Stop Motion

Stop Motion

Stop motion is an animation technique it first came about in the late 1800's.  Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton are thought to be the inventors of stop motion, one of if not the first stop animation film is The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898).  This form of animation is still being used to this day and keeps getting better with all the new technology helping aid bring stop animation to life.

The principle of stop animation is very simple yet holds a level of complexity at the same time.

The are a few different variations of stop motion such as claymation (Wallace & Gromit).

Cutout animation (El Apostol) and puppet animation (Nightmare before Christmas).

It is basically a bunch of images of the same scene but every scene is different from the last to create the illusion that it is alive, it's usually 12 frames per second, so as you can imagine it is a very time consuming process but can be made from the comfort of your own home, all you need is a camera, some paper or clay or even some puppets and a whole lot of time.
You'd also need a tiny amount of editing skills I'd say.

The advantages are its cheap, the possibilities are endless and its still very much in fashion.
The disadvantages are that it takes a very long time for a very short video, you need to be quite artistic and have the correct resources.

Here we see a very creative modern day use of stop motion

Here is a behind the scenes video from The nightmare before Christmas.  It shows us how using puppets for stop animation works and shows us how there are even changeable faces to help bring the illusion to life