Quay Brothers

The final stop motion animators I am going to mention are the Quay Brothers. Although perhaps their work is not as well-known as the likes of Tim Burton and Wallace and Gromit, they played an important role in stop motion animation’s evolution, because they were an influence to others. Tim Burton was inspired by them for one. Their style of animation is the idea of creating nightmarish fairy tales, which they describe as “midway between sleep and wakefulness”. You can see their style in some of Burton’s stop motion films, like Nightmare Before Christmas, which takes the idea of Christmas and mixes it with a dark atmosphere, although the stuff that the Quay Brothers create is much darker.

Their most famous animation is “Street of Crocodiles”, which has been labelled as one of the 10 greatest animations of all time by the film maker Terry Gilliam, showing its impact. It is undoubtedly their most recognised film. Street of Crocodiles is a highly metaphorical film, not featuring any dialogue and instead relying on music and atmosphere to set the mood.

Aardman Animations

I am now going to talk about Aardman Animations, who are an animation company that are famous for their series of Claymation movies, the Wallace and Gromit movies. When most people think of Claymation, or stop motion in general, the first thing that usually comes to mind are Wallace and Gromit, which goes to show how famous they are. Wallace and Gromit is great at combining both impressive and unique animation with humour, since there are usually a lot of ridiculous stunts which look unique, since there are so few Claymations on TV.

Although Aardman Animations are primarily known for Wallace and Gromit, and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Wallace and Gromit spinoff, Shaun the Sheep, they also created an unrelated film, which was a brilliant success, Chicken Run. Chicken Run was  also a Claymation movie, which had similarities with Wallace and Gromit, however it was a full length movie, as opposed to the (at the time) only 20 minute long Wallace and Gromit movies, which allowed Chicken Run to have a longer, more complex story. Chicken Run pushed the limitations of the Claymation style even further and was one of the first Claymation Movies to be released to cinemas (though there were a few, like Nightmare Before Christmas released first). It played a part in making Stop Motion more recognised.

Tim Burton

The next filmmaker that I am going to mention is Tim Burton. He has made many films that do not feature stop motion animation, so it wouldn’t be said that he specialises in it, however he has made several high quality stop motion animation films, most famously The Nightmare Before Christmas, which has gained a cult following because of its unique style of mixing dark elements into a child oriented movie, as well as the fact that the entire movie is Claymation, which makes it more unique, since Claymation movies are not that common, although this is by no means the first ever Claymation movie.

Another movie that Tim Burton made using stop motion animation was Corpse Bride, this was also the first stop motion movie that he actually directed himself. It featured a similar tone and visual style to Nightmare Before Christmas, in that it is dark, but ultimately aimed at kids and uses Claymation.

Jan Švankmajer

There are many other people who are famous for their work in stop motion, because of the unique and entertaining films they have created. These filmmakers all have their unique styles of stop motion animation.

The first filmmaker that I am going to mention is Jan Švankmajer. He is a Czech film maker who specialises in creating films with dark atmosphere that combine live action with various types of animation, primarily stop motion animation. He uses a variety of styles of stop motion, however he mainly uses Claymation.

Švankmajer has created many stop motion films, most famously Alice and Faust. Alice is a retelling of the story Alice in Wonderland, however it creates a much darker atmosphere than in the original, while remaining faithful to the original plot.

Faust is an adaptation of the Faustus legend, a German legend. Although the film Faust is not accurate to the original legend, it is praised for its unique visual style and original story. The story is a very good adaptation of it, since it manages to combine the dark magic elements of the original legend with comedic elements.

Ray Harryhausen, and Jason & the Argonauts

The next movie I am going to talk about is Jason and the Argonauts. This movie was created much later on than King Kong, so the effects in use in it are more technologically advanced. This film truly revolutionised stop motion by having stop motion characters fight against actors. The animator used a technique called “Dynamation” which is where he filmed the stop motion scenes and the live action scenes separately and then combined them into one scene. The scene which famously used this was the fight between Jason and the skeletons. Jason was a real person, whereas the skeletons were stop motion characters.

 

Other than the skeleton scene, there were other great scenes that took advantage of the stop motion technique. For example there was the bronze giant, Talos which chased the actors while towering over them. Jason and the Argonauts was a great movie, because it showed interaction between actors and stop motion models like no other film had ever done before.

The animator behind the stop motion scenes was Ray Harryhausen, who is also considered a legend in the world of stop motion, much like Willis O’Brien. In fact, the two have worked together, they were both involved in the stop motion animation used in Mighty Joe Young. Many even consider Harryhausen to be the successor to O'Brien's legacy.

One of the reasons Harryhausen is so respected in the world of stop motion is because after O’Brien died, he continued to evolve the style of stop motion that O’Brien utilised in his films, keeping the animation realistic looking as opposed to focusing on the more cartoony looking “Claymation” style.

Willis O'Brien and King Kong

There are several films that pushed the boundaries of what could be done with Stop Motion animation. The first one I’m going to mention is the original King Kong, the one that was released in 1933. This film revolutionised stop motion in many ways. Up until this point, most of the stop motion stuff that had been done was small scale, however this film featured many fight scenes between several stop motion figures, including the great ape, King Kong, as well as a variety of dinosaurs including a tyrannosaurus rex, a triceratops and a pteranodon.  There was also a giant 7 foot head of King Kong used for various scenes. Although the entire film wasn’t done in stop motion, it did use it for many scenes.

The fight scenes in this film showed how realistic stop motion could look. Although it had nothing on the CGI effects of today, it looked far more impressive than guys in costumes fighting each other, so it showed how useful stop motion could be for creating awesome scenes in films.

The stop motion in King Kong was done by Willis O’Brien, who is considered to be a legendary animator in the world of stop motion. His legacy began with the movie The Lost World, which used stop motion dinosaurs much like King Kong. In fact King Kong borrowed a lot of elements from The Lost World, including the set. Many consider The Lost World to be where O’Brien perfected the stop motion techniques he used in King Kong.

After King Kong, another film that O’Brien worked on was Mighty Joe Young, another film featuring a giant gorilla. This film was considered a step up from King Kong in terms of the stop motion effect used in it. The body motions on the stop motion characters were more fluent and realistic, this could be considered O‘Brien’s greatest work in terms of his stop motion effects, although King Kong is undoubtedly the most famous film he worked on. O’ Brien was one of the greatest stop motion animators of his time, and his stop motion creatures are legendary in the world of film.

Blackton

The last pioneer I am going to talk about is J. Stuart Blackton, the man who actually created the stop motion technique as it is used today. Unlike all of the other pioneers mentioned he did not create a device, he instead created a film, the Humpty Dumpty Circus. This film used the stop motion technique to make it looks though some inanimate toys were moving around on their own. This illusion was created by Blackton taking a picture of them in one position, moving them slightly, then taking another picture. When playing all of the pictures in a row at a fast speed, it appeared that they were moving by themselves. Although it would later be expanded on, this was the basis for the idea of stop motion animation. Although today all footage of this movie is lost, it is widely accepted that this was the first movie to use the technique.

Blackton released his movie in 1898, after that the technique spread and evolved. In Blackton’s movie it is said that he used his daughter’s toy circus, which would likely have been made of wood or plastic, however the material that is most heavily associated with stop motion animation is clay. Although the technique would evolve in ways like this, Blackton created the original stop motion animation, so I would consider him the most important pioneer in stop motion animation.