular due to the lack of effort need although it does beg the question why not just make a video instead.



Cut-out animation – is created using characters made from card or paper or something similar, and uses a similar technique although not as popular due to how time consuming and needs a certain skilled drawing, on the other hand it does have few limitation with the freedom to create almost any idea.

Silhouette animation – very similar to the cut-out style, silhouette uses lighting to reflect the characters it has been around since the early 1900’s this styles tends to be easy to create and produce and creates an impressive final pieces.it is ideal for animations with a gloomy atmosphere, seen in a lot of Tim Burton’s marvelous creations.

A Brief history of stop-motion animation

• Stop-motion animations started out as short 20-30 second animations and are now used to create full feature length films.
• It is widely believed that the first ever stop-motion animation was created by Albert Smith and Stuart Blackton around the 1890’s titled ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’.
• Emile Cohl a French animator brought stop-motion animation popular with his used of puppets and drawings, his first animation for ‘Fantasmagorie’, (1908) consisted of  700 drawings that he photographed to produce the animation.
• Willis O’Brien produced ‘The Lost World’ (1925) which combining animated dinosaurs with live-action footage of actors which was a major leap forward for stop-motion animation, and later when to produced ‘King Kong’ (1933).
• And more recently Nick Park man behind 'CreatureComforts' and 'Wallace and Gromit', has brought stop-motion animation in to the 21^st century.
• Stop-motion animation has changed dramatically of the years, with the development of 3D digital animation films can be created quicker and easier.