Stop motion or stop frame is a form of animation that involves making hundreds of thousands of

settings, with characters, which all flow seamlessly into one another. It is occasionally confused with
the time-lapse effect, as both involve the taking of photographs over a long period of time to create
a final film; however time-lapse involves using much lower frame rates, so that when played
normally, the images appear to be moving incredibly fast. The first instance of deliberate stop-
motion animation is recorded as Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blacktons The Humpty Dumpty Circus
from 1897, in which a toy circus, with tiny animals, comes to life. A film using similar techniques was
released the same year: El Hotel Electrico by Segundo de Chomon, from Spain. Progressing from
here, the stop-motion animation technique became increasingly popular, even with an adaptation of
Romeo and Juliet being animated and produced by Helena Smith Dayton in 1916. In 1933, Willis
OBrien animated King Kong, which was subject to wide critical acclaim. The protg of OBrien, Ray
Harryhausen, became an incredibly successful animator, with films including it Came From Beneath
The Sea (1955), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981). In 1975, filmmaker
and clay animation enthusiast Will Vinton, teamed up with sculptor Bob Gardiner to create the
experimental film called Closed Mondays, which was the first stop motion animation film to win an
Oscar. Stop motion was also used for several sequences in Star Wars, including the chess scene, and
the ghosts in the final scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. By the end of the 80s the animation
renaissance was underway, and although animations such as The Little Mermaid and Who Framed
Roger Rabbit? didnt use stop motion, they eventually led to films such as The Nightmare Before
Christmas increasing the dwindling popularity of the stop-motion aspect of animation. Toward the
end of the 90s, Will Vinton produced the first prime-time stop motion animated TV series: The PJs,
with creator Eddie Murphy, which aired on Fox, then UPN for 3 seasons. The two main variations of
stop motion are stereoscopic stop motion, involving stop motion films shot in stereo 3D, and GO
motion, which was a combination of computer-programmed movement of models with the moving
of them by hand. Overall stop-motion animation is an incredibly popular and simple way of
animating inanimate objects, and although it takes an enormous amount of time, the final results
are invariably brilliant.