Stop

Motion Animation Essay

Stop motion animations have four main types of techniques which are the following the
persistence of vision, stop frame, frame rates and movement of models. For starters each of
these types of techniques are all done in a different way, for starters persistence of vision is
the illusion of a series of multiple discrete images are blended into a single image in the
human mind and it is believed to be the explanation for motion in
animated films and cinemas, Edward Muybridge made the first
persistence of vision image film. On the right is how he performed his
method by taking loads of photos so it illusionally makes it feel like a
video. One of the other techniques that stop motion has is stop-frame
is stop motion animation just in a different name. It basically states
that stop frame is where animation that is captured one frame at a
time. So when you play all the images back quickly it gives away
the illusion of movement and this is what the film industry first
started from. Each frame is one picture. Another technique
involved with stop motion is frame rates which can also be said
as frame frequency, it is the rate at which the frames go at such
as each second there will be 15 frames which is the rate at which
the images are going be swapping creating the illusion of
movement. The last one of the four main techniques in stop
motion animation is movement of models where they make models
like little metal stick figures such as in Wallace & Grommet, &
Coraline. When the birth of movement of models started it meant the
creation of a lot more animated films using small models and
allowing them to tell a story though them. Wallace &
Grommet is a great example since it was and is
popular all around the world. Series of episodes have
been made with this simple process and technique of
stop motion animation.


All of these techniques of stop motion animation had masterminds behind them who quite
literally created and structured all of these techniques. Starting from the very beginning of
the film industry where it all started from the creation of a moving picture. Pioneers were
the ones to create the illusion of the moving picture, one of them called
Joseph Plateau who created the phenakistoscope which used the
persistence of vision technique to create the illusion of motion. The
phenakistoscope was a device which had pictures all the same but not
quite has each image would be a tad different to the last,
such as a dogs legs moving forward further at each
picture and when this device was spun it gave the illusion as if the dog was
running. Another pioneer of the film industry was William George Horner

who was the creator of the zoetrope. The zoetrope was a device which was in the form of a
circular cake tin with an eye slit on the sides so you could see the inside of the tin where the
photos or drawings are, through the eye slit you could only see one drawing or photo at a
time and when the layer with all the drawings was spun around and the photos on the
inside would move to create the the illusion of a moving picture. It had the same
conventions as the phenakistoscope where each picture was the
same but slightly different. The difference between the two is that
the zoetrope has an eye slit and only one person can see it at once.
An example of a zoetrope short film would be multiple drawings of
a horse but each drawing would change so the horses legs would
be in a different position to make it seem as though
the house was running and this was simply the beginning of stop motion
animation. Third third pioneer of the film industry was Charles Emile Reynaud;
he was the creator of the praxinoscope an animation device which was the
next step up to the zoetrope. Similar properties to the zoetrope having a strip
of picture placed the inner surface of a spinning
cylinder and then projected onto a larger screen
for multiple viewers to watch not just the singular viewer
which was what the zoetrope and kinetoscope allowed. The
two Pioneers which will be looked are Thomas Edison the
creator of the the kinetoscope which was a device which allowed one person to watch it at a
time, inside were motion pictures, the other pioneer are a two brothers called the Lumiere
Brothers they had the exact same methods as the kinetoscope but the only difference is
they allowed it so multiple viewers can watch the stop motion pictures since they
discovered how to project it.

As the film industry moved on past these pioneers it allowed more people to come up with
ideas on how to make these stop motion animation pictures better and to improve them.
The kinds of people were called developers which sounds about right because they are only
developing the pioneers methods and making them better. These developers were called
Willis OBrien and Ray Harryhausen, Willis and Ray were both writers and producers. They
have both produced an amazing work during the 18th and 19th, both of the stop motion
animation fanatics have sadly passed away but they will always have been known as the
creators of stop motion. Willis OBrien was the creator of King Kong vs. Godzilla and Ray
Harryhausen was the creator of Clash of the Titans, which are two very well known movies.
The method that both of these animators used was ground breaking, it is where they use a
cellulose-acetate screen for the rear projection without this they would not have been able
to show their films. Even then their films when this method was in place was all stop motion
animation. They used a lot of special effects and theyre techniques to create all of their
masterpiece productions.

The contemporary which is after developing and the pioneers of stop motion. It is pretty
much the next developed step to filming in video. It is essentially a modern method of
taking pictures, and the term is usually used to refer to work that is either abstract or
unusual in its subject matter. The two examples of contemporary work are Tim Burton and
Aardman Animations. Tim Burton was a self employed producer and writer he was the next
step to having clearer better image although he was still in the stop animation scene, but
some of the work he produced was outstanding such as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
On the other hand, there is Aardman Animations which was a company which produced
stop motion animation films and were good at it as well with a wide audience range when
they were on air back in the very early 20th century. One of Aardmans animations
productions is called Wallace and Grommet which is very famous.

Animations can be formed in many different ways such as animation can be made using
puppets, some can be made from action figures or moulded figures. Or it can be a at a real
location where real people are being filmed. All of this is done with stop frame animation,
having a picture at every single frame to create the illusion of movement in the animation.
People in the world have created a vast amount of different animation which look appealing
and work well, such as traditional animation, typography animation, clay animation, sand
animation, flip-book animation, digital 2D animation and digital 3D animation.