Stop Motion

Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.

Stereoscopic stop motion

Stop motion has very rarely been shot in stereoscopic 3D throughout film history. The first 3D stop motion short was In Tune With Tomorrow (also known as Motor Rhythm) in 1939 by John Norling. The second stereoscopic stop motion release was The Adventures of Sam Space in 1955 by Paul Sprunck. The third and latest stop motion short in stereo 3D was The Incredible Invasion of the 20,000 Giant Robots from Outer Space in 2000 by Elmer Kaan^[1] and Alexander Lentjes.^[2][3] This is also the first ever 3D stereoscopic stop motion and CGI short in the history of film. The first all stop motion 3D feature is Coraline (2009), based on Neil Gaiman's best-selling novel and directed by Henry Selick.

Go motion

Another more-complicated variation on stop motion is go motion, co-developed by Phil Tippett and first used on the films The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Dragonslayer (1981), and the RoboCop films. Go motion involved programming a computer to move parts of a model slightly during each exposure of each frame of film, combined with traditional hand manipulation of the model in between frames, to produce a more realistic motion blurring effect. Tippett also used the process extensively in his 1983 short film Prehistoric Beast, a 12 minute long sequence depicting a herbivorous dinosaur, being chased by a carnivorous dinosaur. With new footage Prehistoric Beast became Dinosaur! in 1985, a full length dinosaurs documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve.

Computer generated imagery

The almost universal use of CGI (computer generated imagery) has effectively rendered stop motion obsolete as a serious special effects tool in feature film^{[citation needed]}. However, its low entry price, and still unique "look" and "feel" on film means stop motion is still used on some projects such as in children's programming, as well as in commercials and comic shows such as Robot Chicken. The argument that the textures achieved with CGI cannot match the way real textures are captured by stop motion also makes it valuable for a handful of movie makers, notably Tim Burton, whose puppet-animated film Corpse Bride was released in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_Bride

 

 

 

Stop motion in television

Dominating children's TV stop motion programming for three decades in America was Art Clokey's Gumby series—which spawned a feature film, Gumby I in 1995—using both freeform and character clay animation. Clokey started his adventures in clay with a 1953 freeform clay short film called Gumbasia (1953) which shortly thereafter propelled him into his more structured Gumby TV series.

Rankin/Bass is a very famous stop-motion company. Since the 1960s it has been making many stop-motion Christmas specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and many others.

Stop motion in astronomy

Stop motion photography is used to observe diurnal motion. Circumpolar stars close to the celestial pole move only slowly. Conversely, following the diurnal motion with the camera, to eliminate it on the photograph, can best be done with an equatorial mount, which requires adjusting the right ascension only; a telescope may have a motor to do that automatically (sidereal drive).
A specific example of stop motion photography in astronomy is photographing the solar analemma, which requires a camera to remain stationary for an entire year, with exposures taken at the same time every few days.

 My Stop Motion Animation

Firstly in my group we took a series of images of our keys using a stills camera. We slightly moved the keys in a certain position each time we took a photo. We then loaded up the photos into iPhoto and then we dropped then into iMovie. We used the crop tool to ensure that they fitted the screen, then we changed the length of time for each still to 0.5 seconds. Then we exported it to Quicktime so that it was compatible with the blog.