The Art & Craft of Stop Motion Animation, from historical to current modern use ... including Retro & Classic Special FX ... miniatures, models, matte paintings, forced perspective tricks, in-camera effects, etc.
Among the few craftsmen who specialize in classic stop-motion creature and character puppet fabrication, Eduardo Oropeza stands out. Hailing from Mexico, Eduardo brings a unique twist to the tradition. Unlike many of his peers who gravitate towards CGI or digital effects animation, Eduardo has chosen to immerse himself in this hands-on creative niche. By doing so, he continues the legacy of the iconic stop-motion animation master, Ray Harryhausen.
Eduardo has collaborated with the exceptionally talented animator >>> Justin Rasch. I hope they continue to work together, as they would make a formidable team. As an independent production studio, they could offer their services in mixed media and stop-motion animation. Traditional animation will always captivate audiences, despite the prevalence of CGI and the current surge of A.I. generated animations.
Justin collaborates with various puppet fabricator artists, tailoring each puppet character design to be more stylized or cartoon-esque as needed. Eduardo contributed to the Del Toro / Gustafson, Oscar winning 'Pinocchio', working with the 2nd unit production team in Guadalajara, Mexico. If Eduardo were to come to Portland, Oregon which is currently a hotbed for stop-motion animation, his creative talents would undoubtedly be in high demand!
Eduardo has much social media content and I cannot post the many photos or videos here, but instead, these are the links ... his handle is TRexProduction3190
Take a look at this unique collaboration ...Eduardo Oropeza's detailed realistic stop motion puppets and Justin Rasch's awesome animation ... fabrication & stop motion, all hands-on tactile REAL!
STOP MOTION WORKS 'Seal' - REAL Hand-Made Certified™ ( A.I.)
I am surprised to have missed this one, Aardman Animation's 'Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl' (2024). It seems to have been under the radar, as I personally, have not seen much publicity or promotion about it. This Aardman feature is financed by the online streaming platform, Netflix. They also financed the Guillermo Del Toro, Oscar winning,'Pinocchio'(2022). Netflix really did full scale promotion for 'Pinocchio' likely because having a higher A-list tier status due to the well known director. With this Wallace & Gromit feature at a lower production budget, it seems the marketing of it was much less.
Just posting whatever behind the scenes about 'Vengeance Most Fowl' that is available. I'm not interested in the movie reviews. Since I have worked in Stop Motion, I have a bias towards technical aspects of movie production, specifically the Special Effects! My only very minor review-critique ... the behind the scenes here for this W&G movie, are not as detailed compared to other past stop motion features from other studios, however, it may still interest you, especially if you are a hardcore Stop Motion Aficionado!😁
NOTE - There are numerous videos here. If they do not all appear, just refresh, reload your browser a few times.
Trailers 4:21
BBC - Behind the scenes W&G: Vengeance Most Fowl 14:58
Some clips from Vengeance 5:08
BAFTA -Bringing 'Vengeance Most Fowl' to Life 17:40
W&G: Vengeance Most Fowl, Behind Scenes 3:27
The One Show (UK) Behind Scenes - Vengeance Most Fowl 5:41
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BONUS
Retrospectively, Aardman Studio single-handedly, seems to have won the most awards in the Stop Motion niche.
Creature Comforts - Academy Award 1989 & *BAFTA Nominated 1990 The Wrong Trousers - Academy Award 1993 & *BAFTA Award 1994 A Close Shave - Academy Award 1995 & *BAFTA Award 1996 Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Academy Award 2005 & *BAFTA Award 2006
*British Academy of Film and Television Arts
'Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers' (1993) - 28:59
Th
STOP MOTION WORKS 'Seal' - REAL Hand-Made Certified™ ( A.I.)
Warner Bros Pictures and another co-producer have in the works, an animation feature titled 'Dynamic Duo'. The story is a bit confusing to me. It is not about 'Batman' per se, but instead it focuses on the origins of his partner 'Robin'. Apparently, there are two 'Robin' characters?? Here is a clearer brief description >> Dynamic Duo - Robin Movie Explained
Swaybox Studios in the state of Louisiana (USA) will be undertaking this feature animated project. What is unique is that it will not be fully CGI animation, however, it will still use CGI special effects, as most current movies do. Swaybox has not yet completely revealed their methods. From what I can piece together ... The overall animation appears to have elements of real miniatures & models, real live-action puppetry (similar to 'Muppets'), and the facial animation to be done using 'performance motion capture' super-imposed over the real puppet rubber/silicone heads. So, the final facial animation of the puppet might be labeled as Cgi. Swaybox is calling their proprietary effects technique, Momo Animation.>> Dynamic Duo - Mixed Animation
Some of the initial 'press releases' for 'Dynamic Duo' might have been unintentionally misleading, stating that it will also be using someStop Motion. That is not correct. To quote Swaybox, they say, Dynamic Duo "... will use some 'practical effects' elements of stop motion". They are likely referring to the actual physical puppets which are handmade & realbut they will be live-action controlled by the puppeteers.I am pretty much certain that the Swaybox puppets will not be stop motion hand-animated frame by frame.
Here is one of Swaybox's earlier demo reels >> Swaybox 2017 Demo Reel Remember that this is not
full CGI, but instead, using a combination of special effects mixed
methods. Of course, the animation in their reel is more 'cartoon
like'. I am certain that 'Dynamic Duo' will have more human realistic character designs. After watching that reel, I cannot be convinced the rubber/silicone puppet heads are the actual heads that were filmed as the final version? The texture is too smooth and has an airbrushed Cgi aesthetic to it. Here is a more recent one >>Swaybox Studio's 2022 Superbowl Ad
Behind the Scenes
If the below Facebook video does not work, here is direct link Swaybox Studio InterviewIgnore and close the Facebook log-in box and you can still watch the video. Be sure to turn on the sound/audio (Un-mute icon button)
Below Swaybox Studio video was posted by someone and he thinks it is a mechanical controlled animatronic puppet. So far, the information about how this was done is not fully revealed by Swaybox. You take a look ... the face of the puppet does not have the realism appearance of a rubber/silicone texture. It looks like that it is heavily filtered or having an airbrushed soft appearance or it's a CGI face swap produced by the real time performance capture software.
This is how I think Swaybox's proprietary Momo Animation live performance motion capture works ... the actual puppet head is like a muppet hand puppet with the puppeteer's hand/hands (inside the head) controlling the puppets internal facial movements, then the motion capture technology via the recording camera, instantly clones the real puppet's puppeteer-ed facial movements with a Cgi face swapped version. This is all observed on a monitor and done in real time 'live'. Afterwards in post-production, the puppet Cgi head animation is maybe tweaked & refined. Take a look below how Swaybox performance face motion capture method might work. In this example, a real human is the reference performance model for the Cgi to clone & do the face Cgi swapped version. If I am wrong with any of this, in my assessment or guesstimate, please feel free to correct me!
Other special effects elements ... some of the behind the scenes photos that I've seen from Swaybox's other projects shows that much Green Screen is used to composite/blend the real elements of the miniature sets & models, with the live-action puppets and I'm guessing, that also, 'motion tracking' of the the live action puppets entire general movements are then later in post production, digitally combined & blended with the background scenes (miniature sets & models) Swaybox photos >> Behind the scenes gallery
Dynamic Duo, is suppose to be released sometime in 2028. Sheesh 😕... that is sure a long way off. I think, that I will not be on the edge of my seat or waiting with bated breath for this. I got other life matter things to do! 😀
With 'Beetle Juice, Beetle Juice' winding down its theatrical release, it appears that it is now in its digital release, available for online stream viewing. Perhaps later this November could be released on DVD & Blu-ray. When BJ2 originally released just a few months ago, there was not much technical behind the scenes and a mystery for a short while about the authenticity of the stop motion effects.Warner Bros mostly showed online interviews with the actors. Well finally, here is albeit, a short behind the scenes specifically about the stop motion scenes. The Sandworm was the primary stop motion special effects, but there were also some other more minor, secondary scenes also using stop motion. Take a look ....
An hour presentation about Mackinnon & Saunders' work & history by Richard Pickersgill, Lead Puppet Maker Supervisor. This talk was before the release of 'Beetle Juice 2', so that movie is not mentioned here. Some rare behind the scenes images & a few videos about the construction of the stop motion puppets. M&S were responsible for the design & fabrication of a few of the lead stop motion puppet characters, with focus on the highly engineered Pinocchio puppet character. It is a talk / presentation, so some of you might get bored, however the the true stop motion aficionado, it is rich with edifying stop motion making of information ....
Below are just a few examples of projects to which Mackinnon & Saunders has contributed:
I cannot keep up with Justin Rasch! Recently, I posted about his behind the scenes He-Man project ... and now .... he springs this on us 😀
Justin has referred to this as a 'Monster' or 'Creature' but of course it is the Terror Dog that made its appearance in the original Ghostbusters (1984). There were actually two Terror Dogs, a male & female. The shorter horned Terror Dog was the female.Only one stop motion puppet was fabricated ... they just switched the horns and optically cloned the puppet to make it appear that there were 2 Terror Dogs in the same scenes.
This Terror Dog stop motion puppet was constructed by the incredibly talented artist, Eduardo Oropeza who is a resident of the country of Mexico. At Eduardo's Instagram, he has posted additional photos of the Terror Dog puppet. Amazingly, from what I see, Eduardo does most of his puppet construction using 'build up' method. His Youtube channel demonstrates some of the puppet fabrication technique.
The stop motion puppet has a Ball & Socket armature inside it.* The overall puppet size appears to be about 11 - 12 inches long (28cm - 30cm), head to tail. The Terror Dog puppet in the original Ghostbusters was much larger and as many of us, may already know, the creature's final design was by Randall W. Cook and he also did the hands on stop motion animation.
*Update / Correction: It was 'planned' to have Ball & Socket armature but later, Justin preferred to have Wire armature in the Terror Dog stop motion puppet. Justin is still able to get smooth animation with wire armatures!
Okay ... here are some Teaser shorts that Justin Rasch has released ....
This was from about 7 years ago. Peter A. Montgomery & Nick Hilligoss collaborated on this as a behind the scenes promotion teaser for the indie feature 'Dark Earth', which has an H.G.Wells signature style ... Victorian period, and especially, a menagerie of animated creatures & other worldly life forms ... in the spirit of Retro Harryhausen. The release status of Dark Earth is still unknown. Hopefully, the wait will not be as long as 'The Primevals'! 😉
After you watch it the first time, and if you are on a laptop computer ... play it back again at reduced speed (slow motion). If you are really observant, this presentation amazingly shows you just about every step!
Nick Hilligoss (in the video) for most of the animation jobs he has done, he uses 'wire armatures' and the use of ball & socket armatures, not as frequent. I am guessing, due to the usual time pressure deadlines & lesser budget allowance. Over the years, Nick has developed his wire armaturing methods that has been successful for him.
I always wished that Nick had a more precision armature for this creature, but
nevertheless, he astoundingly is able to execute reasonably fluid
animation with a 'wire armature' which are Springy & can be difficult to exactly position & pose, frame to frame. Thank
the GODS for the technology of 'Frame Grabbers' such
as DragonFrame, Stop Motion Pro, and other similar software, which has revolutionized the quality of modern stop motion. Even with wire armatured puppets ...
you can get smooth results. It just takes a bit longer to animate.
I think ... a fairly convincing, surreal creature design having high production aesthetics quality, created with an abundance of talent, skills & dedicated sweat effort, in spite of the restrictive budgetary resources!
A.I.)
