The History of Stop Motion Animation

The History of Stop-Motion Animation.

Stop Motion Animation techniques makes the objects on screen look like they're moving on there own. This is done by taking multiple photos of the object/items and moving them ever so slightly and joining up the frames of the photographs to give the illusion of movement. The first film of stop motion animation was Steamboat Willie, made in 1928 by Walt Disney. This technique has been carrying on for many many years. During the 1960's clay model animators used stop motion animation technique to animate figures. One of the main producers of clay model animation is Aardman Animations who created the Wallace and Gromit Series.

The production process of 'Steamboat Willie' had begun between July and September in 1928, with a budget estimated around $4986. Although the film was not completed due to no soundtrack been added but Walt Disney requested that the film should be screened to test and audience, with live sound. Therefore the live sound was created behind the bed sheet which was behind the film screen with the music playing on a mouth organ, pots and pans being hit to create the sound and the sound effects such as slide whistles and spittoons for the sound of bells.

Timeline of key developments in Animation:
A.D 130 - Principle of persistence of vision proven by Greek Astronomer Ptolemy.
This is a theory where an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one sixteenth of a second on the retina and believed to be the explanation for motion perception.

1832 - Phenakistoscope invented by Joseph Plateau.
Joseph Plateau was a belgian physicist and he was the very first person to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. To create this illusion he used counter rotating disks with repeating drawn images on them in small increments of motion on one and regularly placed slits on the other and this is the device that he called the Phenakistoscope.

1833 - Zoetrope invented by British mathematician William George Horner.
Zoetrope is one of the several pre-film animation devices that can produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of photographs and drawings that show progressive phases of that certain motion.

1872 - Edward Muybridge begins studying motion with strategically placed cameras.

Muybridge was a english photographer, important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and also early work in motion-picture projection. He began experimenting with an array of 12 camera's photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. 

1882 - Ladislas Starewitch was born in Moscow; Etienne Jules Marey develops an early prototype for a compact movie camera.

1890 -  Thomas Edison develops the Kinetoscope, a private viewing station with one long film strip. The Kinetoscope is a early motion picture exhibition device, it was designed for films to be viewed by one individual person at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device.

1894 - Mutoscope patented by Herman Casler. This was also an early motion picture device which was patented in November 21st 1894, like Thomas Edison's kinetoscope, it didn't project on a screen and only provided one viewer at a time. This was cheaper and simpler than the kinetoscope.

1895 - The Lumiere Brothers create the Cinematograph, a combination movie camera and projector; Edison makes trick film Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

The Cinematograph is a motion picture film camera which also serves as a screen projector and a printer. the first commercial, public screening of cinematograph films happened in Paris on December 28th 1895 and this was organised by the Lumiere Brothers.

1898 - Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton create The Humpty Dumpty Circus, the first animated puppet film.               

Stop motion animation has a very long history in film, it was often used to show objects moving as if it was by magic. The first instance of stop motion animation can be credited to Albert E. smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph's The Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1897.

1902 - George Melies makes A Trip to the Moon. 

This was a silent film directed by George Melies, inspired by a wide variety of sources, including the Jules Verne's novel's "From The Earth to the Moon" and "Around The Moon" the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the moon in a cannon-propelled capsule.

1906 - Blackton makes Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, the first sequentially drawn animated film; Emile Cohl makes Bewitched Matches on a table top.

1912 - Starewitch makes Revenge of the Cameraman, the first narrative puppet film.

"The Camera Man's Revenge" is about infidelity and jealousy among insects, some of the films were created for Khanzhonkov feature live-action/animation interaction, In some cases the live action consisted of footage of Starewitch's daughter Irina.

1919 - O’Brien creates dinosaur animation for Ghost of Slumber Mountain.

Ghost of Slumber Mountain, created and directed by special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien.

Although, most of the film itself is lost but it is often cited as a trail run for The Lost World.

1925 - The Lost World is released, featuring animation effects by Willis O’Brien.

1926 - Lotte Reiniger releases the first animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed; Charley Bowers makes his first known live-action/stop-motion short, Egged On. 

The Adventures of Prince Achmed is a german animated fairytale created by Lotte Reiniger, and is the oldest surviving animated feature film, although two older ones were created in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but these are considered lost.

1933 - Starewitch releases The Mascot; RKO releases King Kong.
In 1933 Ladislas and Starewitch produced and directed a film about a 1000 metres title at first in a laboratory "LS 18". Under pressure from distributors the length of the film was greatly reduced to 600 metres and the film became "Fetishe Mascot" (The Mascot) and was distributed in 1933.

1939 - Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs becomes the first widely successful animated feature.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an american animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures.Based on the german fairytale  by the Brother of Grimm and it is the first cel-animated full length feature film and the earliest in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

1941 - Starewitch’s first feature-length puppet film The Tale of the Fox is released in France.

The Tale of the Fox was stop-motion animation pioneer Ladislas Starewitch's first fully animated feature film. This film is based on the tales of Renard The Fox, Although the animation was finished in Paris in 1929-1930, there were major problems with the soundtrack and adding the soundtrack to the film.

1950 -Pal moves on to start directing live-action sci-fi features, starting with Destination Moon.

Destination Moon aka Operation Moon is a 1950 american Technicolor science fiction film independently produced by George Pal, directed by Irving Pichel. The film was distributed in the United States and the United Kingdom by Eagle-Lion Classics. 

1953 - Harryhausen’s first Dynamation film, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

The first film with Ray Harryhausen in full charge of techinal effects The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which began in working development under the working title Monster From the Sea. 

1954 - The first American stop-motion feature, Hansel and Gretel, is released.

Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy is a stop-motion animated film that was create, in 1954 and released by RKO Radio Pictures, Its based on Engelbert Humperdinck's opera; Hansel and Gretel which contains many musical numbers.

1955 - Art Clokey creates Gumbasia and the Gumby series for television.

Arthur "Art" Clokey was an american pioneer in he popularisation of stop motion clay animation, best known for his character creation Gumby. Clokey's career began in 1955 with a film experiment known as Gumbasia which was influenced by his professor Slavko Vorkapich at the University of Southern California.

1958 - Harryhausen ventures into color with his animation for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad; Nick Park is born in the UK, and Tim Burton is born in Burbank, California.

A few years on from "Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Ray began working with colour film to make The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, he experimented extensively with colour stock to overcome colour-balance-shift problems. 

1959 - Art Clokey’s Davey and Goliath is commissioned by the Lutheran Church.

Davey and Goliath is an american clay-animated childern's television series prdocued by the lutheran Church in America and created by Arthur "Art" Clokey, Ruth Clokey and Dick Sutcliffe.

1960 - Rankin/Bass begins producing their first Animagic series in Japan.

Rankin/Bass Productions was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, especially its work in stop-motion animation. There stop-motion animation features are recognisable by the visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts, aswell as powdery snow using an amination technique called Animagic.

1963 - Jason and the Argonauts is released.

Jason and the Argonauts is a British Columbia Pictures fantasy Greek Mythology feature film starring Todd Armstrong as the titular mythical Greek hero in a story about his quest for the Golden Fleece. Directed by Don Chaffey in collaboration with stop-motion animation exper Ray Harryhausen. 

1964 - Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer debuts on television, as does Serge Danot’s Magic Roundabout series.

The Magic Roundabout is a French-British animation children's television programme created in France by Serge Danot with the help of Ivor Wood. The series was originally broadcast between 1964 and 1971 on ORTF.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer;
This is a christmas television special produced in stop-motion animation and was distributed by DreamWorks Classics.

1965 - Trnka’s last film, The Hand, is released.

1969 - Terry Gilliam’s animation for Monty Python’s Flying Circus continues the popularity of the cutout technique.

1975 - Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner’s Closed Mondays becomes the first stop-motion film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. 

Will Vinton is an American director and the producer of animated films. In late 1974, after 14 months of production, the innovative film combined Gardiner's amazing sculpting skills with Vinton's considerable camera skills and "Closed Mondays" stunned film festival judges around the world.

1976 - Peter Lord and David Sproxton found Aardman Animation Studios in Bristol, and create the Morph character for the BBC.

Aardman was founded in 1972 as a low budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who wanted to release their dream of producing an animated motion picture. After creating a segment called "Greeblies" in 1975 with clay animation, became what was the inspiration for creating the character Morph, a simple clay character.

1977 - Co Hoedeman’s National Film Board of Canada film The Sandcastle wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

The Sandcastle is a stop-motion animation short created by Co Hoedeman, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 50th Academy Awards, which was directed by Co Hoedeman and produced by Gaston Sarault.

1981 - Dragonslayer and Harryhausen’s last film, Clash of the Titans, are released; MTV begins broadcasting on cable TV.

Clash of the Titans is a British-American fantasy film adventure film involving the greek hero Perseus and features the final work of stop-motion visual effects artist, Ray Harryhausen.

1982 - Tim Burton directs his first stop-motion short Vincent at Walt Disney Studios, with animation by Stephen Chiodo, and develops art for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Vincent is a stop-motion short horror film written,designed and directed by Tim Burton and produced by Rick Heinrichs. It is the second Disney horror film, the first being The Watcher in the Woods.

1984 - Clay animation short Sundae in New York by Jimmy Picker wins an Academy Award.

Sundae in New York was directed by Jimmy Picker and is a American short animated film, and this short film won the Academy Award for Best Animation Short Film at the 56th Academy Awards.

1985 - Burton leaves Disney and directs his first feature, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure; Vinton makes his first feature, The Adventures of Mark Twain.

The Adventures of Mark Twain, released in the United Kingdom as Comet Quest, is an American Stop Motion Animation fantasy film directed by Will Vinton. It received a wide theatrical release, still limited to seven major cities.

1986 - Peter Gabriel’s video Sledgehammer is released.

Sledgehammer is a song written, composed an peformed by British musician Peter Gabriel, which appeard on his album "So," which was produced by Daniel Lanois.

1988 - Vinton’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration wins an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.

This is a Christmas Television special originally broadcast on the American CBS TV Network. The special featured stop motion clay animation and was produced and directed by Will Vinton. The special debuted alongside "A Garfield Christmas" and the two continued to be aired back to back on subsequent years.

1989 - Nick Park’s A Grand Day Out and Creature Comforts are released; Video Lunchbox frame-grabbing systems begin making their way into stop-motion production.

A Grand Day Out is a British Stop-motion animated short film directed and animated by Nick Park at Aardman Productions in Bristol, in the film Wallace and Gromit spend a bank holiday by building a home made rocket to the moon to sample cheese.

1993 - Jurassic Park, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Nick Park’s The Wrong Trousers are all released.

Jurassic Park is an american science fiction film adventure film directed by Stephen Spielberg. Is it the first instalment of the Jurassic Park franchise, it is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Micheal Crichton.

1994 - Bump in the Night debuts on television; Wrong Trousers wins an Academy Award.

Bump in the Night is an animated series by Danger Productions that was filmed using stop-motion animation and aired on ABC. It was directed by Ken Pontac and David Bleiman.

1996 - Henry Selick’s James and the Giant Peach is released; Close Shave wins an Academy Award.

James and the Giant Peach is a British-American musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi. This film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation.

1998 - Celebrity Deathmatch debuts on MTV; software such as Stop Motion Pro and Framethief become available for use on personal computers.

Celebrity Deathmatch is a claymation television show that depicted celebrities fight each other to the death in a wrestling ring, almost always ending is a gruesome death. 

2000 - Chicken Run is released, the first feature produced by Aardman and Dreamworks.

Chicken Run is a British stop-motion animated comedy film made by Aardman Animation studios and directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park. It was the first feature-length film by Aardan Productions in partnership with Dreamworks, which co-financed the film and distributed it.

2005 - Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Corpse Bride are released within two weeks of each other; Corpse Bride is the first stop-motion film to be shot digitally.
Corpse Bride, often referred to as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a British-American stop-motion animated fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. The plot is set in a fictional Victorian era village in Europe.

Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit;
This is a British stop-motion animated comedy film, again produced by Aardman Productions in partnership with DreamWorks, and was the last DreamWorks animated film to be distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Nick Park and Steve Box as the second feature-length film after Chicken Run.