Stop Motion, the start of it..!

By definition, Stop motion is an animation technique to physically manipulate an object to move on its own which is done by moving the object in small increments between individually photographed frames. But making an actual stop motion video, takes a lot of time and planning. Just going to the set unplanned to make a video in the spur of the moment is not sufficient for stop motion. Every little detail must be just in place for the whole thing to work. The things that play a major role in making any stop motion video are, the sets, the lighting, the camera and most important of all the character. The character is indeed the most important part of any stop motion video because, the character is the thing that needs to act and tell the story. So, it must be pliable in nature. In the most primitive stop motion animation, the characters were made of clay. Clay being a material that can easily be modeled, formed the core ingredient to make the character. One of the important parts is also the co-ordination between the Animator and the Director. The Director needs to get the best expression out of the character which the Animator has to take care of, every single shot. Just to make a second's film in real time, in theory, 24 shots need to be taken. If the shots need to be in slow motion, there are more shots taken and less movement of the actual character.

Here are a few stop motion movies that have come over the ages...

"Action League - NOW" is one of the most primitive stop motion tv shows that was made. It was a part of the Nickelodeon network. Action league is a league of super heroes who solve crime and fight evil and all that jazz. The characters are action figures in this show which is so cool as it makes us wanna be directors and shoot stop motion video's at home too.

Wallace and Gromit, is my favorite stop motion feature. In Wallace and Gromit, the characters, the sets and all the possible things around are individually handmade and are moulded out of modeling clay. This makes it even more challenging to work with but the final output is just brilliant. The colorful aesthetics is one of the main reasons, for picking clay to be a part of the backgrounds as well, unlike the one above.

Finally, here is the making of the movie, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" made from the book by Roald Dahl. This gives us an overview and an insight into the art of stop motion making.