What is stop motion animation?

In 1898 J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith directed and produced the first stop motion animation
film The Humpty Dumpty Circus where small wooden toys were brought to life using individual
pictures shown one after the other to make the toys appear as though they were moving on their
own which is the basic premise of stop motion animation. Blackton continued developing this
technique and using a blend of stop motion and live action, he created his second stop motion film
The Enchanted Drawing in 1900. After stop motion catching on and becoming more widely used by
other directors and producers, it made its way into the mainstream film industry when animator
Willis O’Brien created The Lost World in 1925. Later in 1933, O’Brien took stop motion to the next
level when he produced King Kong. In King Kong, O’Brien applied techniques he had used in The Lost
World and perfected them; the realistic facial features and smooth integration with live actors sky
rocketed O’Briens career and earned him his title of The Father of stop motion animation.

Because stop motion was really the only form of animation, it started to be used more frequently in
large productions, often being integrated with live action sequences on screen. More and more
producers and directors began to integrate stop motion in to live action films such as Star Wars,
Jurassic Park, Robo Cop and Terminator. Phil Tippett, was one of the pioneers in stop motion
working along side directors such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Tippett started off as a stop
motion animator making low budget films at home and then moved on to be a visual effects
supervisor and director where he worked on films such as Star Wars Return of the Jedi, Jurassic Park
and Robocop. Phil used various techniques for his stop motion such as puppets, models and
sculptures; these techniques were so effective they earned him awards such as BAFTAs, Primetime
Emmys and Special Achievement academy awards. However, Tippetts career was almost derailed
upon the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jurrassic park where computerised graphics and CGI was used
to create the dinosaurs rather than stop motion animation and from that moment on, CGI and
computerised graphics took over the use of stop motion animation in live action films.

Although live action films featured CGI rather than stop motion animation, that wasn’t the end of
stop motion all together. Nowadays stop motion animation is still used through out the film and
television Industry by major companies like Ardman. Ardman, unlike other stop motion animators,
focusses purely on stop motion animation and doesn’t incorporate it into live action films. The
company was first founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton during their time at school. In
1976, they both moved to Bristol where they produced their first animation series Morph, Ardman
then went on to develop and create some of the most well-known stop motion productions such as
Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and Sean the sheep.

Ardman Ltd. (2019). Ardman A Little Bit of History. Available: https://www.aardman.com/the-

studio/history/. Last accessed 14/11/2019.

Study.com. (2017). The History of Stop Motion Animation. Available:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-history-of-stop-motion-animation.html. Last accessed
13/11/19.

Vice. (2015). My Life In Monsters. Available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTGQ_K0DBPo. Last accessed 13/11/19.