LO1: Task 3) Case Study of Stop Motion Animator

U33 Stop - Motion Techniques LO1

Task 3) Case Studies of Stop Motion Animators

By Kirsty Richardson

Tim Burton (Corpse Bride)

Tim Burton is a memorable stop motion animator, director, producer, artist and writer that has inspired many other filmmakers with his unique style of work. He has created many well known films such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and has also made many Stop - Motion shorts and feature films. One of his most famous Stop - Motion animation feature length films is Corpse Bride (or known as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride).

Corpse Bride is a feature length stop - motion animation film that was released in 2005 and dedicated to Joe Ranft (Executive Producer of Corpse Bride) who died during the production. It is a British/American fantasy film that was directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. Corpse Bride was the first feature stop - motion film that was directed by him (his other 2 stop motion feature films were produced by him, not directed). Warner Brothers distributed the film and was Burton's first stop - motion feature film that had been distributed by them. Like many of Burton's films, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were featured in this film and voiced the main characters Emily and Victor. 

Burton oversaw the production and had a final say of the overall look as he wanted to be in control of the production. After shooting The Nightmare Before Christmas, he wanted to do something along the same medium of Stop Motion as 'he loves it' and TNBC was a big success. The original idea came around as his friend gave him a short story from an old folk tale and this is what inspired him.

This film was shot on DSLRs rather than the 35mm film cameras (previously used on other stop - motion features) as they gave a better and higher quality and was also edited on Final Cut Pro. It was originally meant to be shot on film, but a quick last minute change saw the film to try and introduce a new technology and filmed it with SLR's instead. The Visual Effects Supervisor Pete Kozachik had previously tried to look for a different way of film stop motion characters and tested many cameras and theories. The studio were prepping for this film to be shot on film and were not interested in trying to invest in digitally capture. However, 2 weeks before filming was due to begin, Pete Kozachik and another member of his team came up  with a solution using digital still camera that Warner Brothers agreed with and the production then became digital.
After many trial and error tests, the Canon EOS - 1D Mark ll was decided as the best camera to use for this shoot. This is one of the only Canon models that are fitted with adapters to allow the use of Nikon prime lenses to be attached (14mm - 105mm). They chose this camera because the image chip was the same size as the 35mm film they were originally using, therefore could use the Nikon lenses to get the same effect and could treat them like the cine film lenses. 

The number of animators and puppeteers grew during production and by the end, they had near triple amount of people working on the film than they had to start with. A lot of time was invested in creating and developing each puppets characteristics that made it unique. The puppets were built by Mackinnon and Saunders and on average about 17 inches tall. They were animated on the sets and trap doors were made 4 feet on the ground so animators had access to manipulate the puppets. The 3 main characters (Victor, Victoria and Corpse Bride) had heads the size of golf balls engineered with special gearing inside so it gave the animators the opportunity to work on different parts of their face. Overall, there were roughly 300 puppets made for the 30 featured characters (rumour has it that they cost as much as $30,000 each). The production crew experience many problems with these puppets, one being the Corpse Brides' veil as it needed to be transparent, but this proved difficult to get movement in each frame as it wouldn't have looked real. They ended up putting tiny rods to control it after a lot of trial and error practises.


Roughly 32 cameras were used on the film, with 25 - 30 setups and stages having a camera each. They had a 'grabber' system where animators could capture frames and instantly download them to a computer to check their work and see how they sequence would turn out. There were 8 camera teams which has a lighting cameraman, assistant, lighting electrician and a set dresser.

They didn't have any time for reshoots so shot practically a 1:1 film ratio in relation to the storyboard. They made sure that the story and the way they wanted the scene to look was perfect in the storyboard sequence as they didn't have time to start messing in the production stage. They used a 'dope sheet' where each shot was broken down into a frame by frame sequence to get the main sequence of events that they wanted. 

LO1: Task 2) Timeline of the development of key practitioners and techniques

U33 Stop - Motion Techniques LO1

Task 2) Timeline of the development of key practitioners and techniques in Stop Motion

• 100BC - Early Zoetrope - Ding Huan 

• 1834 - Zoetrope - William Horner 

• 1841 - Phenakitoscope - Joseph Plateau 

• 1860 - Photographs of Motion - Edward Muybridge

• 1877 - Praxinoscope - Emile Reynaud

• 1895 - Lumiere Brothers - Cinematograph

• 1896 - Film - George Meliere

• 1933 - King Kong - Willis O Brien

• 1957 - Dynamation/Go - Motion - Jason & The Argonauts - Ray Harryhousen

• 1960 - Time Machine - George Pal

• 1972 - Aardman Animations were founded

• 1979 - Empire Strikes Back - Ray Harryhousen

• 1979 - Nocturna Artificiala - The Brothers Quay

• 1980's - Konick Studios - The Brothers Quay

• 1981 - Clash Of The Titans - Willis O'Brien

• 1982 - Vincent - Tim Burton

• 1987 - Robocop Ed 209 - Phil Tippet

• 1989 - Creature Comforts - Nick Park

• 1992 - Food - Jan Svankmajer

• 1993 - Jurrasic Park - CGI takes over from stop motion

Stop Motion Practitioners - 16th January 2015

Stop Motion Practitioners 

16th January 2015

By Kirsty Richardson

Recap From What We Learnt Last Week

• Willis O Brien - Did King Kong
• Ray Harryhousen - Inspired by Willis O Brien, Dynamation/Gomation, Jason and The Argonauts - Star Wars
• Jon Svankviager - Clay (things eat each other)
• Phil Tippet - Robocop --> combined Stop Motion and CGI
• Tim Burton - Vincent
• Aardman - Nick Park

Techniques

• Frame Rates - 24fps Motion picture film
• 25fps - Digital and TV
• 15fps - Recommended frames for our own Stop Motion films
• 1 minute - 1500 pics

• CGI - Computer
• Stop Motion - Photography
• Animation is the overall term for CGI and Stop Motion.

Persistance Of Vison

• Eye and brain hold onto a series of images that form a single complete picture.
• Theory - After the image, 1/20 of a second persists onto the retina and this explains motion perception.

Luc Retus
Peter Mark Roget

Stop Frame (Another word for Stop Motion)
Physically manipulated object appears to move (another word for stop motion). Moves in small increments.

Practitioners
Thomas Edison

• Thomas Edison was a profilic inventor

Kineotoscope - Early motion picture exhibition device (a projector)
Was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole window at the top of the device
It was not a movie projector, but introduced a basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection. Film is placed over a light source with a high shutter speed to create the illusion of movement.
1888 - Thomas Edison came up with description
1889 - 92 Developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson - at the Edison lab. He also helped to devise the Kinetograph
Used a stop and go motion of film

Joseph  Pateau (Phenakitoscope)
1st Stop Motion 1801 - 1803
Disks, repeat images, black gap (spin)
Persistance of vison theory
Screening, one viewer at a time

William Horner (Zoetrope)
Cyhrider - images on either side, spin images blend together

Emil Reynaud (Prakinoscope)
Projected animated cartoons
Animation device, strip of pictures, cylinder

Edward Muybridge1874 - Murdered wife's lover - showed how horses ran
He was into photography and studied at the University of Penslyvenia. Was interested in the movement of animals and is classed as the 'father of motion picture'. Thomas Edison was inspired by him.

The Lumiere Brothers
1895, cinematographic - research more

George Pal1931 - 32 Berlin - UPA Studio
Animation - Stop motion photography (e.g. singing cigarettes)

Contemporary Work

• The Brothers Quay
• Tim Burton
• Aardman Animations

Tim Burton

• Film director, writer, animator, producer, artist
• Dark, gothic, quirky horror films e.g. Beatlejuice, The Nightmare Before Xmas, Sweeney Todd, Alice and Wonderland and Edward Scissorhands
• Commonly has Johnny Depp and Helena Bohen Carter in his films 
• Stopmotion, CGI, Normal films
• Corpse's Bride was Stop Motion
• Had a Warner Brothers apprenticeship and that's how he made Vincent and Coraline
• Most of his films were clay models 

The Brothers Quay

• The Brothers Quay were brothers called Timothy and Stephen
• Wladyslaw Starewicz teamed up with the trio in the 1980's - Konicmck Studio in London
• They made an ident for the BBC but it was never broadcasted
• They made short films such as Punch and Judy, Sesame St and Raindance
• They used mostly puppets and didn't have much narrative to them
• They had credits in the Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer video 

Aarman Animations

• They are a british animation studio based in Bristol
• They are iconic in the UK for creating Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit
• The first thing they created was a sequence for the BBC (Deaf Children) 
• They use a special type of clay to create the famous facial expressions on the models 
• Nick Park was the creator of Wallace and Gromit and was also the creator of Creature Comforts. They won their first oscar.
• They did the dancing chickens sequence in the Sledgehammer sequence 
• 'Flush Away' - first CGI 
• Ident for BBC Creature Comforts Campaign

LO1: Task 1) Early and Late Pioneers Of Animation

U33 Stop - Motion Techniques LO1: Task 1 - 3

By Kirsty Richardson

Task 1) Techniques Of Early Pioneers of Animation (1800's)

Joseph Plateau - Phenakistoscope
Joseph Plateau was one of the first pioneers in Stop Motion (1801 - 1803). In 1829, the idea of the Phenakistoscope was established by Plateau, his plans were put into motion in 1839 and he invented it in 1841. The phenakistoscope was one of the earliest animation devices, using numerous spinning disks and the persistence of vision to create an illusion of motion. The spinning disk was attached to a handle and around the centre was a series of drawings to show the animation. There were slits around it and the person using it would look at the discs reflection in a mirror to show the images moving. The disadvantage with the Phenkistoscope was that only one person could view it at a time.




Persistence Of Vision is basically how the eye and brain hold a series of images to form a single complete picture. After the image is shown, 1/20 of a second persists on the retina (motion perception).

William Horner - Zoetrope

Around 100BC, an inventor called Ding Huan thought go this idea and described it as "as variety of Zoetrope". However, since it was so long ago, it is unclear what he meant.

The "basic drum like form" of the Zoetrope was created by mathematician William Horner in 1934. Between the pictures, the revolving drum had slits, but this version didn't become popular, when another version was around with the viewing slits above the pictures, so the strips of images could be easily replaced.

The Zoetrope is very similar to the Phenakistoscope but some say is easier to use as it can be viewed by more than one person at the same time. 

Lumiere Brothers - Cinematograph

Invented in the 1890's, the cinematograph was a motion picture camera also served as a printer and film projector. It was first invented by an inventor called Leon Bouly. However, he ended up selling the rights to the Lumiere Brothers as he could not develop his ideas and maintain the appropriate patent fees. He came up with the name 'Cinematograph' as it meant 'writing in movement' in Greek.

The Lumber Brothers wanted to create a camera that was more competitive than the the Kinetograph (Thomas Edison) as that did not have a projector. They saw the flaws in the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope, therefore they developed a camera that had better illumination and sharper images. It could be transported and placed easily as it did not weigh a lot. It was manually operated by a hand crank so was a lot more portable. The Cinematograph was able to project an image onto a screen so a bigger audience could see the images all at the same time. 

They used a glass flask of water as a condenser to absorb heat and concentrate the light onto the film frame. This was a safety precaution more than anything, as the light wouldn't focus on the flammable film is the glass overheated.

The Lumiere Brothers made their first film called 'Sortie de l'using Lumber de Lyon' which was the first public screening of cinematographic films. The device was also exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

George Melies - 
George Melies played a big part in the development of Stop - Motion animation. He was a profesional magician that discovered 'moving pictures' and discovered that he could use stop - motion photography to do 'trick visual' effects. He was one of the first pioneers to use well known transition such as fade in and fade out and dissolve. He made over 500 films and used to project his own creations. His most famous film (out of 500) was a film in 1902 called Voyage to the Moon. He was the first pioneer to create real narrative structured films.

Eadweard Muybridge - 'The Horse In Motion'

Eadweard Muybridge was a pioneer in the 'studies of motion' and was a photographer. He studied photography and motion, how they work together and how a motion picture could also be projected.

His most famous work was 'the horse in motion'. He was hired by the governor of California for some photographic studies. The main question of his studies were whether all for feet of a horse were off the ground whilst it is trotting. As the human eye could not capture this in slow motion, Muybridge decided he needed another way of finding out. He placed cameras in a row with tripwires which in a split second, would trigger a picture as the horse trotted/galloped past. He kept improving his technique and as a result of this, is considered one of the main pioneers of animation.

Emile Reynaud - Praxinoscope
Emile Reynaud was a french inventor who projected the first animated film in public. He invented an animation device called the Praxinoscope in 1877 which was an upgrade to the Zoetrope.

It was a spinning cylinder that used a strip of pictures that was placed in the inner section of the cylinder. It was an improvement to the Zoetrope as it had mirrors instead of viewing slits, which enabled a brighter and less distorted picture so the viewer could see the images more clearly.

Thomas Edison - Kinetoscope

Thomas Edison invented the Kinetoscope, which was an early motion picture exhibition device/projector. It was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole window at the top of the device. It was introduced as basic approach (rather than a projector) that would become the standard for all cinematic projection.






The idea of it was that film would be placed over a light source with a high shutter speed to create the illusion of movement. in 1888, Thomas Edison came up with the description of it and in 1889 - 92, it was developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. It was developed by him at the Edison lab (he also helped to devise the Kinetograph). They used a 'stop and go' motion of film.

Techniques Of Later Stop Motion Animators (1900's)

Wladyslaw Starewicz

Wladyslaw Starewicz was an animator that created the first puppet - animated film (The Beautiful Lukandia in 1912). He mainly focused on using dead animals or insects as characters in his films.
His first puppet film had a plot that inspired Agamenon and Menelas. His most influential and well known film was 'The Cameraman's Revenge". It was one of his first animated films and the main characters are realistic looking beetles and was about the infidelity and jealously between the insects.

Willis O'Brien

Willis O'Brien was classed as being responsible for 'some of the nest known image in cinema history'. He specialised in motion picture special effects and was also a stop - motion pioneer. His most famous work was The Lost World, King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (he won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for this). 

The Lost World (1925) was an adaption of a novel by Arthurs Conan Doyle and is a silent fantasy adventure film. Willis O'Brien created the stop motion special effects for that film, and was an initial test before his work on King Kong. However, King Kong is the filmed that his work is most admired for and is classed as a milestone in stop motion animation history. Ray Harryhausen learnt his skills from Willis O'Brien on the film Mighty Joe Young. He was inspired by him and the next person that continued the values of  his work. 

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in Stop - Motion and his most memorable films were Jason & the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. He thought up of an idea called Dynamation. 

He also worked with a lot of other well known pioneers such as George Pal and Willis O'Brien. He got his first commercial job working on one of George Pal's Puppetoons films. It was a project called 'Evolution Of The World' but was never finished. He was also hired in 1947 as an assistant animator on Mighty Joe Young with Willis O'Brien, this was his first time working on what was a major film. His role in the production was to fix the technical problems of the film, so he ended up playing a bit part in the animation process. 

Dynamation was an idea that that allowed live action to be 'split' so a model can interact with others and be inserted directly into the action. Ray Harryhausen had a 'sandwich' of glass paintings to give a 3D effect so characters could look more life - like. He did this in King Kong and Mighty Joe Young but discovered that it was an expensive method for a low budget production and found it very time consuming. He tried to think of a more practical way of doing this that didn't cost as much. and found that the idea of split screens worked.

George Pal - 

George Pal was an animator that was best known for his 'puppetoons' and is classed as 'one of the most gifted directors of cinema in history'. His term for puppetoons is a mix of the two words puppet and cartoon, therefore, puppetoon was created. They originally were 'soft - sell' advertising films but then ended up in the reception areas of cinemas as they were 'a lot of fun to watch'. After Pal and his wife fled to America (because of the stresses of the Nazi invasion), he realised that he could make the puppetoons without any adverts so he got a sponsorship deal with Paramount Pictures. 

His films featured puppets that were usually made and carved from wood and he used his 'replacement technique' a lot.

He pioneered a technique called 'replacement animation'. This was basically a series of puppets (or parts of puppets eg. their heads) that were made to show each desired action or movement that was intended. For example, if the sequence was showing a character sat down and making a lot of facial expression, a new head would be made for each puppet so it easily could be replaced. This idea was well thought out and a simple solution, but did require even more thought, attention and planning than just physically moving or changing the puppet. The advantage with this method was that once the puppets were eventually made, they could be reused throughout the whole film. You could also take photos from more than one camera angle without any trouble. And even now, this technique is still used by animators such as Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) as it is the most effective.

Oliver Postgate

Oliver Postgate was an animator and puppeteer that was the creator of famous children's shows such as Bagpuss and Ivor the Engine. They were made by the company he set up with Peter Firmin, Smallfilms, and were shown (and still are) on BBC and ITV. 

Initially, he thought that he could produce better work than what he was seeing from the black and white productions on TV. He then wrote Alexander The Mouse, which was about a mouse that turned into a king. He used a magnetic system where the animated characters were attached to a painted background (Peter Firmin painted these for him) and then photographed them through a 45 degree angled mirror. 

Jan Svankmajer 

He is seen as a surrealist filmmaker like a lot of other animators such as The Brothers Quay. He said that “I am interested not in animation techniques or creating a complete illusion, but in bringing life to everyday objects".
He has a reputation of using his unique used of animation techniques and makes entertaining films that are surreal and "nightmarish" but still comedic.
He usually uses exaggerated sounds to create a surreal effect, usually in scenes where people/things are eating. He uses club objects in his films (also known as Claymation).

Claymation and Pixilation are two techniques that has been used in one of his most famous films, Food (directed by Svankmajer in 1992). Pixilation is a stop motion technique that allows the director to use live actors frame by frame, they become sort of a 'living stop motion puppet', as usually they would pose whilst the frame is being taken and change pose slightly before the next frame. Claymation is the same technique but with clay models, that are usually made out of plasticine.

Tim Burton

Time Burton is a film director, writer, animator and producer that is famous for his dark gothic and quirky horror films. He heavily relies on Stop - Motion or CGI, as most of his films are animation based. Some of his most famous films are award winners such as Betlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice and Wonderland etc.

Vincent, was one of his first films that was a six minute stop motion short about a young person aspiring to be like Vincent Price (and Vincent Price does the voiceover). His main stop motion technique is to use a complex interaction between light and dark, that's why his Stop - Motion films are usually black and white or very darkly coloured. In 1993, Burton made his first feature film that only used Stop Motion called The Nightmare Before Christmas. It took him 3 years to make due to the length of time that it took. He used puppets to create a sense of realism and created hundreds of models that had different facial expressions to create each frame. The film was inspired by a poem that he wrote called 'Twas The Nightmare Before Christmas". 

Ray Harryhousen was his main inspiration as he was inspired by his stop - motion work. 

The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay are 2 identical brothers called Timothy and Stephen that are influential animators in the Stop - Motion world. Their films usually feature puppets that are set in a moody setting. They have made a variety of short films such as Punch & Judy, Sesame St (Raindance) and Street of Crocodiles. 

As well as making short films, they have also worked in advertising for companies such as Coca - Cola and Nikon and also work for MTV. They worked on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer music video (as well as Aaardman Animations). They said that they were 'unhappy' with their contribution as they felt that they were imitating Jan Svankmajer's work rather than making something original.

Later on in their career, they started to expand their skills by mixing stop motion in with live choreography. The Sandman was a televised ballet where the puppets were reproduced in 'jerky staccato' forms of the dancers. 

Phil Tippet - Go Motion

Phil Tippet is a stop motion animator that was inspired by other animators such as Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen (7th Voyage of Sinbad). He worked on the chess sequence Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back and also participated in the film as a member of the monster band. 

He co - developed a technique called 'Go - Motion' with Industrial Light and Magic in 1982. It incorporates motion blur into every frame to make the stop motion look more realistic and less jittery.  Because the main focus point or object is always sharp in every frame, it can create a unrealistic disorientating effect which makes it look like frame by frame. Motion blur is used as real moving objects have a slight blur when they move because they moved when the shutter of the camera was open. Go Motion is a technique that blurs the model to create a real life movement effect. There are 3 main ways to create Go Motion

1) Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline)

The Vaseline would be smeared on the camera lens (vaselensing) to create a blur around the model and then would have to be cleaned and re - applied after every shot. Even though this is a time - consuming process, it works well and is effective. It has been used by many Stop - Motion animators on many famous films/sequences e.g. the terror dogs sequence in Ghostbusters.

2) 'Bumping the Puppet'

This technique is simple and is self - explanatory. To create the Go - Motion effect, you would have to flick or gently bump the puppets before taking the frame. However, this can be a troublesome technique as if it has moved too much, it could destroy or move the props/sets.

3) Moving the table

Moving the table technique is probably the most practical out of the 3. It is simply the art of move the table slightly whilst the frame is being exposed so it creates a slight blur. (This technique was developed by another animator called Ladislas Starevich). This technique has been most recently used by the full length feature film 'Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were - Rabbit'.

Nick Park

Nick Park is a director, writer and best known as an animator that created the Wallace and Gromit and Shaun The Sheep series. He works with the Aardman team and also produces not just the Wallace and Gromit franchises, but also has produced music videos and adverts. His most famous music video was Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video. The Sledgehammer video used the Pixilation technique where Peter Gabriel turns into a real - life puppet whilst each frame was shot and he moved. 

He joined Aardman after they noticed his college project 'A Grand Day Out' and has gone on to direct many films on behalf of Aardman. He has been nominated and has won many Academy Awards and has also won an Oscar for Creature Comforts.

Stop Motion Animation Introduction - 9th January 2015

Stop Motion Animation Introduction

Animation - For example, Wallace and Gromit --> Aardman --> Nick Pork/Phil Lord

CGI - Bagpus, Tim Burton films
Special Effects - King Kong (original), Clash of The Titans (1980), Jason and The Argonauts (Ray Harryhousen)
Robocop (original) - Phil Tippet

Jan Svankmajer used clay that was life size.

We looked at Tim Burton 'Vincent' (1982) video, which was a remake of a student film. Disney gave Tim Burton the funds to make the video, and it was based off Vincent Price; Vincent Price also did the voiceover for the film. The film was all based around a poem about how a 7 year old boy wanted to be like Vincent Price. The poem made strong references to The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.
It also referenced the style of Tom and Jerry as you couldn't see the adults face, like you wouldn't in Tom and Jerry, this gives the idea of an ideal world that doesn't consist of 'big scary adults'.

We also looked at Cameraman's Revenge (1912) by Wladyslaw Starewicz. I didn't like this film as it had lots of insects in and needed editing. However, understandably, the facilities to edit well with the equipment they had in 1912 was limited.

Animation Campaigns
PES - Creating movement out of everyday objects that wouldn't normally move.
Old School Retro by PES - The video is based off old school retro games that are made out of  food. The featured games in the advert were Pacman, Space Invaders etc.

Stop motion is used a lot in advertising as it is a different and original way of expressing the motif of the company.

Ray Harryhausen

• After WW2, he required over 1000 feet of unused military film and made a series of 'fairytale' short films. 
• He had to learn a technique called 'split scene' because of the lack of budget (£200,000), so he had to improvise to get the effects and quality that he wanted
• Split screen is a rear projection overlapping other miniature screens. This resulted in becoming one of the most influential films sic - fi films The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).
• Jason and The Argonauts (1963) - his most popular film - including the skeleton sword fighting sequence
• He shot no more that 13 frames of film (one half second of elapsed time) per day - had a lot of patience as he worked alone and the filming alone took an average of 2 years
• Monster Inc named the restaurant in the film after Ray Harryhausen as recognition for all of his work.

Some of his well known films

1940 - Evolution of the world

1949 - Mighty Jay Young - Willis O Brian inspired Ray Harryhausen and they both worked together on this film

1956 - Earths Flying Saucers

1958 - Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

1966 - 1 Million Years BC - was a Hammer film that wasn't aimed at kids

1973 - Golden Voyage Sinbad

1981 - Clash Of The Titans

Dynamation

To place stop motion into life action. 

Background - live animation

Foreground - Camera that projects

Phil Tippet

Phil Tippet was inspired by Harry Hausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad

1977 - Star Wars 

1980 - Empire Stakes Back

1983 - ROTS (Walkers Rancor)

1984 - Indianna Jones

1996 - Starship Troopers

Stop motion ends --> CGI begins

Go Motion - Incorporates motion blur into each frame - so it looks realistic and not jittery

Motion Blur - How It Works

1) Moving/Bumping the puppet

2) Moving the table

3) Vaseline - piece of glass in front of the lens and