Stop Motion

I admire stop motion because it requires a lot of time and effort to produce a whole video. Meticulous planning and detail is required to ensure that stop motion looks good. In this post, I will be looking at what stop motion is, how it is done, famous stop motion artists, and finally, some good examples of short films that use stop motion. 

To the left is an incredibly accurate definition of what stop motion is! 



What is stop motion? 
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object or persona appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Usually small figurines with moveable joints or clay models are used so that they can be moved slightly and easily. However, sometimes humans, household appliances and other things or used for comedic purposes. 

Famous Stop Motion Animator
The most well known stop motion animator of all time is Jan Švankmajer. He is a Czeck film maker who is famous for creating stop motion anime films such as Alice in 1988, Faust in 1994, and Little Otik in 2000. He has inspired many other screenwriters to create stop-motion animation. 

Good examples of stop motion
Yep you guessed; its time to look at short films that showcase excellent examples of stop motion! There are some animators that spend an incredible amount of time on their animations and they turn out to be extremely impressive. Here are my top 5 stop motion short films:

1) Jason and the Argonauts - Ray Harryhausen

2) The Machine - Rob Shaw