A simplified explination

The History of Stop Motion

Stop motion is also known as stop frame. It is an animation technique to make an

object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames.

By taking multiple pictures and creating a form of a slideshow it appears that the object is moving through normal time and is actually physically moving.

In the beginning

It has a long history in film. It was used to show objects moving as if by magic.

The very first stop motion technique is credited to Albert E. Smith and J Stuart Blackton. They made a film in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals come to life in 1897.

How did it originate?

Stop motion inspired many films and although they all used similar stop motion techniques they all had unique composition and innovative ideas to help develop stop-motion.

The development of Clay animation films came out of Stop-motion. It was shortened to Claymation in 1977. This made almost anything come to life. Dinosaurs came to life in The Lost World.

Closed Mondays became the first stop-motion film to win an Oscar, in 1975.

Disney also experimented with many stop-motion techniques. They did the first stop-motion animation of Mickey Mouse toys

Stop motion has been used in many well known films such as: The chess scene in Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Terminator, James and the Giant Peach, Coraline, Wallace and Gromit, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Robot Chicken, and so many more.

Anything is possible with stop-motion and it is easy to learn how.

First you have to decide which program you will use. There is a large range of stop-motion software out there but you can also use Photoshop.

First you must decide what your storyline will be and then find your object or puppets and the rest will take some patience and effort.

The possibilities are endless!