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Stop Motion

Stop Motion animation is an animation that captures frame by frame with actual
objects in the real world moving slightly between frames. When you play the
frames chronologically at a fast pace it creates the illusion of movement. Stop
motion is similar to the 2D drawn animation because it still uses the persistence
of vision for the illusion to work. The 2D drawn animation started with spinning
discs that had pictures on the inner ring, the slits on the outside allowed you to
look though it would act like a shutter. As Stop motion progressed, developers
took the idea and improved it so instead of a spinning disc they look at what
frame rate was and took away animation on spinning discs and made animation
on film strips. This was when people would go to the theatre for short films that
had a story.

One of the first people to give the illusion of movement through stop motion was
a man named William George Horner. He was Born in Britain in 1786 and became
a mathematician in his later years. He then who went on to own his own school
at 27 years old. Then in 1834 he created the Zoetrope. It was a cylinder toy
with a series of pictures inside. As you can see there were slits on the outside of
the wheel which is where you would look through. The slits were made so the
image wouldnt blur when it was spun. This meant you could only see the series
of images through the short slits. It almost acts like a shutter by freezing the
image. The human eye could see the illusion of the images moving due to the
persistence of vision. This worked because the human eye has the illusion of an
after image still continuing due to the optics of the eye having the ability to
persist for a 1/16 of a second after the image is removed. So normally every 12
frames one picture in our head will be shown.

Animation slowly started to progress and different invention similar to the


zoetrope were created. The pioneer Emile Reynaud, was responsible for rising
era of cartoon animation. He created the Praxinoscope in 1877. This was an
animation device the inheritor to the zoetrope. It was similar to the zoetrope as it
used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. In
the cylinder there was a central drum of mirrors which were equally apart
between the axis and the picture strip. This meant the toys revolved the
reflection of each picture seen in the mirror drum and appeared static without
any complex stop-start mechanisms. The illustrated images blended together to
give a clear bright picture that didn't flicker nor distort. Three years later he then
projected the first animated film in public,Pauvre Pierrot. The animation consisted
of 500 individually painted images and originally lasted 15 minutes. You may
think how he made it public and show the animation to more than one person at
a time. He did this with transparent pictures with an oil lamp as a light source
behind to illuminate the images. Then, the mirror reflections passed the image
through a lens where it could be focused on a static background(projected).

The Developers Albert E. Smith and Stuart Blacktop created something new from
things like zoetropes,Praxinoscopes and Thaumatropes. Which where all things
pioneers made at that time. What these two pioneers did was create an
animation that made the illusion of movement through stop motion. They called
the animation the Humpty Dumpty Circus and it was created in 1898. In which
the stop motion revealed a toy circus coming to life, with animals and acrobats
coming to life. The way they came to create this was because all started from
the industry they both were in. When albert was younger he had a natural ability
for mechanics but also gifted for magic and sleight-of-hand. It was this talent that
lead him up to pairing with Stuart Blackton. However stuart Blackton was there
person who did filming as a cartoonist for Edison in 1896. To film they used the
projector from that project for their own acts. So the way they created he first
stop motion animation was because they used the this was because Albert E.
Smith borrowed his daughters toy circus and took several pictures of the
sculptures moving fame by fame and projected it on the Vita Graph.

Will OBrien was another developer who took things further with stop motion, He
was born in 1886 and became interested in sculpting and making small human
figures. He then started making wooden figures with joints that had a layer of
rubber and made them move and appear more realistic. Having joints on the
figures made everything easier to animate because it allowed you to move arms
and legs bit by bit. His major project that changed the world of animation was
King Kong. In order to make the animation he studied the movement of gorillas
therefore he frequently visited gorilla enclosures. In order to bring King Kong, he
studied their facial expressions and body movement and incorporated it into the
animation. He would of had several heads made for the gorillas facial
expressions. In the scene where King Kong is on top of a sky scraper there are
planes moving in the background. So he embedded the live video behind the
animation of the gorilla on the toy building. This technique is still used at
standards of todays animations. The special effects techniques that Will O Brien
developed where outstanding at the time. Even the green screens used today
came from him, he used blue screens to start with in order to include video
footage in the background of the actors. Other monster films in the 90s used
these blue screens because it was the recourses he developed and used himself
for his monster films.
Ray Harryhausen was born in 1920 and had a great interest in animation when
he was younger. The reason for his interests was because he watch King Kong in
1933 when it initially came out. He proceeded to create short animation films
and creating many models. He met his idle Will O Brien a few years later due to
a friend organising it. After meeting him he felt motivated to carry on his dream
as an animator. Ray Harryhausen Helped out George Pal with an animated show
by making replacement heads for the puppetoons. He crafted them him self and
made them look like the old ones that were made. After serving in the army for 4
years Willis Obrien got in contact with Ray Harryhousen in order to help in the
pre-production and making the animated film Mighty Joe Young. Will O Brien

was awarded an Oscar for the film even though the animation was mostly done
by Ray Harryhousen. However in 1992 he received an Oscer himself for the
Lifetime Achievement. Ray Harryhousen found himself only doing low budget
productions because big picture movies saw the stop motion process as
expensive. He only captured the interest from little companies in which he
worked for. Most of his work combined his stop motion craft and live footage.
Similar to WillO Brien with his work on the Blue screen. His last film was Clash Of
the Titans which was a big budget film. It included big stars like Sir Laurence
Olivier although the true stars for the film where the creatures that he crafted
himself like Medusa which he has said to be One of the best sequences I have
ever done.

Aardman Animations was first created by two men, David Sproxton and Peter
Lord who started their partnership through animating in school. The name
Aardman Animations was first registered in 1972. After graduating they both
moved to Bristol and created their fist professional animation production 'Morph'.
Which they created for a childrens programme 'take hart'. In 1985 Nick Park
joined the company full time and he went on to create some of the companies
most popular shows,shaun the sheep and Wallace and Gromit. Due to the high
frame rate running at 24 frames per second in Shaun the sheep this meant it
take longer to make because the higher frame meant more pictures to take and
more subtle the movement was between shots. Later on in 1986 they
collaborated with Stephen Johnson and the Brothers Quay to create a new rock
video named Sledgehammer. When created the video went on to win many
awards that same year. In 1989 they were furthermore commissioned by Channel
4 to create a series of a 5 minute short films called 'Lip Synch'. In 1993 they Won
an Oscar for 'The wrong Trousers', Through winning over 30 different awards it
became at the time on of the most successful animated films. Aardman
Animation continue to make animation films and TV shows and adverts, few of
these include chicken run, flushed away and Aurther Christmas.
Tim Burton was born in California in 1958. He majored in animation at California
institute of Arts. He then worked as a Disney animator before taking himself in
charge of things. He started to become well known for themes around horror and
fantasy. Some of his work include Edward scissor hands, Beetle juice and The
nightmare before Christmas. In 1982 made an award winning short film could
vincent and 2 years later he created a version of the Frankenstein Story called
Frankenweenie and shortly after that he was commissioned by Paul Reubens to
direct the comedy Pee-Wees adventures.After creating the most famous of his
films Beetle Juice he created his own production company and he has continued
to make many of films and earning many more awards such as the Empire
Legend Award,Daytime Emmy for outstanding presentation for Edward scissor
Hands ans a Hugo Award for Edward scissor hands.
Now animation is being used for a wide range of media purposes such as
advertisement, E4 are very know with their animated sketches as they are
unquie due to the flexibility of stop motion. Animated music videos are also
produced as they can help tell a story and for the animated look. Gorillaz use this
in their music videos and it gained a large audience with their unique animated
music video.

http://www.rayharryhausen.com/biography.php
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366063/bio

http://www.animateclay.com/index.php/articles/11-stop-motion-pioneers/49-rayharryhausen
http://www.scottdaros.com/claymation-frame-rates.html

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