SPNNy Stop Motion Animation

Segundo de Chomón, BY Joana and Keyla

Peter — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:29:55 +0000

SEGUNDO DE CHOMON

Teruel Segundo de Chomon y Ruiz (1871-1929) was an Aragonese film pioneer who worked in Paris for Pathe from 1905-1910. His association with Pathe began in 1901 when from Barcelona he hand-tinted Pathe releases, & his own earliest works from 1902 were distributed in France by Pathe.

He moved to Paris to assist other pioneer filmmakers & continued as well to make films of his own. He invented the “film dolly” in 1907 while at Pathe. The films on which he is credited as photographer really amount to co-direction. He also wrote scripts for other directors as well as for his own films.

He returned to Barcelona in 1910 where he worked with Juan Fuster on several short-shorts, & in 1911 made travel documentaries in Spain for Pathe & briefly ran his own film company called Iberica, with Pathe as his distributor.

We think that his creations are very interesting and excited. His work is nothing like stop motions videos that are created in our times. One that was very interesting was the video Electric hotel.

Norman McLaren by Choua Lor

Peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:32:34 +0000

Norman McLaren was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada(NFB). He was born in Stirling, Scottish and and studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art. He used scratching and painting in the film stock for his early film and animation since he did not have ready access to a camera. McLaren’s second film, Camera Makes Whoopee(1935), was a more elaborate take on the themes explored in Seven Till Five, inspired by his acquisition of a Cine-Kodak camera, which enabled him to execute a number of ‘trick’ shots. He used pixilation effects, super impositions and animation not only to display the staging of an art school ball, but also to tap into the aesthetic sensations supposedly produced by this event.

After McLaren finished his studies in Glasgow and making a few films in London, he moved to New York City in 1939, just as WWII was about to begin in Europe. He moved to Canada in 1941 to work for the National Film Board, to open an animation studio and to train Canadian animators. During his work for the NFB, McLaren created his most famous film, Neighbours(1952), which has won various awards around the world. McLaren worked with UNESCO in the 1950s and 1960s on programs to teach film and animation techniques in China and India.

McLaren is remembered for his experiments with image and sound as he developed a number of groundbreaking techniques for combining and synchronizing animation with music. The NFB honoured McLaren’s genius by naming its Montreal head office building the Norman McLaren Building .

In 1968 he made an Officer of the Order of Canada and promoted to Companion in 1973. In 1982, he was the first anglophone to receive the Prix Albert-Tessier. In 2006, the Film Board maarked the 65th anniversary of NFB animation with an international retrospective of McLaren’s restored classics and a new DVD box set of his complete works. In 2009,his works were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, listing the most significant documentary heritage collections in the world.

David Allen by:Starr Syvertsen and Chang Xiong

Peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:38:31 +0000

David Allen (1944 – 1999) was a film and television stop-motion model animator. Some of Allen’s earliest animation work can be seen in the 1971 16mm studend film, “Equinox”, expanded from a short film to a feature length film by Jack H. Harris, later retitled “The Beast” for VHS video release in the 80s. Allen had been woking
for years in animation, mostly doing commercial like the Pillsbury Doughboy. His ground-breaking model animation was a Volkswagen commercial made in 1972, which King Kong spot a gaint version of a car from his Empire State Building perch in New York. Allen join with Jim Danforth, a long time friend, to provide model animation for the low-budget horror film, “The Crater Lake Monster”. Then he did model animation for the independent feature film, “Planet of Dinosaurs”, and animated the aliens in anotherlow-budget sci-fi film, “Laserblast”. His production company, David Allen Productions, also did visual effects and model animation for thebizarre monster movie, “Freaked” in 1992. He died of cancer on Monday, August 16, 1999 at the age of 55.

Willis O’Brien by Alec

Peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:52:32 +0000

Willis O’Brien was born on March 2, 1886 in Oakland, California and he died on November 8, 1962. He was an Irish American pioneering motion picture special effects artist who perfected

and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News, and a professional marble sculptor before he began working in film.

O’Brien created many films including The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915), The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918), The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933), Son

of Kong (1933), Mighty Joe Young (1949), and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

Movie:

Lichtfaktor by Ella and Devin

Peter — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:22:07 +0000

Lichtfaktor means light factor in German. Lichtfaktor is not one person but rather a crew of people that make stop motion animation movies using lights. These pictures are made by taking a photographs with long exposure cameras. with about 10 or 15 seconds of exposure time. They then animate all the light photos together to make a stop motion light motion. Using a variety of light sources this crew produces videos and pictures with animated streaks of light through city scape’s mostly at night. This collective of artist have taken “light writing” into the commercial industry by creating advertisements using this form of stop motion.

Nick Park by Ned

Peter — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:16:16 +0000

Early life

Nick park was born in Landshire, England. He grew up with a big interest in cartoons, and made films when he was thirteen with a home movie camera. He eventually went to the National Film and Television School, where he started work on his first project, “A Grand Day out”

Career

In 1985 Park Joined Aardman animations where he worked as an animator on commercial products. He recieved much crtical acclaim when making two chickens dance on the music video for Peter Gabriels “Sledgehammer”. He also helped animate Pe-wee’s Play House. Later he completed A Grand Day Out another project called Creature Comforts (which won him an oscar). Two more of his works The Wrong Trousers and a close shave won him oscars as well for best animated short. He made his first feature length movie chicken run, in 2000. Park made it big when his second feature length movie Wallace and Gromit: The Curse Of The Were Rabbit won him best animated film. He is currently up for an oscar tomorrow for A matter of Loaf and Death, another Wallace and Gromit Short.

Norman McLaren by Panhia Yang

Peter — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:18:40 +0000

Norman McLaren was born on April 11th, 1914 in Stirling, Scotland. He was a Canadian resident and was bisexual. He was most well-known for his work from the National Film Board of Canada. Some examples of his work are Neighbours and Pas De Deux. He got into cinematic techniques when he was at the Glasgow School of Arts. He also experimented with synthetic sounds and later made his sound effects by scratching the edges of the film with various markings and the projector would interpret those as sounds. He used people in his animations. McLaren won many awards even international. He died on January 27th 1987.

I think it’s interesting how he merged together human actors into his stop-motion animations. I personally think it’s a bit weird because it just seems to make more sense if you just decide to film it. But his ideas for the people in his films are quite creative and I can see why after watching that it does look better the way it was made. I also liked his use of repetition like in the film Canon. In my opinion, I think it would be difficult to redo steps just like the previous one. It would require lots of time and I would probably give up before the finishing.

Watching McLaren’s work inspires me to find motivation to complete current and future tasks.

Link for short film Neighbours:

· http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5d5_1218242740

Sources: Wikipedia, The Canadian Encyclopedia, Live Leak

Nick Park by Sam

Peter — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:50:19 +0000

Most well known in America for his animations “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run”, stop-motion animator Nick Park has played a very important role in the area of stop-motion animation by bringing clay animation to the the public. Nick Park was born on December 6th, 1958 in Preston, England. Nick Park’s passion for art began as a teenager, where he showed a keen interest in drawing cartoons. He made films with the help of his mother and her home movie camera. His creativity also showed in his hobby, as an amateur inventor. At National Film and Television School, he began work on his first film, Wallace and Gromit, A Grand Day Out. In 1985, Park joined the staff at Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he made many commercials. He also had a role in animating Pee-wee’s Playhouse. At around the same time, Park finished two of his biggest additions to stop-motion: “A Grand Day Out” and “Creature Comforts”. “Creature Comforts” was unique in that it played human interviews in synch with animal stop-motion animations. In the following years, Park produced “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Close Shave”. These three animations each won Park an Oscar. Nick Park produced 2 feature length films: “Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (the second of which gave him an Oscar for best animated picture of 2005). Park has made various other Wallace and Gromit shorts, and also an American version of the British show “Creature Comforts”.

Nick Park’s use of clay animation is very interesting, as often times he has to synch human voices to his animations. Creature Comforts is one example of this, while in Wallace and Gromit, many different characters were animated and synched together to show dialogue. He also is amazing at showing characters expression of emotion through body language. Nick Park uses clay to make almost any everyday substance in his Wallace & Gromit films, which is very impressive. Personally I believe Nick Park is one of the best, if not the best clay stop-motion animator currently producing work.

Here is a music video for the song Sledgehammer, by Peter Gabriel. The scene of the dancing turkey at 3:18 is produced by Nick Park.

Here is a clip from Nick Park’s television program Creature Comforts. You can see how well he synchs the actual talking to the movement of the animal.

Information From:

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

Henry Selick by Andrew H

Peter — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:06:58 +0000

Henry Selick is a famous stop-motion animation director. He is the real director of A Nightmare Before Christmas. He has directed a few other films including the new film Coraline which is the first 3-D stop-motion animation ever. Henry Selick has also worked with Disney to produce the classic The Fox and the Hound. He was born on November 30, 1952 in New Jersey where he first felll in love with the art when he saw the film The Adentures of Prince Achmed.

I love the style of Henry’s movies. They are all very fun and creative. You can tell by the quality of his films that he has been interested in stop-motion animation for quite a while as demonstrated by this quote:

“I didn’t come into animation until I was already in college. I was in the arts, doing lots and lots of drawings, painting, sculpture and music – I loved all these things and wanted to find a way to combine them. Then I happened to see a short film that combined a couple of different styles of animation and it had all the things that I was interested in. It took a while for me to settle on stop-motion but even in my sculpture days, I was doing figures that had joints that I could repose – people would be in a room looking at other things and I would carefully make slight adjustments to see if they noticed.”

Henry Selick is a very creative person who, even at the age of 57, still goes into his office and plays electric guitar to relieve stress.

A Link to the opening of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Sources:Wikipedia, Movieretriever.com

Game Time

Peter — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:16:21 +0000

2-D animation by Alec, Sam, James, Devin, and Ella.