Famous Stop Motion Animators

Tim Burton

Today, Tim Burton is one of the most well known film stop motion animator. He has worked on a great deal of film projects. A few great films that can be credited to Tim Burton are ‘Batman’, ‘Edward Scissor hands’, ‘BeetleJuice’, ‘James and the giant peach’ and more recently The 2010 version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Tim Burton ahs received many awards including BAFTA’s and Golden Globes.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/

The Pioneers Of Stop Motion Animation

The very first usage of stop motion animation was  performed by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton  in their film ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’ in 1897. This film involved a toy circus and toy animals that were animated.

Edward J. Muybridge was the one of the first pioneers of stop motion animation and he used a series of photographs of a horse’s gallop to prove that horses are airborne for short periods of time while galloping.

Another early use of stop motion animation was in the popular film ‘Fun in a Bakery Shop’ in 1902.

                                      http://mubi.com/films/fun-in-a-bakery-shop

One of the very first uses of clay animation as created by the first female animated, Helena Smith dayton. She released a film in 1917 named Romeo and Juliet.

One of the biggest animators who used stop motion animation was Willis O’brien who worked on the animation ‘The lost world’ in 1925. This animation features around 50 different prehistoric creatures. He was mostly famed by his work on the movie ‘King kong in 1933’ which is a milestone of his achievements.

http://www.cine-vue.com/2011/10/barbican-film-lost-world.html

Animators who pushed the boundaries of animation

There are several stop motion animators who made stop motion animation what it is today through their work and dedication to stop motion animation.

One of the greatest stop motion animators of all time was Willis O’Brien. Willis O’brien worked on several movies, with his first being ‘The Dinosaur and the missing link: A prehistoric Tragedy’.  This movie impressed Albert Einstein, and he was hired by the Edison company shortly afterwards to animate several sort prehistoric films. Later on in his career, he worked on the movie ‘ The lost world’. While the models featured in the movie itself went created by O’Brien, they were based heavily of his previously build models. Perhaps the most memorable film Willis O’Brien worked on was ‘King Kong ‘ in 1933. The models in the film king kong were actually created for another movie that never went ahead. Willis O’Brien actually inspired famous animators such as Ray Harryhousen and Pete Peterson into the industry thanks to the work he had done on several famous movies. 

Willis O'Brien

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_H._O'Brien

Another great asset to stop motion was Ray Harryhousen. Ray Harryhousen was inspired by Willis O’brien to becoming a stop motion animator, and used Model Animation much like Willis o’brien. Harryhousen worked on several movies, but he is most well known for his work on Jason and the argonaughts with the scene featuring  skeletal warrior battling the protagonist. The animation of these skeletons was very advanced for the time that the film was out, which led the scene to be memorable to many. Harryhousen however, did work on many other famous films such as Sinbad. Similarly to Jason and the argonaughts, there was a scene is Sinbad where the protagonist fights a single skeletal warrior. This animation took around 4 Months for Harryhousen to complete but was never matched by another animator for many years. This scene actually inspired many famous animators today such as Tim Burton.

Ray Harryhousen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen

Key Stop Motion Films

King Kong (1933)

One of the greatest examples of stop motion animations in a film was king kong in 1933 by Willis O’brien. The dinosaurs and king kong himself were completely created and animated with the use of clay. The effects of this film, using clay animation, were well ahead of their time.

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/king-kong/images/2814496/title/king-kong-1933-photo

Jason and the Argo-naughts

Another fantastic example of stop motion animation in a film was Jason and the Argo-naughts. The animation takes place in a  famous scene where the protagonist has to fight 7 animated skeletons. This animation was very realistic for its time, and is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. The animation was created mainly by the famous animator Ray Harryhausen .

http://theillusuveonesreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/jason-and-argonauts.html

Techniques Used In Stop Motion Animation

There are several different techniques that have been used to create stop motion animations which are all quite different in terms of materials used and the effect they give.

Clay

Clay is a very popular technique used in top motion animation. There have been many different movies and television series that feature stop motion animation created by a whole range of  individuals and companies alike. Using clay for animation give s a very cartoon like effect, but is potentially limitless. The animator can create a whole variety of characters and objects and easily change is appearance frame by frame by simply removing, adding and modifying the clay. Clay animations can be very time consuming however, with films such as chicken run taking almost 3 years to create, if not more for an hour or two of content.

http://jbd-p4.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/review-of-chicken-run.html

Cutout animation

Cutout animation features the animator using a range of different materials such as card or foil to create characters and animate them frame by frame. Cutout animation gives of a very cartoon like effect, much like clay, but usually looks much more un-realistic. The beauty of using Cutout animation is that there is such a vast amount of materials that could be used. Some of the benefits involved in cutout animation is that many of the cutout pieces that are made, such as character body parts, can be kept and reused, meaning that the animators do not have to remake certain parts of the animation again. This does save time, but these animations still take a long time. A good example of cutout animation is the popular American TV show named south park. Each episode takes about a week to create, with episodes lasting about 20 minutes.
http://www.picgifs.com/wallpapers/south-park/