Hello and welcome to video on stop motion.

By the end of this video you will

have great understanding about stop motion and the history of it. So lets start
from the beginning.
What is stop motion? Stop motion animation is an animation that is captures one
frame at time with physical objects that are moved between frames. When you
play back the sequence of images rapidly, it creates the illusion of movement.
The basic process of animation involves taking a photograph of an objects or
characters, moving them slightly, and taking another photograph. When you play
back the images consecutively, the objects or characters appear to move on
their own. Some early examples of stop motion films were "The Humpty Dumpty
Circus" (1898) and in "Fun in a Bakery Shop" in 1902 which was the early stages
of stop motion animation. You see stop motion animation all the time just in
different styles, for example it appears in commercials, music videos, television
shows and features in films. Even if you don't realize it. For those not knowing
much about stop motion, many people think of stop motion as just one specific
style, such as making clay animation, well you wrong which is why I am here
today. Stop motion animation uses a several techniques to create the effect,
these techniques are persistence of vision, stops- frames, frame rates and
movement of models, which have been designed by a variety amount of people
from the years of 1898 to 2016.

Persistence of vision is a theory that states that the human eye always retains
images from of a fraction of seconds this means that everything we see is a
subtle blend of what is happening now and what happened a fraction of a second
ago, weird but cool at the same time. This theory stops the world going
completely blank when we blink our eyes, when the light strikes our eyes, the
retina inside our eyes retains the impression of light so we can see. For example
theres a cage and a Bird on this photo drawn on card, which has 2 strings
attached , if I spin the cards it creates an illusion of the bird looking like its in the
cage, and thats persistence of vision.
Another technique of stop motion is stop frame, this is something that I
explained at the beginning which is the movement of an object when captured at
one frame at a time, the object is moved slightly whilst a still camera takes loads
of photo until the movement has been completed, after that step is complete, if
you play the photos at a fast pace the object will move creating the illusion of
the movement, the number of images you capture, is known as frame rates.
Here is an example, in this clip you can see a loads of objects moving, these
products have slowly been moved slowly taking 1 photo at a time, the photos are
then put on an editing site and the stop motion looks like this. This is the basic
understanding of the of the movements of the stop motion, As more frame rates
are taken of the object, the quality of the video will be much clearer and the
video will run more smoothly. Another question you might be asking is how did
people discover the illusion effect of stop motion?
Joseph Plateau is a famous pioneer who was the first person to demonstrate the
illusion of a moving image, to do this Joseph used a device called the
pohenakistoscope which he created in 1892, this device involves rotating disc
which contained repeating drawing images on the device, it also has a small slits

on the device to cut parts of the pictures out to carry out the moving illusion. In
the 1890, camera were only just invented which meant it was hard for people to
purchase any cameras during that time, so the device joseph inventions lead on
to us creating stop motion movement now. Joseph plateau also included some of
the techniques when he was created the pohenakistcope, for example the Joseph
didnt use the technique of persistence of vision, it just happened naturally but
the pictures on the device were drawn by him (Im going to write more in how
the techniques had effect on his device).

Joseph plateau was 1 of 6 pioneers that have designed a device to the create the
illusion of movement, another pioneer was called William Horner, he was born in
1786 and was the creator of the Zoetrope. The Zoetrope was seen as one of the
several devices that was used in early animation. The Zoetrope was quite similar
to the phenakistiscope as well as using the same purpose of it. Horner however,
had modified it in order to create his version which was different in many ways,
the device could be used by several people at the same time instead of one. The
drawings were not placed on the disc but on a paper strip instead, the zoetrope
contains drum which was put on a base and then spun. The viewers would then
look through the slits passing and they would then see the pictures of the strip
be replaced by another giving the illusion of movement on the device. Even
though Horner didnt discover or develop any of these techniques in the
zoetrope, he still used all the techniques in stop motion, for example the
technique of persistence of vision was around when at the time, the technique
was used by Horner as he knew a sequence of fast moving pictures or movie to
create the illusion, the technique of frame rates and stop frames were very low
however, by spinning the device at a face pace the pictures still created the
illusion. There want any model of movements , however at the beginning Horner
painted photos of the strips of paper, this mean he had be very careful in his
drawings because the motion will not flow well look as the drum is being spun
around.

So I hope youve gained some good knowledge on some of the pioneer inventors
for stop motion, as the movement of stop motion enhanced, there became
developers using the technique of stop motion to create the effect in a film.
Willis O'Brien was born in 1892 and was the special effects developer using the
technique of stop motion animation, in his early career in the 1990s he began to
make short films on prehistoric creatures. In 1925 OBrien called the lost world
which made stop motion rise to cinema screens, this is because in the film, the
audience could see the combination between the small King Kong model looking
huge on the screen and the real life people on the screen, and this was a
massive improvement on stop motion as nobody has ever seen this until now.
OBrien used the technique of model of movements by creating the dinosaur out
of clay which was detailed making it look realistic on the screen. After the
success of that film and the rise of OBrien, he created an even most successful
film known as King Kong in 1933. The story of King Kong for those who dont
know is about a giant ape who is brought to New York and escapes to terrorize
the city, this film was a box office blockbuster and a film that will never be

forgotten because of It being one of the first ever monster movie. O'Brien and his
team constructed miniature sets which were used in almost all the scenes of
Kong in the jungles and the city. Foam, rubber, fur and aluminium were
materials he used to create some of the sets in some of the scenes, to make the
character of King Kong its self, OBrien used bendable wires to create some the
facial expression like this (show photos of facial expression). The successful
thing about this film is that He made audiences really feel that New York was
under attack and in only a few scenes did he use a life sized Kong hand or foot,
heres a clip of their most famous scenes. With Kong at top the Empire State
Building, holding the girl he fell in love with and being attacked by planes, is one
of the most famous parts in film history. His work on King Kong are considered
classic examples of stop motion photography, this is because he managed to
make the gorilla look like an un real size but he used an effect to trick people
which is why the film was so successful. He did, however, win the first Oscar for
special effects, for the animation in 1949 as was known as a legend of producing
animated films.

Another well-known developer is called Jan Svankmajer who was born in 1934, in
the early stages of his career he studied the Institute of Industrial Arts and the
Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan
Svankmajer started working as a theatre director mainly focused with the
Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre, in 1964 he started making short films,
and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years. In 1988
svankmajer produced the famous animated film called Alice which is short for
Alice in wonderland, in this film svankamjer used the technique of models of
movement and using objects such as a dolls and the bunny, and real people in
the film too , here is a clip of some of the film (show clip ) if we watched this film
now you would probably think this film was quite strange for an Alice in
wonderland film, but back then it was successful film winning the best featured
film in 1989 due the skill of stop motion . this is film there was a massive
change to the stop animation to the world as many people were shocked that
clay animation was moving, Svankmajer also used the technique known as
dyanmation which is when real people and acting with stop animation by making
the dolls look the same size as Alice but really, there were miniature object like
this. These 2 films made a massive impact on stop motion and by this point, the
development of stop motion was used a lot more in films.
By the 1990s stop motion has moved on being used many people using
different styles and technique to create the effect, one style that was successful
in stop motion was contemporary animation
The Quay brothers are identical twins named Timothy and Stephen who play a
role of influential stop motion animator. These boys both went to the royal
college of art after they studied illustration in Philadelphia, Stephen studied film
and Timothy studied illustration which brought them both into the film industry.
They then began designing book covers for science fiction books teaming up with
writers such as Bruno Schulz and Robert Walser. The twin brothers are best
known for their puppets designs and feature the length films, this is because the
early stages of their film, they involved puppets made of doll parts and
organic/inorganic material using a dark atmosphere like this, they kept there

dark atmosphere theme throughout the whole of their work which I felt was very
effective, this is because the quay brothers created unique style by how they
made their stop motion.The quay brothers created tension only using puppets
throughout the whole stop motion, they also were the first tp changed the genre
of animation as being more quirky and dark whereas the typical stop animation
was quite comic. Here is a clip of some of their work. The Quay brothers are also
involved in creative development from stage design in opera, ballet, jazz and
theatre since 1988. During their career, these brothers won a dozens of awards
for their films - 'Street of Crocodiles' is one of their most famous pieces of work,
and was named one of the top ten animated films of all time, here is a clip. They
included a story featured by dolls on sets that have created, the background
music creates the style of their short films which I find is very effective

Another well-known contemporary animator is known Aardman animation. The

company was established by peter lord and David sproxton In 1972 when they
registered the name Aardman Animations.in the early stages of their career they
team up with the quay brothers to create a new rock music video known as
sledge hammer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWJE0x7T4Q this was one
of the first stop animation music videos ever made, you can clearly see in this
video that quality of stop motion has improved as there are lot more frame rates,
they are also known for using Claymation technique which is when they fit clay
around a wire skeleton, they moved on from the developers such as wills o Brien
and Jan Svankmajer. As technology advanced they started making their own sets
using there projectors to produces feature films and short films such as Wallace
and Gromit. The franchise of Wallace and Gromit has been recognised as one of
the biggest and best forms of stop animation, the released there first film known
as the great day out in 1989, A Grand Day Out became a major talking point,
along with another of Nick's creation, this short film stunned the public by being
nominated for Academy Awards. But Wallace and Gromit had captured the
public's heart and it wasn't long before the next short film was released. From
the 1985 to 2000 stop motion has developed massively due to everything I have
spoken about, without the pioneers, developer and techniques of animation,
none of this would happen and from this, the stop motion moved on even more
as they released the first ever featured long film known as chicken run in 2000.
This film only involved stop animation only which came out to be a very
successful film from adults to kids. This engaging stop-motion, Claymation
adventure tells the story of an American rooster who falls in love with a gorgeous
hen on a British farm. The couple decides to run away from the farm, but they
must first contend with the evil farmer who is intent on keeping them under her
control. The chickens decide to attempt an escape so they don't get turned into
chicken pies, this film was change to film industry as the whole film was based
on animation, stop frames, and frame rates to create this successful film.
The way stop motion has been distributed has changed due to the way
technology has advanced. At the start you were only able to view stop motion in
cinema and picture houses , nowadays because people have more TV and
technology, you are now able to watch stop motion show without spending any
money. But today as its 2016 you are able to view stop animation or platforms
such as YouTube, iPhone, DVD as well as cinemas. Stop motion was most popular

on cinema during the 80s 90s because that was your only way in watching
short films or featured films, even still people go to the cinema and watch stop
motion films but after a while when the hype of film has wearied off, it will be
released on the TV platform such as sky movies, Netflix or YouTube. Watching
stop motion animation is much easier to view then back in the old days, from
technology I was allowed to include the video clips of stop motion which you
have seen today, people also upload there work from stop animation techniques
that they have done. Stop motion animation has come far from when it first
started in 1898 to where it is now , this is hugely due to the technique that have
been developed by pioneers such as Edward Muybridge and William Horner who
made a massive impact on the progression of illusion from the devices that they
created. The developers such as wills O Brien and Jan Svankmajer who
developed the stop motion skill by adding effects to the image for example, Willis
o Brien manage to create a king Kong miniature model but looking huge on the
screen, jan svankmajer did the opposite by making the human sized alike, look
miniature. Stop animation is also a big money making business, this is because
of Hollywood, UK and the whole world. This is also because of contemporary
animation artist such as Aardman animation making featured long length films
such as chicken run, and Wallace and Gromit. When it comes down to making
models technology has improved so much,3d print is has been designed to
create different facial expressions so instead of re making the models, it can be
inserted like this . The quay brothers also changed the genre of stop animation
because the typical show would be very comic whereas the quay brothers
created a certain style, changing the genre of stop animation. Animation is a
unique and distinctive style that is used in music videos. When animation is used
in music videos it sometimes features a dream like sequence that would be hard
to achieve it it was shot on video, this brings the audience on a surreal journey.
An example of a music video such as this is The Gorillaz music video for Clint
Eastwood. In this music video, animation is used to tell a surreal story of the
band rehearsing and then spirits invading their rehearsal time and changing the
location from a white room to a graveyard where sinister events take place
including, gravestones breaking out from the earth, gorillas rising from the dead
and then performing the famous thriller routine and a human vs zombie gorillas
fight.

Thank you for listening, I hope you gained a great understanding of stop
animation and learnt a lot from this video, have a great day.
Reference http://www.aardman.com/the-studio/history/
http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/history