Stop-motion technology allows filmmakers to produce animation on a limited budget.
Stop-motion video takes advantage of the eye's tendency to interpret motion as a way of making inanimate objects appear to move. This type of animation takes a variety of forms and presents a number of challenges for producers, but stop-motion productions range from relatively unknown Internet videos to major motion pictures.
Definition
According to the movie website Pharos Productions, stop-motion animation is a cinematic process in which producers make inanimate objects appear to move by building the film frame by frame. Stop-motion animators build this type of animation by positioning an object, photographing it, slightly moving the object and photographing it again. Because the human eye interprets repeating photographs that depict slightly repositioned objects as smooth movements, the resulting production makes the film's subject appear to move.
History
The entertainment website Slash Film notes that stop-motion animation dates back to the 1898 film "The Humpty Dumpty Circus," but no copies of that film remain; the earliest viewable example of stop-motion animation, according to the site, is the 1902 film "Fun in a Bakery Shop." Filmmaker duo Albert Smith and Stuart Blackton contributed to both productions, and Thomas Edison sponsored the release of the latter. The same general cinematic technique of filming objects frame-by-frame continued until computers gained the ability to automate the production process in the 1990s.
Benefits
Stop-motion animation allows filmmakers to create works of animation using three-dimensional objects rather than drawings or artistic renderings. Stop-motion animation typically allows for a considerably lower budget than other forms of animation, according to the production website Stop Motion Central, and production quality is limited only by the filmmaker's patience and persistence.
Considerations
Though stop-motion animation allows almost any filmmaker to produce animated works, the process of developing a work frame by frame can quickly become tedious. Since human eyes require about 15 frames per second to interpret smooth motion, a 10-minute stop motion film must contain about 9,000 individual photographs. In addition, Stop Motion Central notes these productions require three separate lights for each scene; one lights the subject from behind, another illuminates the scene's background and the third serves as the primary light source for the film subject. In some cases, a fourth light fills in shadows. Finally, modern stop-motion films rely on computers to accommodate these considerations and ease the animation process.
Examples
The entertainment magazine Smashing Magazine offered a list of 50 popular stop-motion productions in a December 2008 article. Productions on the list included several Internet-only videos, commercials for the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation Portable video game consoles, a music video, a 1948 commercial for Marching brand cigarettes and a handful of horror films. Several 1960s-era holiday cartoons, like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," also used stop-motion animation to bring snowmen and elves to life, according to the entertainment website Persephone Magazine.
