Stop Motion Animation Essay In this essay I will discuss the different techniques and genres of animation and the processes in order to achieve them. I will be looking at animation in both film and TV. The basis of stop motion animation and indeed moving image is built on the theory of persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is a theory that is believed to be invented by the roman poet Lucretius, however some people believe the basis for the persistence of vision lay in the experiments of Peter Mark Roget in 1824. The theory of persistence of vision is that the human eye retains image on the retina for a 25th of a second after the eye has seen the image. The theory was debunked by Wertheimer in 1912 although this theory did inspired Peter Marker Roget’s Thaumatrope, as by the time the image has been fully processed by the retina the following the image in the other side of the card will appear giving the appearance of movement. As the audience will not see the change in the flipping of the card as it happens in that 25th of a second the retina is still viewing the previous image. This process is called Stop frame animation. Stop frame animation is when individual are played after each at a fast speed they give the appearance that the same image is moving as people don’t see the change from frame to frame. Frame rates are the rate at which the frames are played at; it is measured in frames per second. The higher the frame rate the faster the animation as the audience will see more frames in shorter amount of time and lower frame rate the slower the animation as the audience see’s less frames each second. A higher frames rate allows for more fluid the animation, unless you have not taken a sufficient amount of photos to cope with this frame rate the animation will appear jumpy as the beginning of one on screen image will appear to jump quickly to the end if not enough frames have been featured to smoothly transition between the two. However if you have a low frame rate then the animation will appear slow as the audience will be more aware of the change between the frames if the frames are on screen for too long. The standard frame rate for TV and Film is 25 frames per second as that is believed to be the time an image is retained on the retina of the human eye. A Thaumatrope is a device, which consists of a card with a picture on each side with two pieces of string attached to it at either end. It is then twirled rapidly so it appears that image on the card is moving. Sources differ as to who might have invented the Thaumatrope some saying it was John Aryton and some saying Peter Mak Roget or Charless Babage. Recently in s prehistoric version of the Thaumatrope was discovered in cave in France. When it was invented it was invented for the purpose of proving the theory of persistence of vision. I don’t like this form of animation as it’s very primitive and is very limited to it’s uses as it can only show one action, although the way it creates the illusion using persistence of vision inspired further animation such as the Phenakistoscope, which also creates the illusion of moving image through the usage of persistence of vision. So it’s importance to the development of animation can’t be underestimated.
The zoetrope is believed to be invented in the 180 AD in china. A modern version was made in 1834 by William George Horner. It works in a very similar way to the Phenakistoscope. There’s a cylinder with vertical slits and on the inner surface of the cylinder there are photos under the slits and as the cylinder turns you look through the slits and the picture appear to be moving. This is done to make sure the images don’t merge and doesn’t appear blurred. This is the same purpose the Phenakistoscope cuts slits in the card. It's good because it allows for even longer bits of animation as there is more space to place pictures, which act as frames, However it requires more energy to operate than a Phenakistoscope because it’s bigger and therefore heavier and harder to hold and turn. However I find it amazing that some one could invent something as innovative as early as 180 AD. Sequential photographs was pioneered by Eadweard Muybridge in 1872 when he wanted to prove that when a horse trots all four feat leave the ground at the same time. The device he invented was called the Zoopraxiscope which was considered by many to be the first movie projector. It works by way of a series of painted or hand coloured images on the insides of a disk. The pictures are of different stages of an action like a couple waltzing. The disk is then spun vertically and a light is shown at the disk and the image is deflected of a mirror so people can see it clearly. And the different stages following each other gives the impression the picture’s moving. This still uses persistence of vision the same way previous animations have. It was first exhibited in America and all over Europe in 1879 but it was first presented in England in 1882 to the Royal Institution and Royal Academy. It advanced the exhibition of animation as it allowed larger audiences to see moving image, but the duration of the animation is still limited because there is only so much space on a glass disk. He was the first person to capture the same image from many different angles so he was very revolutionary as he instigated the building blocks for what cinema was to be based on. The Lumiere Brothers were two film french filmmakers who were credited as inventing cinema. The lumiere brothers invented the Cinématographe which was a device that combined the camera with the printer and projector. The lumiere brothers wanted to improve on Edison’s Kinetoscope which they saw flaws with. They made the cinematograph much lighter than the bulky Kinetoscope weighing only 16lbs. The cinematograph was hand cranked whereas the Kinetoscope had to be powered by electric via what is called the mains this combined with the fact it was lighter made the cinematograph much easier to transport than the Kinetoscope. The fact that it was easy to transport meant that it could be put in places that would be more interesting to film in for example in front a factory which they did in order to film one of their first films La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon. The cinematograph used the same stop motion frame technique of animation as Eadweard Muybridge, William George Horner and the Thaumatrope however the advantage it had was it produced a clearer image with a better illumination and it could be seen by a large groups of people in movie theatres or Nickelodeons as they were called at the time whereas with Edison’s Kinetoscope images were only able to be viewed through on a small screen. The device works by
using an eccentric cam which converts the crank’s rotational motion to an up and down vertical rotation which is hooked up to a frame which is guided by two slots which support a link which passes through a slotted partition to feed the film located in the threading slot to the other side of the partition from top to bottom. The cinematographic works at 16 frames per second as opposed to the Kinetoscope which works at 48 frames per second. King Kong and the cameraman’s revenge “King Kong” is a film of much better quality than the cameraman’s revenge. One way it’s better is the fact “King Kong” has got a good quality of sound whereas the Cameraman’s revenge didn’t have sound. This was because of the times they were made. Sound didn’t come into cinema until 1927 and cameraman’s revenge was made in 1912 where as “King Kong” was in 1933. “King Kong” in contrast has sound effects of planes and theme music to fit the mood of the scene. Kong’s voice is in sync almost completely when he makes noises for example when he yells out at the humans and beats his chest during the spider pit scene the sound of him rowing is perfectly in sync with his mouth movements and the sound of the chest beating is also in sync with when Kong makes contact with his chest. Also in King Kong their is close ups of Kong’s face which allows the auidence to see the emotions expressed through the details of his face and his facial features are actually moving unlike the insects in cameraman’s revenge, this allows King Kong to be more realistic than cameraman’s revenge. This is reason for this was probably because in cameraman’s revenge the animator Ladislas Starevich was working with actual dead insects who would be harder to manoeuvre than a figure/model already made specifically for the animation like there was in King Kong. Another reason King Kong was also able to get the sound in sync with the figure was because King Kong was a big budget American film made during the profitable studio era so it would have a large team of people working on it whereas Cameraman’s Revenge was made by just one person. However the timing in King Kong wasn’t flawless as the timing in Wallace and Gromit. For example in the same scene when King throws the massive log the film crew are on the sound of the log hitting the bottom of the spider pit was pre-emptive to the log hitting the bottom of the spider pit on screen. Where as in Wallace and Gromit when the police constable Mackintosh tells the old lady to stop playing the organ and the old lady stops playing the organ the sound effect stops immediately. The organ sound is exactly in sync with the old lady playing it, this might be because Wallace and Gromit is also a big budget film with a large staff, so there like King Kong there is people who’s only job is managing sound. Another thing that gives the film realism is the character’s movement. Both of these animations are object animations as the characters are made as models which are then animated In cameraman’s revenge the character movement looks very robotic, there is about a second between the character’s footsteps, and the footsteps seem to go from one position straight to another one - I can’t see any half steps in between, which suggests there is no realistic motion in it. This might because Ladislas Starevich was working with real dead beetles so that he can’t be as free in moving the characters as he wanted to be because the cartilage in the beetles joints might have dried up and the joints of the beetle might not be as flexible as they had been when it was alive. Also if they messed around with it too much they might break one of the beetle’s legs because the bones will be more brittle and also easier to break due to their size. Unlike “King Kong” who were using models that were designed for the process of animation. This gave “King Kong” more freedom to move characters so they could give more detail
and achieve better quality of movement. King Kong was the first animation film to not just use clay to make models but instead used a skeleton body, filled with rubber foam or cotton cloth and latex to imitate skin. This was revolutionary and may have inspired later films like Wallace and Gromit as they use this same method to make their models. Furthermore you can see this improved quality of movement in the character models from the fact the spider moves fast to catch the people and you actually think it could be a spider running by the sight of it’s realistic motion. You don’t see it really stopping like the dinosaurs. The difference in movement might have been intentional for the diegesis of the film. Because spiders are more agile and quicker than dinosaurs and giant apes, so it may look more realistic. Although “King Kong” was made in 1933 so not much time had been passed for animation techniques to develop far enough for the characters in “King Kong” to look absolutely realistic like they did in Wallace and Gromit, where you forget it’s stop motion animation at times. Although in the cameraman’s revenge there was more than one character moving at once which is a big improvement on ‘Bagpuss’ in which characters often took turns to move. For example 3 minutes into the mouse mill Bagpuss would move his paws and then there was a small gap then Professor Yaffule would move towards the mouse mill while all the while still talking on his confusion or what it is. And Bagpuss was made many years after ‘Cameraman’s revenge’. Also the way some of the props move as well isn’t very realistic like when the beetle hits the door with his briefcase the doors just fall apart. In real life this wouldn’t happen. Also when the beetle drops his briefcase the briefcase doesn’t just fall over straight away like gravity would cause it to do in real life, it instead falls to the ground gradually. This might be also due to the technical restrictions of the time because they might not be able to increase the frames per second as easier as they could today as back then editors had to literally cut and stick film together by hand and there wasn’t any undo buttons like there is today. This may be the same reason ‘Bagpuss’ has gaps in between characters moving like I mentioned earlier because directors might not have wanted to take unnecessary irreversible risks. Another important feature that contributes to the realism is texture of the character’s models, this was something that is easier to be controlled because they were using object animation. It was easier to control King Kong as they made the model however Ladislas Starevich didn’t custom make his models as he used real dead objects so it was harder to effect the texture of the object. Because of the bad lighting in “The Cameraman’s Revenge” you couldn’t really see the details of the beetles so you would never tell they were real beetles. Where as in King Kong you can see Kong’s hair move to show it’s windy as you can see in the closing empire state building scene. This is due to an advance in technology and budget as by 1933 wind machines were of better quality and could be better suited for purpose however Cameraman’s Revenge was made in 1917 in Russia which was not doing well economically due to losing of the first world war. King Kong was also made for a much mass market than cameraman’s revenge and had a lot more investment to recoup through ticket sales so it had to be made to a good technical standard and details had to be looked at. This is detail is also easier to see because of the more attention to lighting and exposure where as cameraman’s revenge has to many shadows on screen and you can’t even clearly see the shine off the beetles back. Another thing contributes to the visual effect and realism that allows details to be seen is the camerawork. ‘Cameraman’s revenge’ is mostly shot in long shots apart from a
keyhole shot. There is not any camera movement; the characters walk into the frame. Whereas in King Kong there is much more adventurous camera movement to follow the action, which can be seen in the scene where the planes are trying to knock Kong off the top of the empire state building, because by 1917 and 1933 there has been greater improvements in film language. King Kong also has a bigger set so there it’s possible to get a larger variety of shots you couldn’t get in such a limited 2D set that they used in ‘Cameraman’s Revenge’. King Kong has a much larger variety of camera shots like close ups to show characters emotions which can bee seen in the lost spider pit scene. In the characters in cameraman's revenge didn’t even change their facial expressions as it was not possible or not plausible to achieve with dead insects. However Cameraman’s Revenge was made in 1917 when cinema was a relatively new art form, sound hadn’t even come into cinema by that point so King Kong’s audience in 1933 had much high expectations where as back in 1917 the novelty of moving image was still a factor that drew a lot of the audience. And King Kong had a big budget to recoup so it had to meet those cinematic expectations. Where as Ladislas Starevich was a wealthy upper middle class man for whom film making wasn’t his main occupation. However for the time it was made I do admire the cameraman’s revenge’s use of mise en scene and the amount of backgrounds they used. However cameraman’s revenge was made in Russia in the 1910s and King Kong was made in the Hollywood golden age. So for “King Kong” they could make their backgrounds look better, they could employ lots of set designers and art directors and afford to shoot on location, whereas Ladislas Starevich worked mostly by himself and paid more attention to the narrative than the cinematography and mise en scene. Bagpuss and Wallace and Gromit There is a clear difference in the level of movement of between the film ‘Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the were rabbits’ and the children’s TV show ‘Bagpuss’. Everything in Bagpuss looks robotic and jumpy, for example when the doors of the mouse mill open they seemed to open in stages that gives it a jerky jumpy motion and doesn’t replicate the motion of a normal door opening. If they had used a higher frame rate and taken more frames they might achieve a more realistic movement of the opening of the door, because this with low frame rate the door seems to jump from being half open to being fully open. The main reason for this poor quality in movement might be because the budget for ‘Bagpuss’ was very low, so low in fact the whole program was made by just two men working in a shed. Therefore they may have not been able to afford the technology to make the animation of a better quality or be paid enough to devote much time or effort to it. Whereas in the scene from “Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were rabbits” in which all the locals meet in church to discuss the were rabbit problem, the doors of the church swing open with a very fast speed as the vicar character pushes them open. The frame rate was so good that it looked so realistic you didn’t even notice the characters and set were all cay as the world created through the movement of the characters and props mimicked the real world so much. The same applies to the movement of the characters in ‘Bagpuss’ they also looked very robotic. For example when Professor Yaffle or the mice walked they seemed to get from one place to move from one step to another without any movement in between for
example when Professor Yaffle walks up to the mouse mill you see one foot leave the ground in one frame and then hit the ground in the next frame. There are no frames which show his foot on it’s descent down to the ground. Furthermore if you look at the characters feet notice there doesn’t seem to be any half steps. Where as there is clearly all of the mice seem to move at once at exactly the same speed, they don’t seem like they are individual at all. They all might be connected to a wire below or above the set, but it doesn’t seem very realistic, however I don’t think their target audience of 3 to 10 year olds would care that much, children probably don’t notice those kinds of details, it wouldn’t be likely to put them off. Whereas Wallace and Gromit is a film that will be shown worldwide to audiences of people aged 3 to 70; so the audience will probably have higher technical expectations of it. Audiences also have to pay to go to the cinema or buy a DVD to view Wallace and Gromit so it has to be off a good quality to even meet the audience's basic expectations of what an animation should be. Where as ‘Bagpuss’ was just an early morning TV program broadcast on BBC. Wallace and Gromit also had the budget of £30 million which means it needed to attract audiences in order to recoup that budget via ticket and DVD sales. The big budget also allows it the animators to have access to technology to easily adjust the frame rate in accordance with the onscreen images, it also means they can employ more staff to work longer on getting the animation right. You could also say that Wallace and Gromit has a much better use of the camera than Bagpuss. In Bagpuss there are only long shots, extreme long shots, close ups and medium close ups, whereas in Wallace and Gromit there are over the shoulder shots, close ups, medium close ups, long shots, extreme long shots, reverse crane shots, as it must incorporate the conventions typically expected of a feature film. Moreover often in Bagpuss the characters have to walk into shot as the camera doesn’t move to accommodate the characters, for example at one point the mice push the professor out of shot this maybe because the creators Postgate and Firmin might have not been being paid enough. In Wallace and Gromit there is a lot of camera movement, there are tracking shots, reverse crane shots, and the camera zooms in and zooms out a different lengths. Wallace and Gromit has better cinematography than “Bagpuss” by far. Wallace and Gromit has to looks like a movie and it does but Bagpuss was a 13 episode series of short films aimed at children that would probably just be shown in the morning to fill time or to meet the BBC’s public service requirements. It wasn’t expecting high viewing figures anyway so it didn’t have much to lose. Furthermore the characters in “Bagpuss” didn’t have a lot of depth or a sophisticated back-story; they didn’t even have that many defining characteristics, their characters also didn’t use that many facial expressions. For example Professor Yaffle could only do the expressions confused and happy as only things that moved on his head was his actual head and his beak so his facial expressions were limited. The reason for the limited design might again be due to the limited budget given to the TV show. On the other hand it’s clear to see the dynamic of the relationship between Wallace and Gromit, both characters are equally important to the story and have well known characteristics which are memorable among their audience such as Wallace’s raised elbows, the way Wallace shakes his cupped hands when excited, Gromit’s raised eyebrows, dilated pupils, shocked and angry facial expression. These characteristics indicate what kind of a relationship Wallace and Gromit have as Wallace is the over excited, slightly idiotic character that embarrasses and often endangers Gromit the
more intelligent dog who is victimized, this is shown through Gromit raising of his eyebrows and throwing a depressed expression when Wallace messes something up. Their relationship is the verse of the typical relationship between man and dog. The character’s characteristics have become so well known as Wallace and Gromit have been around since the late 80s and have taken on sort of cult status. This meant Nick Park and Bob Baker would have felt pressured and inspired to take more care and do a better job, so Wallace and Gromit are under more pressure from fans that are greater in volume and loyalty. Whereas children have short attention spans and probably won’t think that much about what they see on TV because everything is new to them so their minds will be filled with so many more things to them. Aardman animations in fact give all their characters a signature look which units them all under the brand of Aardman animation for example the round bobble eyes. This also builds a close relationship with the audience. Wallace and Gromit features a wide array of roles you would expect there to be in a feature film, such as a villain, henchman, love interest, heroes and people the heroes are trying to protect. “Bagpuss” may have vaguely established a dynamic between the characters, like the Professor is meant to be clever but the mice help him out a lot and Bagpuss is sort of the leader of the group watching over them. But it’s not a very complex dynamic and it doesn’t need to be, because they are short TV shows of no longer than 30 minutes whereas Wallace and Gromit the curse of the were rabbits is a full length feature film that is got to grab people’s attention and keep it for 85 minutes. The characters and setting in “Bagpuss” is completely fictional and doesn’t relate to anything in real life because at a young age you have a bigger imagination and a smaller grasp on reality so your world is mostly fictional. Wallace and Gromit however is set in the northern Manchester town Wigan therefore Wallace and Gromit gives a maybe over exaggerated portrayal of an old fashioned, quaint, friendly Northern country side village, for example the use of stereotypical north village like events such vegetable competitions and village fetes. Also the characters in Wallace and Gromit are members of society that people associate with the a typical northern village like the vicar and the priest. This film also uses iconography to set the scene of a small quaint peaceful northern town such as the gardening tools you see in the scene where the angry mob is formed to chase the were rabbit, the use of costume also sets the scene as you can see from the red and white polka dotted bow tie and red braces Wallace wears, these articles of clothing are very much associated with the north as well as the green trousers and sweater vest he wears. This film is using nostalgia to further attract an older audience who will remember days that more closely resemble the world represented in Wallace and Gromit. I think Wallace and gromit is also predisposed to attract this older audience as Wallace and Gromit is a TV show that’s been around since the 1970s so older people might go too see Wallace and Gromit for the nostalgia factor. Nick Park and Bob Baker also paint this picture of a stereotypical old fashioned northern town by giving all of their characters northern accents, no Londoners what so ever, they even hire real northerners such as Peter Kay, however in Bagpuss the characters accents don’t contribute to the setting of the show. The use of language also paints the picture of a stereotypical northern town. An example of this is when during the aforementioned scene in the church, the policeman calls the old lady ‘mental’ after he asks her to stop playing the organ. Calling someone ‘Mental’ when you are annoyed
with some one is a character trait that a northerner would typically say, for example northern comedians Karl Pilkington and Peter Kay frequently calls people mental when annoyed with them. The policeman who says the line Constable Albert Mackintosh is also in fact voiced by Peter Kay. Wallace and Gromit goes into great detail to depict it’s setting where as Bagpuss doesn’t go into this amount of detail. For Wallace and Gromit a massive set is built where as Bagpuss is just set in a shop. This again is probably due to the demands of the audience as Wallace and Gromit’s will be older and more susceptible to small details like accents and facial expressions. Therefore Wallace and Gromit takes great time and care in making the details of the animation as realistic as possible even if the hardest and most time consuming thing to animate are character’s facial expressions. Where as children will be less likely to notice details or need to feel a cultural connection with or understanding of the subject matter. They will probably just be excited by the colors and fact they are moving especially in a time when animation wasn’t as developed as it is today. There is far less attention to detail in Bagpuss, you can’t even hear the character’s footsteps unlike in Wallace and Gromit where you can clearly hear the vicar’s footsteps against the wooden flooring of the church. The footsteps are also totally in sync whereas in Bagpuss Professor Yaffle’s heard talking even when the professor Yaffle model’s beak isn’t even moving. This again is due to the differences in demands of the audience. Wallace and Gromit’s audience also expect a greater standard of acting and accent, and they have the budget to employ all professional actors to do all of the voices of the characters. Also in “Bagpuss” the characters voices are very over the top, there is no subtlety or realism. Wallace and Gromit is totally believable it has a more sophisticated plot and more witty dialogue, it’s use of word play with ‘arson’ and ‘arsing about’ and it’s makers knew it would be watched by an older audience because they put so many adult references in the film. In Wallace and Gromit the sound is crisp and perfectly time as you can see by the timing of stopping of the organ in correspondence with the policeman telling the organ player to stop. Whereas in “Bagpuss” there are gaps between the voice over stopping and characters starting to speak. This might because it was made on film not digital it restricted the freedom it had to make it accurate and well timed. Also you can hear the voice recorder on in “Bagpuss”. So the reason Wallace and Gromit was of better quality technical and creative quality of the demands from a wider more sophisticated intelligent audience and having the advantages of modern technology. Jason and the Argonauts and the time machine “Jason and the Argonauts” and the “Time Machine” were both made in the early 1960s and they both blended live action with animation, using object and model animation techniques. Furthermore both animations were advanced for their time and they both look very impressive and realistic, especially considering the fact they are 50 years old or older. They look much better than animations like Bagpuss even though “Bagpuss” was made at a later date. Both animations had very good use of sound. In ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ they really took time and went into detail to make the sound of the skeletons walking in unison as realistic as possible. As the sound of the skeleton’s footsteps were completely synced
with the skeletons footsteps on screen, this can be seen specifically in the skeleton fight scene when the skeletons slowly approach Jason and the Argonauts while pointing their spears at them and holding up their shields. The diegetic sound effect of the skeleton’s feet walking on the dirt of the mountain which must have been foleyed does sound how I actually think a skeleton would sound if it was walking on a dirt floor. I do however think that they should have made the sound of the skeletons emerging from the ground louder because if it happened in reality it would produce a louder diegetic sound. But that is just of a subjective view they might have not agreed with. On the whole both film’s sound was pretty well thought through. The non diegetic theme music fitted perfectly with the onscreen action and was timed really accurately. In the time machine the sounds of the glass breaking in the scene where George goes forward through time in his study sounded very realistic and was also perfectly in sync with the onscreen action. However the sounds of the planks of wood being put up wasn’t in sync with the onscreen action of the plants being put up as the sound effect of the planks occurred after the planks were all up and in place. But they were working with film not digital, so the editors must have been restricted to how much editing they could do and how perfectly synchronized they could get it. And again the audience didn’t have the same high demands of cinema that have been set today with our modern editing. But the films were almost completely synchronous and the right sounds were chosen to support the on screen action in the two films in order to make the action seem realistic to the audience. The cinematography was also very important to achieving realism in the films. The ‘Time Machine’ was very impressive, especially in the scene where the sky changes from night to day several times in that same aforementioned scene in which George is traveling forward through time in the time machine in his basement. In this scene as an audience member you really got the feeling that the sky was changing from day to night. In the scene even the shots in which George wasn’t shown still maintain the continuity of the scene as you can see the lighting changing. For example in this scene you see a shot of yellow flowers in a follow point and the light change from shadow to light to represent the sun crossing the sky as a representation of time passing. This realism was also due to the excellent work of the cinematographer Paul Vogel. The changing of the backgrounds seen frequently when the sky shown through the windows of George’s study changes from a cloudy day to night time in which the moon crosses the sky to a clear day in a matter of frames. This seems to be achieved through time lapse photography. Controlling the saturation was also something Paul should get credit for as the film had crisp clear quality which is essential to seeing the details of the animated models. It shows the advances made from when colour first came into mainstream American films in the late 1930s when nearly everything on screen was over saturated to 1960 the year in which this film was made. On the other hand “Jason and the Argonauts” was shot both on location and in a studio in which they created artificial backgrounds and they blended together using backscreen projection just like that was used in “King Kong”. The two didn’t always mix together well as you can see in the children of hydra scene, because in the low angle long shot of the skeletons fighting Jason, the sky is different from the more lush, well saturated sky in the low angle medium close ups of Jason fighting the skeletons.
As the sky appears to be cloudy and the picture quality appears to be slightly washed out in the low angle low shot and the sky then appears to be clear and blue and well saturated in the low angle medium close up shots. This change in weather on screen ruined the continuity of the scene and the illusion that the artificially created sky and the actual filmed sky were the same. Another technical fault is there is also a bit of a jump cut between those two shots as at the end of the low long shot you see Jason looking away from the scene in the direction of one of his Argonauts with his head up and then in the low angle medium close up Jason appears to be actually looking at the ground in the direction of the sea standing at a slightly less linear angle. Because it was 1963 they didn’t have the same technology as we have today so they might not have been able to achieve the same realism we’re able to now in films like “Wallace and Gromit” and they wouldn’t have had our flexibility in the editing. Because they were both Hollywood films the camera work of both films was however very exciting and grand. Lots of different camera angles were used to give great visuals. The actual objects they used to animate in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ were very well created, I think the making of Talus and the skeletons and the dragons was very good and lifelike. The texture of the models was very much like the texture of a skeleton or a dragon and they were made in such a way, which allowed them to move like a dragon or a skeleton. However the texture of the flowers wasn’t that great as you could obviously tell they were Claymation and models were made of clay unlike Wallace and Gromit where you forget it’s Claymation and the models are made of clay as the colour of the clay so brilliantly mimics the colour of human skin and the detailed movement of the characters mimics the detailed movement of humans. The same also applies to the lava, as it doesn’t look like lava but rather has a thicker texture like Bolognese and it doesn’t stream down the crumpled street as seamlessly as laval would but rather like how Bolognese would. But effects such as this are very hard to accurately recreate and they couldn’t use as many the technology we would use today to make this appear realistic such as CGI, it could also be because mixing live action with the Claymation can at times make the Claymation stand out and look a little like Claymation unlike in “Wallace and Gromit” in which all the props and sets are made artificially like the models of the characters. The movement of the characters as well as the props in both films were very important. In “Jason and the Argonauts” the movement was very lifelike. The skeletons were all moving at the same time, there wasn’t any character standing still while the others were fighting like in “Bagpuss” in which the characters seem to be forced to take turns to move. In Jason and the Argonauts during the skeleton fight the skeletons reacted to getting hit by Jason and Argonauts as they were standing above them on a plinth like a person would react to getting hit. Although I think they not have been as realistic as they could because I don’t think skeletons would move that fluidly without the cartilage that people have in order to move, the same problems with realism could be said for scene in the “Time Machine” where the building changes but you can’t see any builders. But these are both fictional films for mainstreamers who’ll just want some escapism so I don’t think they thought the audience would care too much about these small issues with the film’s continuity of the film’s diegesis. The time machine had great use of Claymation to achieve visuals that were impossible to create with live action. The animation brilliantly aided the diegesis of the film. The candles burning
looked really realistic as did the flowers blooming. Although both films had weren’t perfect the animators still paid very close attention to detail and I think that was because these films were also art for the creators as well as just entertainment for the audience. George Pal was known for his love of animation, which is clear to see, when you look at the detail in “Time Machine”, and it also won an Oscar for special effects to show the recognition he might have intentionally been aiming for. And it’s also clear to see Harryhausen’s love of animation since being a small boy considering it took 4 months to make the skeleton sequence that only look up three minutes of the film. This was in a time when films were made very quickly. However “Jason and the Argonauts” wasn’t as consistent in it’s detail and portrayal of realism as the “Time Machine” because they still made mistakes like when the discus was thrown. It’s didn’t look anything like what would actually happen if a discus would have been thrown in real life, the discus wouldn’t go over the rock from that angle but in 1960 the audience probably didn’t have the same standards of realism as they do today in a more modern age. But on the whole these were two very well crafted creative innovative pieces of work for the time. And because they were made in the 1960s after the studio system closed down and mainstream films weren’t as commercial as they were from the 1920s to the 1950s or again in the 1970s it allowed this innovation and creativity to happen and be seen by a big mainstream audience. The frame rate of the skeletons was so right that in the shots in which the skeletons slowly pursue Jason and the Argonauts up the hill in the heavily mentioned skeleton fight scene the skeletons don’t appear to move like models imitating skeletons but rather actual skeletons. Even though Hollywood wasn’t at it’s most profitable in the 1960s it was still big business so it would still be able to adequately fund Harryhausen 4 month production of a three minute scene. These two films were made with a much more cinematic quality than “Bagpuss” as these two film are made for international audiences with bigger expectations in regards to production values than a child simply tuning into the BBC. Star Wars Hoth sequence and The terminator ending scene In the 1990s CGI took over mainstream cinema and stop motion animation was becoming a bit more redundant, as the characters in live action films that it wasn’t possible to be played by actors were instead portrayed though stop motion animation prior to CGI assuming that function in the 90s. An example of how stop motion animation was used in this way was in the 1980 film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back the AT – AT robots and the Terminator character 1984 film the Terminator would have been made using CGI if the films were made in the 90s however they were made in the 80s before CGI started to push stop motion animation out of live action films in Hollywood. In the 1984 film Terminator stop motion animation is used to portray the character of the Terminator towards the end of the film when he is simply a robotic skeleton due to his pervious encounters throughout the film with the film’s protagonists Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor. In this scene towards the end of the film the Terminator is chasing Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor through a factor at night time. The frame rate used here allows the terminator to appropriately fit in with the surroundings as it as it moves at the same speed as the machines and the smoke when he walks though the factory. The models that were made specifically for this
film to play the Terminator are made in a way to mimic the actions of a robot that was imitating a human and it does it brilliantly most of the time. For example in the low angle shots in which the Terminator is walking through the factory looking around for Kyle and Sarah you see the multiple parts of his anatomy move at the same time such as his arms his chest, his head, his neck, his eyes, his arms and his biceps. They all move in time with each other, it definitely appears like all of this parts are connecting like they would be in a robot imitating a human. This was a massive improvement on animations such as Pigeon Street and Bagpuss as often the characters body parts would move one after another and there was a gap of a few frames between these movements which didn’t make them look connected. They made two models of the terminator character in his robot state to animate this scene one was a full scale mode that was used for example when he thrusts his arm through a metal factory door and plies it open by reaching his arm through a hole in the door and creating a bigger one with a piece of metal his grabs which is wedged in the door this was done with the full scale model however other scenes in which you see the whole of the terminator a miniature scale model is used. The reason the miniature scale model was used was because it was quicker and cheaper to animate as less crew is required and it would take six months longer to animate the full scale model. The miniature model built after the full scale model is an exact replica, it’s said that if any changes were made to the full scale model those same changes would have to be applied to the miniature model. And it was done brilliantly as you can see how all of those little intricacies were replicated. The model was much more detailed than any of the other models used in the object animations I had previously written about in this essay such as Bagpuss as in Terminator you can even see the shoulder joints of the robot and it’s individual teeth where as Bagpuss didn’t even have any teeth. The metal of the terminator looked so realistic that it blended into the metal of the machines around him in the factory. The reason the model looked so good and it was built to move so realistically is due to the fact that this film had a big budget of $6.4 million which allowed them to pay the best people in the business to built there models and animate those models. And they need to spend this much money as they were making a Hollywood film so the terminator robot had to look realistic. However the animation in the terminator wasn’t perfect as you can see it’s movement being jumpy and you can see gaps between the models movements at points. For example just after the medium close up reverse tracking shot of the terminator fitting through the door and the low angle close up of the terminators red eyes scanning there is a slowly panning long shot from behind the robot appearing to limp through the factory still in pursuit of Kyle and Sarah. Here you see the robot move it’s right leg and arm forward and there is a gap then the robot moves it’s left leg and left arm forward. It looks like for this shot they used a frame rate that was too low. However this movement might be intentional as it is a robot they are animating. However that robot is meant to be imitating a human as the robot in the narrative is meant to act as the exoskeleton of the Terminator who passes himself off as a human. The 1980 film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back stop motion animation is used to animate a robots also but this time it’s a much bigger robot the AT – ATs and furthermore there were several of them to animate in the Battle of Hoth scene. The AT – ATs brilliantly blend in with the surroundings during this scene as I as an
audience member I often forgot that the robots are actually models filmed in a set and not actually there in the scene with the actors. The set that is built to replicate the location used to shoot the live action exterior shots of the rebels fighting the AT – ATs is so realistic it’s hard to tell the difference. The reason the set was so good was most probably because after the success of the first star wars film a lot of money was prepared to be thrown at this in the hope of securing high box office results like the previous film. And like the terminator this film was aimed at a older, more intelligent, American predominately geeky audience who would be more likely to notice the technical faults of a film. This film contains many homages to films gone by for example the storm troops walk like the Nazi’s in Leni Riefenstahl’s “The Triumph of the Will” so this film may also be aimed or at least watched by film buffs. Although their secondary target audience would most likely be children who will be less likely to be critical about the small details of the film. This film’s animation like the Terminator film at times looks like they used a frame rate that was too low. For example when in the long shot when we first see the AT – ATs in fully in plain sight not through the binoculars the AT – ATs seem walk very robotically and mechanically. There is about a second gap between the steps. This persists throughout the scene however maybe this is intentional like the Terminator as they are meant to be robots/machines. Although another problem arises with the sound, as often there are two ATs shooting simultaneously however we only hear the sound of one shooting. For example in the low angle long shot of two ATs shooting at the Hoth defence system you see them both shooting and you only hear one. Furthermore there are often problems with the synchronization at certain points in the scene. For example in a close up shot of the head of a AT AT you see the AT - AT fire shots before you hear the shots being fired. However these maybe problems that either no one really cares about so they haven’t bothered to correct or the animators had so much other work on their hands that they didn’t have time to correct it before the film had to be released. Stars has a much larger majority of it’s film shot using animation than Terminator does so therefore they probably couldn’t achieve perfect synchronization like Terminator seemed to. Furthermore in the Terminator a lot of close ups of and medium close ups to film the Terminator were used so it was often hard to tell if the sound of the terminator’s feet hitting the ground was synced as we as an audience couldn’t see the feet hitting the floor so we assume it was synced by the fact the sound was made just after the connecting upper body part we can see on screen just moved. Although most of the time as an audience member as with the Terminator model I forgot the AT ATs were models I was sometimes reminded however during the moments when it quickly intercut between close ups of pilots and shots of the ATs and during some of the long Ariel shots when you saw the AT – ATs up against the background. I can therefore see the appeal of CGI as it causes images to look more realistic and more like live action. Although throughout the film I was completely amazed by the fact they seemed to manage to mirror the exact same lighting setup used in the live action shots as they did in the scenes shot using the models and the set. I think both films used stop motion very well and some people feel that CGI is more noticeable in a live action film than stop motion animation and that it takes away the filmmaking skills used in these films such as the use of Lighting set ups to create continuity.
Essay on the development of cutout animation Cutout animation is a technique that has developed through time. Die abenteuer des prinzen Achmed (1926) was a 65-minute animated film by Lotte Reiniger. It was made at 24 frames per second using silhouette animation. Silhouette animation is a technique that is achieved by backlighting articulated cardboard cutouts. This film has very sophisticated cinematography for it’s time and a very advanced style of cut out animation for this because this was made in Germany in 1926 a time when German cinema was very commercially successful. Therefore audience’s expectations would be high and that might be the reason so many famous Avant garde animators worked on it such as Walter Ruttmann, Berthhold Batosch and Carl Koch. I was very impressed with the movement of the silhouettes for example when birds are pecking at each other as the motion looks very realistic as there is no jumps, the camera is completely static. The movement of the bird’s necks and heads also mimic the movement of the heads and knecks of birds in real life as do the feet and the wings. However the bird’s feathers are static, which isn’t very realistic. Like in Jason and Argonauts in the scenes which the trees don’t blow in the wind this film also seems to lacking the punctum, which is the small unplanned detail which gives a film it’s beauty and realism. The transitions between the transformations of the silhouettes was of very low quality. For example when the birds change to the sea creatures of a fish and something that resembles a shrimp the screen just momentarily fades to black, which I feel, ruins the flow and diegesis of the scene. The reason for these may be due to the lack of sophistication in editing at the time as film was edited and stuck together by hand so a few frames may have been lost by mistake and there was no undo button so they may have just had to fade to black. The Monty python use of cutout animation was of a far less technical quality than the previous animation because none of the cutouts had any realistic movement. All of the crowd just slightly wobbled along at the same time and there feet didn’t even move at all as they passed across the road in front of the boss, the wheels of the bus didn’t even move as it went past that potential passenger waiting by the lonely bus stop sign isolated in the green fields of the country. Some of the sound wasn’t even synced such as the cat’s footsteps on the ground. I think the reason for this was because at the time the BBC were less restricted and had a more flexible management, Monty python got 13 episodes commissioned by the BBC without the BBC even being sure what those 13 episodes were going to consist of. So Monty python could get away with low quality animation like this. Furthermore most of Python’s budget was probably spent on costumes and effects for their live action sketches. The low quality was probably intentional as the degree to which it’s unrealistic submits to python’s crazy sense of humour, especially the animator Terry Gillingham. This is an improvement from Die abenteuer des prinzen Achmed as now you can actually see the details of the models. In Die abenteuer des prinsen Achmed the models consisted soley of the silloutes of the cuts whereas in Python and most proceeding cut out animations the model’s facial features, cloths as well as the details of the settings and the props such as the Bus that gets knocked over by an outstretched tounge on that same empty road were all visible. Pigeon Street made in 1981 was also of a very poor technical quality. The movement of people isn’t realistic at all for example when Dr Glasup does press ups and turns over on his back. It’s clearly not feasibly realistic at all. For example this animations depiction of a press up cuts from the point where Dr Glasup is fully up and supported
by both of his outstretched arms to the point where his chin is down and his chest is down which then cuts to when his is fully up again at the end of the press up. There are no frames to depict what happens in between. This was further made to look worse by the fact they chose such a low frame rate so each of these frames where Dr Gasup was at the start, middle and end of the press up were on screen for about a full half second. The reason for this low quality might be because this was made to be aired in the preschoolers part of the schedule on the BBC in 1981 so didn’t get a high budget and was aimed at children who aren’t going to be as critical of the characters movement or the fact the sound effects aren’t realistic. Although more effort probably went into making “Pigeon Street” than the “Monty Python” animation which is probably why the animation in Pigeon Street was more realistic than Python’s animation. For example at least in Pigeon Street when Dr Gasup does press ups different parts of his body moves at once as his stomach, his chest, his arms and even his pest fishes eye move at the same time. Whereas when the crow of people are running the people move as a group they don’t move individually and there legs don’t even move. I think the reason Pigeon Street was of a better quality was because even though it was aimed at children it still had to maintain some sense of realism so the children could make sense of the story as they are likely to reference everything by the real world where as Monty Python was aimed at a more intellectual reformist audience who might actually like the poor quality of the animation as it added to the surrealness of the program which is what Python were trying to achieve. Furthermore Monty Python simply didn’t really prioritize the animation as much of the live action, the live action was made up 70% of the show and sketches were bitterly thought over by the pythons however the animations were simply made to bridge between the sketches and was left completely up to the control of Terry Gilliam, John Cleese even used this fact that no one really prioritized the animations in an argument with Gilliam during the production of Python's 1975 feature film Holy Grail. However both animations didn’t have amazing production values overall as the sets weren’t very basic and not very detailed, the camera shacked frequently in both animations and both animations looked over saturated. This film was definitely an improvement on Monty Python as in this production the characters individual body parts were moving and many of them were moving at the same time. South Park’s use of cutout animation was of a much better quality than the other three animations as it was more detailed. The character’s facial features moved, the sets look more realistic and there is a more professional shot variation. Which can all be seen in the intro to the Jimmy Kimmel Live during the episode fifth episode of the thirteenth series entitled Fishsticks. For example the camera zooms out from a medium close up to a wide shot of a cheering audience to a high angle zoom shot of Jimmy Kimmel to a static wide shot from behind the fans of Jimmy Kimmel on stage to a medium close up of Jimmy Kimmel speaking to camera, who talks with a background that heavily resembles Kimmel’s actual set he uses on his actual chat show “Jimmy Kimmel Live”. There is always something happening there are no wasted frames like there is in Pigeon Street during Dr Gasup’s press ups. You see the several characters eyes, hands, heads, eyes and mouths moving at the same time for example during the long shot of when Cartman laughingly walks up to Clyde to tell him a joke in the school corridor you see the hands, head, eyes and feet of both Clyde and Cartman at the same time in the foreground but you also see the hands, heads, eyes and feet of the three characters in the background Butters, Jimmy and Kenny slightly move also which mimic how people would act in real life much more accurately than Pigeon Street or MontyPython
do. The reason for this may be because South Park which has four separate distributors is made for a global audience unlike Pigeon Street or the early days of Monty Python, South Park which has four production companies behind it will have a bigger budget than Pigeon Street or Monty Python which were low prioritized programs on the BBC’s schedule because of their small target audience so they wouldn’t have been able to employ as many staff and use as much equipment as South Park have at their disposal and South Park has ran for a much longer time than Pigeon Street and Monty Python so it would have had time to improve over it’s 237 episodes whereas Pigeon Street only ran for 13 episodes and Monty Python only ran for 45 episodes. However South Park’s animation wasn’t perfect as there were problems with the synchronization as the characters dialogue was slightly ahead of their corresponding hand movements. For example during a four shot of that same school corridor scene I mentioned earlier when Stan walks into shot and asks blonde haired character Butter’s ‘what’s going on’ Butters responds ‘Eric and Jimmy came up with the funniest joke ever they got all of us with it and now they’re getting Clyde’ you see the dialogue slightly ahead of the shapes the Butters and Stan character make to correspond with it. Furthermore the feet or legs of the characters don’t move in a realistic motion as the feet or legs of the characters don’t move individually. Both feet and legs move at the same time like in Monty Python which can be seen clearly when during the same aforementioned school corridor scene Cartman, Jimmy, Kenny and Butters enter the corridor at the start of the scene. However this may not be a fault as rather a stylistic choice that the audience might see as part of the program’s charm or simply not care about, if they had a lot of complaints Southpark may consider correcting the problem. This animation definitely shows an improvement in the technique of cutout animation as this has TV show unlike Monty Python, Die abenteuer des prinzen Achmed and Piegon Street features a large shot variation. Unlike Die abenteuer des prinzen Achmed it doesn’t fade to black more of a character's individual features move unlike Monty Python and even more of them move at the same time than in Pigeon Street and the characters, sets and props are even more detailed than Pigeon street as you can see in the Jimmy Kimmel Live clip the sets intricately imitate real life television sets that the audience will already be aware of what they look like. The Development of Pixilation Animation Pixilation animation is stop motion animation technique, which involves live actors effectively being used as puppets to blend stop motion with live actors as the animator moves the actors frame by frame. A very famous film to use this technique was Norman McLaren’s 8 minute short anti war film Neighbours. This film is about two male seemingly affluent Neighbours called Jean-Paul Ladouceur and Grant Munro who’s seemingly identical gardens are not separated by any fence or barrier but are co existing peacefully and sharing a lighter. Then a yellow flower blossoms in between their two gardens. This sparks a rivalry between the two, which results in them killing each other, the follower and their gardens in the process. There are some good things that can be said about the use of pixilation in this film. For example the film uses a good frame rate because as an audience member the illusion is completely created that these two actors who have been told to stop and freeze in their positions are just two actors just doing live action. For example you see this just after the two neighbours have realized the existence of this yellow flower and have put their papers down, when they get up and proceed to
walk with their hands by their sides identically towards the flower, look towards each other in amazement then down towards the flower, then still looking at the flower walk to a 90 degree angle of the flower and stand with their hands in their pockets bent forward looking at the flower I totally believed these two actors were just acting normally not that they have been animated. For this moment the film doesn’t jump at all the motion of the actors is completely realistic. You could also make the case that stop motion animation is used creatively as it’s used to defy gravity when the two neighbours both seemingly dragging themselves along the floor on the stomach towards the follow get up and jump multiple times in quick succession without their feet touching the floor. This would have not been possible to do using live action so here pixilation is pushing the boundaries of creativity by allowing actors to do an action that would usually be reserved for models. I think the reason they have done this is because this was a film aimed at predominately an older, intelligent, artistic, reformist audience who wanted to see the boundaries of creativity pushed and wanted to see something new. Neighbours has many problems for example even though I had previously stated an example of the pixilation animation creating the illusion of live action in the moments just before that in the two shot of the two neighbours sitting down it looks very jumpy and not the realistic motion of a human at all. For example just after the lighter has been shared and the two neighbours are sitting back in their deck chairs reading newspapers in a two shot, when the follower spouts out of the ground in the background the action of them putting down the paper seems to be covered in 4 or 5 frames. As it cuts from them reading the paper to them beginning to put the paper down to them putting them with the paper down with perhaps one or two frames in between to show them putting the paper. The fact they have used two low of a frame rate makes the action of the men putting down the paper look jumpy and completely un like the motion of a human. They needed to shoot more frames in between to make this process more closely mimic the actual action of someone putting the paper down. This is made even worse by the fact that after they have put the paper down and they turn to each other they seem to go from facing forward to them in a half turn to them facing each other. The same problem of an absence of frames has caused this action to look jumpy and completely unrealistic. This happens frequently in the film. I am very aware at these moments they have used pixilation animation. There is also several continuity problems in this film as you can frequently see the lighting change from frame to frame you can this this in the aforementioned scene in which the two men are jumping. The background also messes up the continuity and the illusion of realism as in the same aforementioned two shot of the neighbours sitting down in deck chairs while the flower grows as the neighbours read the paper you can see the movement from the tree is very abnormal, it looks like it’s dissolving in acid. This problem was most probably due to the fact that they were focusing so much on the actors they forgot about the position of the branches of the tree in previous frame while they were shooting. This film also has problems with synchronization which is clear from the part in the film just after one of the neighbours knocks the other down for the first time and he then proceeds to get up and retaliate you hear the thud in the soundtrack which is used to match the actors hitting each other arrive just after the neighbour landed the swinging punch which knocks him down. I think the reason for this was because this film wasn’t a big budget production; it didn’t have any backing by a production studio it was produced at the National Film Board of Canada. So they didn’t have the money to hire
a large crew to achieve perfect synchronization or to monitor all the little details of the production such as the position of the tree’s branches. The technique of pixilation was also relatively new at that stage and so therefore may be hard to master. They may not have thought of a solution to the fact they may encounter wind. This stop motion animation technique of pixilation was also used in the 1986 Peter Gabriel music video Sledgehammer. In this music video Peter Gabriel is singing while a variety of strange things created by Claymation and Pixilation happen around him while he’s in the centre of the bottom half of screen. The technique of pixilation has definitely progressed in this animation from the last animation Neighbours. For example when Peter Gabriel is against what seems to be a grass while flowers are spouting around him, just after the cherry has flown into his mouth he sings and it looks like he is actually singing rather than a load of still frames of him in the process of singing had been collated. Furthermore in this animation there is no sudden light changes that ruin the continuity of the shot. I think the reason for this is because this production was made inside in a studio, which means they didn’t really have to encounter the problems with the weather which caused continuity problems in Neighbours such as the inconsistency of the lighting and the strange jumpy movement of the trees in the background. Furthermore the set that was used such as the glass with flowers of many colours spouting out of it was artificial and made specially for this production so the animators had better control of it than the animators had over the control of the environment they were filming in Neighbours. However this animation wasn’t perfect as often the facial movements Peter Gabriel made did not look like the way humans would make those facial expressions. For example at the start of the song when the background around Peter seems to wipe down to starry night sky and swirly train tracks surround Peter’s face while the train moves up it and Peter says ‘You can have a steam train. If you’d just lay down your tracks’ you hear the words before you see Peter make the corresponding mouth movements. Also the movement of his facial features doesn’t realistically mimic the way humans would mimic those facial movements, for example his eyebrows twitch much more frequently than a human would do. There is also a slight jump shot as it cuts from a shot of Peter open mouthed singing the word ‘tracks’ at the end of the aforementioned verse in front of the starry background to a shot of him smiling close mouthed. The reason this errors may have occurred may be because Peter wasn’t a professional pixilation animation actor so he might not have been as easy to keep still as a professional would be. Furthermore Peter Gabriel is a rock star and rock stars are notoriously hard to deal with and he’d already had to be under a plain of glass for 16 hours while shooting this video so it might not have been possible to do retakes unless it was absolutely necessary and these could be seen as minor flaws. This jumpy inhuman like movement may have also may be intentional however in the opening close up shots of Peters ears, mouth, eyes and nose which were most probably just live action this jumpy movement wasn’t present so I doubt it was a stylistic choice. This animation was definitely an improvement from the previous film I wrote about Neighbours as in this film they had gained better control of lighting and shadows as you can also clearly see from how they lit up Peter in the same way as the models as when the train crosses Peters face when he’s sings ‘you can have a steam train. If you’d just lay down your tracks’ Peter didn’t stand out at all. They also didn’t suffer the same continuity problems with lighting or the movement of the background that Neighbours suffered. This may also be due to the fact that this music video was made
when Peter Gabriel was at the height of his success and MTV was in it’s early stages and seen as cool in the mainstream therefore making a music video was a major marketing tool so therefore the record label Geffen records would have thrown a lot of money at his video. Which allowed him to get some of the best animators in the business such as Aardman Animations and if you’re going to attempt to show product on a global mainstream audience which MTV attracted at the time your music video needs to have high production values and be of a high standard. The hour-long 1993 animation film The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb also used the stop motion technique of pixilation. This film was shows another improvement in the development of the technique of stop motion animation. As you can see in this film the people move just like humans do and they there is no frames dropped. For example during the shots of the pregnant MA Thumb laying down in her bend struggling in bed and while beginning to attempt to sit up quickly stares at PA Thumb I completely forget these are actually the collated frames of the actors posing in the positioned required to make this action. The lighting continuity isn’t broken there is no jumps in the movement. You see every step in the process of this action. The reason for this maybe due to the fact that this animation was made several decades after pixilation animation was first beginning to be used at the turn of the 20th century in film like “El hotel eléctrico” made in 1908 so animators had a lot of pre existing films and other research to learn from. However this animation also wasn’t perfect as PA Thumb moved robotically and unrealistically. For example when just after Tom Thumb is delivered and PA Thumb walks over to MA Thumb picks up the Tom and walks to the door and the action of him opens the door as with all of PA Thumb’s preceding actions seems to occur in stages not in one continuous action. For example just after he opens the door there is a slight gap of a few frames before he closes the door. The way he moves also appears to happen in stages which gives PA thumb this robotic look. This might be a stylistic choice like inhuman like behaviour of peter Gabriel’s face in Sledgehammer or the actors in Neighbours as this program was commissioned by the BBC for a 60 minute full length movie after the rejected ten minute shorts received critical acclaim at festivals so they may have been aiming this at more of an arty reformist audience who don’t want to just simply see people moving like they’re people. This film was definitely an improvement on previous films I mentioned that used pixilation animation because in this film the synchronous, there is no continuity problems with backgrounds changing or light changing from frame to frame and the actors seem to move even more like humans than in the previous productions.