Thursday, September 01, 2016
The Staggering Evolution of Stop-Motion in Film History
sploid.gizmodo.com: Filmmakers have been stop-motion animation for eons, but holy crap man, people have gotten really, really good at it. This video by Vugar Efendi tracks the evolution of stop motion in film starting with The Enchanted Drawing in 1900, which was really just a drawing of a face changing facial expressions, all the way up to the gloriously beautiful Kubo and the Two Strings, which was released this summer.
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I have commented on many a stop motion article before about how much I love it. Its really amazing to see all the history in one video, I just really wish it was a lot longer. I love the transition where you can start to see how the animators wanted it to look almost like they were animating the characters rather than using stop motion, but then a few clips later you can see where they start to use very specific materials that are clearly close ups of fabrics or strings, or paper like in the Little Prince. I almost appreciate the material specificity more because it really fools the eye where your brain is telling you there is no way they animated the movie with millions of photos, but then you can see how they hand made all the characters and you have to believe the dedication. It’s just truly mind-boggling how they can think and imitate every human motion and weather effect with stop motion.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how incredible stop-motion really is. Recently, I saw Laika Studio's latest stop-motion film, Kubo and the Two-Strings and it actually took my breath away. It seems that with Kubo and last year's Anomalisa,stop-motion finally has found an honored place in cinema. Stop-motion films often have trouble at the box-office due to the technique's creepy, jolted nature. That's why it's so often used hand in hand with a morbid storyline, such as Tim Burton's films shown in the video, Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride, and even Laika's Coraline. Obviously a creepy movie like this is bad for kids, but due to its animation it isn't successfully marketed to adults. However, with the addition of computer animation in addition to stop motion to provide a blur to the choppy nature, the technique is less scary and can more easily be lent to beautiful and inviting movies. Talking again about Kubo, the film was so meticulously animated and crafted, and fit the Japanese folk tale's intricate and interwoven nature. It also was beautiful with the use of Japanese puppet and Kabuki theater influences. The animation was not scary and really added to the beauty of the storytelling, and was surprisingly not scary for kids (except the kabuki witch sisters.)
Also, in the video we see the inclusion of stop-motions former primary use- as a way to create seemingly massive movie monsters. Some of the creatures in here were created by stop-motion genius, Ray Harryhausen, who did the special effects for movies like Jason and the argonauts. It's so intersting to see the roles stop-motion has played over the years and just what we can use it for in its simple and yet intricate nature.
The cool part about stop motion animation is that even as much as our tools have changed over the many years of film work the basic premise of the art, to create sequential image that, when linked together, give the impression of movement as if you had filmed the scene. The advantage to this process however is that you can move objects in between frames of a video and make it appear as if you were filming a magical foot brushing for example. Watching this video was like watching a sped up version of a maturing art form. I hope it continues to get better at the same rate because if so there is going to be some truly beautiful animation in the future. I was also surprised by the star wars clips. We always hear about how good the animation was but as someone who learned to love the movies despite the effects rather than because of them it is really cool to see those original animations in context and to see how groundbreaking they truly were.
The reason I first clicked on the article was not for the headline, but because of the iconic Nightmare Before Christmas Moon and Jack on the spiral hill picture. I am a huge fan of the movie and Tim Burton’s imagination (you can see the same picture on a poster on my wall hanging right above my head, actually right now), and it has inspired so much of my fantasies and way of looking at things. So when I saw the article/video was about stop motion, I knew I must comment on this. I’m first going to say the music right at the beginning put me off only slightly because I associate the same music (or at least melody?) with a certain creepypasta, but that is neither here nor there. The video was absolutely wonderful and all around awesome. I never really intensely thought about the evolution of stop-motion, but when they started showing the older ones, I thought about how creative that was. Even though to us it may seems cheesy and totally fake, for the times that didn’t have our technology, to have it even produced and to have put so much effort into, which I bet took a lot, (and it still does), it is incredible. When they moved into the more recent ones like Nightmare or James and the Giant Peach or Corpse Bride or Walice or the Chickens one or etc. it totally brought me back to my childhood, I was obsessed with those movies and my dad would play, Nightmare and Corpse Bride in particular, in the living room, and those are some of the most happiest moments I have. I really want to see the new Kubo movie, hopefully I will in time. I also really want to work on a stop motion movie, even if it is just getting coffee for everyone.
I personally love stop-motion so much! Unlike other kinds of animation methods, stop-motion just emphasizes the idea of using old techniques in new ways. Like previous comments state, even with all this new technology accessible to film makers, there is still a use for simple creation. This video highlighted some of my favorite movies from Beetlejuice to Corpse Bride to The Nightmare Before Christmas. There were also some films in the video which I had no idea had stop-motion. It really opened my eyes to the possibilities in the world of animation. I keep forgetting that you don't necessarily need a computer or high tech animation softwares to create. I really hope that this art form of stop-motion continues to be used in the future and just gets better with time. As the video showed us, the evolution of stop-motion has gotten better and better in such a short period of time. I can't wait to see how far the art form goes in animation.
I love this video! I think stop motion animation has stood the test of time as one of the most artistically impressive yet also charming types of media. I think it’s interesting how, even though technology has obviously progressed to the point that stop motion animation isn’t “necessary” to create a moving image, it has maintained its place within the film world. Also, I think it’s cool to note how even now, as companies integrate technology into their stop motion process to make things more “believable” (see Laika), there is still a type of kitschy charm present in a lot of stop motion animation, through the use of not completely smooth movements and the prevalence of found objects, that give “modern” stop motion the warm look and feel of familiarity present (accidentally) in some of the first animations of this style. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is one of my favorite examples of this (the stuffing coming out of the bear, the oozing potions, etc). It’s very exciting to watch how the medium is evolving. I’d love to learn more about these stylings and see how series of picture can maintain so much life.
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