Stop motion is a style of film that entails physically manipulating everything within a scene so that it appears to be moving on its own. This takes a lot of time and a lot of patience because each object has to be moved in tiny increments and you must record each movement by taking many photographs. While stop motion usually involves some form of clay figures, it can be done with just about anything. And for those people like me, who don’t have the time, money or skill (yet!) to create a masterpiece such as Nightmare Before Christmas, we can start off small. To do this, you can create a short film much like this one:
Notice how in only three minutes they managed to convey a small story line without changing sets. The key to stop motion like this one is creativity. Without a specific idea in mind, it won’t work out. That’s why planning beforehand is the most important part in attempting a short like this.
Hopefully, after testing the waters by making your own stop motion short, you can see if you’d want to undertake a much more highly orchestrated operation like Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stop motion animation film that was directed and written by Wes Anderson. This is possibly my favorite film of all time, stop motion or otherwise. There is such painstaking attention to detail and the amount of work that would have gone into just one snapshot must have been unbelievable. From every angle, the film truly is fantastic.
Here’s a clip from one of my favorite scenes:
For a better understanding on how they make this type of film, check out this video:
For next time, be ready to delve into split-screen shots! As always, feel free to comment or email me at ljm7686@truman.edu
See you here next Friday at 7 p.m.
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