Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Behind the Scenes of Stop-Motion Animation
Tested: Two great videos I saw recently diving into the intricacies of the stop-motion animation process. The first is an Academy Originals production, following Laika animator Daniel Alderson as he explains how he collaborates with the director, fabricators, armaturists, schedulers, and production team to animate one shot in a film.
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6 comments:
This is so cool! It's a great way to see a few more pieces of the process that most of the articles on stop motion animation gloss over to show the final product. It's especially interesting to see the incredible amount of technical detail that is part of each puppet: the animator had to visit several different people that each made tiny adjustments to the figure. The 3D printed face, maybe, is one of the reasons for this amount of technical work, as instead of having to carve the facial expressions and adjust the figure for each frame, they just replace the face to reflect the expression that they want and adjust the puppet accordingly. The 3D printed faces are interesting, as the video showed them animating the scene off of a storyboard. So do they animate each scene to a high enough quality to 3D print hundreds of expressions, or just make a variation at the beginning of the whole filming process and work from that set?
This video is so incredibly beautiful. I will watch a behind-the-scenes of a stop motion video/movie (or just a stop motion video in general) whenever I get the chance, because the time and care that goes into such large-scale efforts on such a small stage is so inspiring to see. I loved how this video didn’t just show the animator himself, but showed the various other positions (scheduler, rigger, production assistants, etc), which mimic scarily well the same positions that would go into a normally-sized theatrical production. My friend and I spent a few weeks this past summer making our own stop motion mini movie, and it was so much harder than I had expected. Even though we had both had experience in hands- on crafts such as painting, paper- macheing, and scenic model making, the intricacies of how the bodies were supposed to move and how to get them to stay in one place for long enough to get a shot (not to mention the sheer number of shots we needed just to get 2ish minutes of smooth footage) was a difficult process. Hearing the animator discuss the connection he feels to his work gave me so many ooey-gooey art feelings. It’s always great to hear about how grateful artists are to be working in their field; his satisfaction with being so caring and detailed was clear. I would love to, one day, work on a stop motion film shoot of this scale; I think that stop motion video will always hold onto a certain kind of charm that sets it apart from any other film medium.
Just a warning before I comment, I have a small talent-crush on Laika. And when I say small, I mean small on an astronomical scale. Kind of like how our sun is small (when compared to the universe), but it's still the sun. Anyways, I have been waiting for Kudo for months now, and I am so excited to see it. Laika does beautiful work. One of their more recent movies, "Boxtrolls" runs amazingly smoothly and is aesthetically astounding. The faces express so much emotion and there is color everywhere, even though the world is grey. The movie is on Netflix. You should watch it, it's child appropriate, it is art (be sure to wait till after the credits because there is this fantastic little short in which they include pictures of the entire set and the animator moving the puppets and it is so amazing because you can see how long it all takes because the animator's clothes change because a small little bloop at the end of a movie took multiple days. Sorry to fangirl, I'm just in love) I have worlds of respect for stop motion animation. Going into this video, I knew about the puppets and the rigging and the art of it all, I did not know about the management side of the company. Jared (I think that's what his name is), the scheduling guy, is amazing. Honestly, that room with all the post-its (he could have used excel, but it wouldn't be as visually impressive) puts our production schedule to shame. Its seems that every time I forget how amazing and vital the managers are to our lives, an article or event like this swoops in to remind us. Thank you managers for doing you!
I cannot tell you how much I would love to work designing a film like this. The amount of detail and attention each character, each frame gets is so incredible. But I'm sure at times they want to pull their hair out, working endlessly for over two years to create a film. But, the pay-off is beautiful, and I hope more people grow to appreciate stop-motion animation. Right now, I feel like it's such a hard to market type of film. Because even though they're meant for children's movies, often the subject matter, or even just the overall appearance of stop motion is frightening. So, it's in a hard market between it being too scary for kids, and too childlike for adults. But, with movies like Anomalisa emerging, where the film is directed at an adult, film loving crowd, it can be viewed in a new, more serious light, and can be more respected artistically. I just watched ANomalisa this week, and I thought the stop-motion benefitted it immensely and the story could not have been told in any other way.
And that's where I think we should produce stop-motion. In films where this is way the story must be told. And hopefully they branch into more accessible films.
I think that stop-motion animation is a beautiful artform. The intricacy and detail that is put into it is just astounding. I feel like it is alike to theatres model set, just taken to the next level. It is like theatre in other ways as well. There are many departments that all work in tandem in order to making a final product. I thought that it was interesting how they even have a rigging department. It makes sense when really thinking about it, but it was a bit unexpected. At the end of the video, when they showed the final sequence in play, I could hardly believe that it was made using stop-motion animation. It was just so smooth and perfect, it seemed like it was made using a computer. From the video, it is evident that the main animator featured truly loves his job. What could seem boring or tedious to others is exciting to him.
Stop motion animation is such an incredible and time intensive art form. I feel like many people underestimate the sheer amount of work and time that has to be poured into the makings of stop motion animation; I remember back in high school many of my peers would say something like "Let's make a stop motion animation! It'll be easy! You just take a bunch of photos, we'll be done in no time." I would hear this and sneer because this art form is truly a labor of love and not for those who aren't extremely patient. I've done a couple of stop-motion animation videos in my day, but I am obviously nowhere near as good to call myself an animator. I was in Montreal in February of last year and I visited the National Film Board of Canada and took a stop-motion animation class there. It was a lot of work to put together a short video, but the results were so much fun and I would totally do it again.
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