nofilmschool.com: What's your favorite form of animation? There are so many different versions of the art form it can be hard to choose. But when many people branch out from the 2D draws of Disney fare, they find themselves enraptured by claymation. There's something special and remarkable about claymation characters. From the Christmas specials that usually indoctrinate people to movies like Wallace and Gromit, which came later in claymation history, these movies capture imaginations.
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I absolutely love claymation. From Fantastic Mr. Fox, to that one SpongeBob special episode. Something about its delicate but realistic nature is so cool and creates such cool art. When I think about the time put into a 30-second clip blows my mind. The ungracefulness of claymation beats the online drawn animation that is quite popular today. Reading this article showed me the techniques these claymation artists use for different techniques in their videos. The 3-D nature of claymation with the sculpted character speaks to me as a viewer and art student. The way the artist must think about the character they made moves– joint by joint is thinking about art in a nuanced way. Not just drawing painting or sculpting a leg, but to think about it in a human way, how it moves, and how it can translate in a shot-by-shot film. I am truly amazed by claymation.
Claymation is so wild to me. Animation in general is hard for me to wrap my head around. Particularly the fact that every frame is created and then spliced together. I absolutely love the look of claymation. I find it so easy to make a movie unique and stylized when using any form of animation. I remember my first introduction to claymation was through Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. It feels very nostalgic to me now and I feel partly why most of the claymations I watch now feel as though they have a sense of wonder. I remember after watching Fantastic Mr. Fox for the first time last year looking up whether or not the whole movie was claymation. I was so shocked as the whole thing felt very smooth. I don't think I could ever work on an animation, much less a claymation. I feel like I would get so frustrated, but good for anyone who loves that work.
I think Claymation is an extremely cool and unique art form and I wish more companies would make movies using it. Though, I understand the extensive amount of time and hours any animated piece of media takes, but especially something like a stop motion claymation movie or tv show. Some of my all time favorite movies and tv shows are claymation such as Coraline, Nightmare before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit, Kubo, and so many more. I think the ability to have these character’s motions be so fluid and the stylization of these movies are so incredibly stunning and imaginative. Laika Studios is one of my favorite film companies, and they specialize in claymation animation movies and absolutely excel at them. I have watched a lot of behind the scenes videos with their movies and it is staggering to see all the little details and hours and hours of work for something that will be seen in the movie for five seconds.
I have always been fascinated by Claymation. I remember as a kid watching the Christmas movies which employed Claymation, which the article mentions as most people's first exposure to it. I remember thinking it was a little creepy, however as I have gotten older, I have started to appreciate the intricacy of it, much like the article said many people experience. Reading the article was very eye opening, as I previously did not know all that much about the inner workings of it. In my high school career, I had made armature sculptures, but I never had the opportunity to make Claymation with them, but it is actually something I have always wanted to try. I also really appreciated the fact that the article contained the history of Claymation. I am someone who really enjoys knowing and understanding the who, what, where, when, and how, and typically understanding comes from those five things. Overall, I really enjoyed reading the article.
This article specifically caught my attention because I was just watching an episode of the TV show talking about how expensive claymation animation is and one of the characters was really scared of claymation. I agree with her. I personally find claymation to be so creepy and so unsettling and I kind of hate it, but I definitely have respect for the people who do it. I am kind of in shock about The Fantastic Mr. Fox being claymation. I already knew it was in claymation, but I didn’t really think about it until now, and I am wondering if there are other materials aside from clays used to make the characters because these characters have, and the animals have a lot of different textures on them that do not look like clay. Even though this stuff creeps me out, I now feel really inclined to go try it because it kind of sounds fun but it definitely seems like there would be a lot of time commitment, but you could get so creative with this film style.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this article, it broke down what Claymation is, the history of it, and even how to do your own Claymation. It’s interesting to think that Claymation has been around since the early 1900s, and how it grew in popularity. I do kind of forget that a lot of the classic Christmas specials use Claymation, which maybe goes to show just how well done they are. I agree with the writer’s comment that one of their favorite Claymation movies is Chicken Run, it’s mine too. It’s also one of the first things to pop into my head when someone brings up Claymation. While I have no plans on ever filming my own Claymation film, it was enlightening to learn just how much work goes into it. It was also helpful to understand why so many Claymation films are done without any dialogue, since it allows them to be screened all over the world.
Claymation and stop motion in general has always been so fascinating to me, and I have so much respect for this artists. I’ve done stop motion videos for a couple class projects before, and those were really difficult to make, so doing claymation much be so much more difficult. The article have a really helpful and descriptive tutorial on how claymation can be made. I grew up watching shows like Shaun the sheep, and other similar shows, and I’ve always been so fascinated by how they’re made. I’ve seen the behind the scene clips, and I still am so curious by how much more the editors are doing to make sure that the clip runs smoothly. Most scenes in Shaun the Sheep as well as The Lego Movie are made in a way where you can tell the movie/film is stop motion, and that just for me, makes the whole experience better, because you can appreciate the artistry.
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