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.
"The Great Corelli is a young and successful magician at the height of his career as an illusionist. However, during the most important performance of his life, he fails a crucial magic trick, disappointing his audience. In the aftermath, he finds himself performing brief and modest magic acts in a rundown old theater." What unfolds from there was far from what I expected — the ending took me by surprise.
TRAILER
The Great Corelli (2019)
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Timelapse
Some special effects, digital erasing rigs, compositing & miniature set extensions
Artist Heather Colbert was the character designer and fabricated the puppets for 'The Great Corelli'. There were a total of two puppets. Only one was a machined stop motion armature from Edu Puertas' → Kinetic Armatures located in Spain ... this armature was for the older/senior magician character. The other armature of the younger version of the magician, which was a precisely hand-made Wire Armature which worked sufficiently well for the animated scenes. Go to Heather's website (link below) for details & many photos.
Originally from Galicia, a region bordering northern Spain, stop-motion director and animator Abel Carbajal graduated from ESCAC (Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia, near Barcelona) in 2018. His final-year short film, The Great Corelli, was created after completing a specialization in 'Visual Effects & Animation'. The project took nearly two years to produce, with filming lasting nine months.
While working on his animated short, Abel sent a sample to Laika Studios in the USA., which garnered their favorable attention. He later traveled to the United States to work in stop-motion animation for Laika, the prestigious studio behind Coraline and other well-known stop-motion features. I am not sure, but I think Abel is perhaps still at LAIKA or might later work for the studio's new stop motion feature → Wildwood
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Matteo Burani and Ariana Gheller jointly operate an independent production house >> Studio Croma Animation, located in Bologna, Italy. Their website offers an immersive and engaging experience, particularly when viewed on larger screens such as laptops or desktop computers. The design of the site feels like a guided tour, inviting visitors into the creative world of Studio Croma. Their
animation & special effects work are eclectic, producing advertisement spots,
music videos, and animated shorts which use a variety of mixed media animation
styles. Matteo and Ariana come across as warm and approachable, encouraging visitors to reach out.
They currently have a few animated shorts which are available for viewing. You can explore Studio Croma at their >>Youtube or >> Vimeo channels. Their recent work, partially crowd funded, was released in 2024 ... 'Playing God' is a 9 minute animated story that has toured various film festivals.While it may have been available at some point, it seems to not be available for viewing at this time. If you are curious about 'Playing God', you might ask and communicate with them here >> Contact
Playing
God’ is an animated short film created using the CLAY stop-motion
animation technique. Good to see the Clay medium being used in a more 'pure' form somewhat remininscent of the vintage works of >> Will Vinton Studios with their ClayMation™ brand. The key creators behind 'Playing God' are Director Matteo
Burani and Producer Ariana Gheller. Despite their
official titles, both Matteo and Ariana are deeply involved in multiple
aspects of the production process. They contribute to the design,
including stage set construction, puppet fabrication, camera & lighting, and actively
participate in the hands-on animation itself.
This is from Studio Croma's other Projects -- Other Animators or studios use Croma's services to produce whatever custom puppets, props, miniature sets, etc. Take note -these Behind the Scenes have a short story musical style presention!👍😎
All in a day's work
BLU | Puppet Making Backstage - Fabrication of Replacement Puppet Faces, NOT using any 3D printing. The connecting magnets are embedded in a keyed polyurethane hard resin neck/skull base ... then each of the custom facial feature expressions are hand sculpted using putty epoxy which hardens & bonds to the resin component (with the embedded magnets). Also, for Croma's client, they produced numerous puppet hands as backups if the wire fingers break during animation. If you do not understand, just study the video using full screen and select slow motion video speed!
Once upon a time there existed 'Flying (Aerial Wire) Rigs'. In those bygone days, techniques were used to control the stop motion puppets so that the models/objects can jump or rise off the ground or fly suspended in the air. How is that done? The animator would attach wires to the puppet, then
the wires would go up to an overhead control rig device.With the control
rig, you can incrementally move & adjust the wires, frame by frame, which are
attached to the animation puppet.
For more clarity, a similar example are marionette
puppets (which is not stop motion), that have wires or more likely 'nylon
fishing-type lines' attached to the puppets. Look at this photo > Diagram 1, Diagram 2. You can see the lines attached to the puppet appendages (wrists, feet, torso, etc). However, for a
stop motion puppet, you do not need so many attachment points. You are
primarily suspending or hanging the puppet for general body
motion when the puppet is floating in the air. All the other additional movements are done by hand animating
the puppet (which has an armature inside) to hold the frame to frame poses. Special effects master, Ray Harryhausen, often used Wire rigs. Here is a photo of his rig, which is of more intricate design using gears.
Many of you may think that flying wire rigs for stop motion are arcane or an outdated technique and perhaps so, BUT the thing I LIKE about suspending the puppet by nylon wires, is that the wires/lines are practically invisible to the camera lens. The entire wire rig shot is done 'in camera' and almost NO (or minimal) post production to erase the wires. In old school stop motion days, there was NO techy post production digital photo-shop or Cgi. You HAD to try to get the shot done on the stage with the illusion or special effects mostly being created IN the Camera, on the film.
Of course today, the stop motion animation 'holy grail' tool is the the prestigious, geared controlled Winder Rigs > Link 1, Link 2.With winder rigs ... when you attach it to the puppet, the attachment arms will be seen by the camera lens. When using external rigs mounts (on the puppet), post-production digital rig removal is a requirement. This is significant more work to complete the animation scenes. Most of today's stop motion animation whether it's an indie short, for commercial ad work, or a feature stop motion, this is now the protocol ... post production digital rig removals. In addition, sometimes the stop motion puppet scenes (with rigs attached to puppet) are shot against blue/green screen, so that is extra work to digitally composite the animation with a background.
I will post below, some examples of specific finished flying scenes that used Old School Flying Rig methods.I am Nostalgia-biased and for me, these classic shots exemplifies the sweat & effort to create these scenes. The skill & patience of the animators with their bare hands, manipulating both, the puppets and flying rig, incrementally frame by frame controlling the wires. The results are a stylized-surreal organic otherworldly aesthetic! Not the hyper slickness perfection of CGI. Also, do not forget that the early stop motion work of the past, did NOT use video previewing or computer frame grabbers.which did notexist back then.
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Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956) All scenes of the UFO saucers. Remember ALL flying & hovering done use aerial rig controlling the models frame by frame. There were small models for distant shots, and larger saucer model for close-ups and for crashing into buildings. Some scenes there were 3 saucers = 3 Flying Rigs!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) Harpies Attack Phineus. Two flying puppets, two separate aerial rigs used
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) Capturing the Harpies - Multiple puppets and separate flying rig
One Million Years BC (1966) Two pterodactyls in same scenes, so likely two separate aerial rigs were used
Valley of Gwangi (1968) Carlos vs Pteranodon
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) Man vs a Pterosaur (rhamphorynchus). This deserves much MORE recognition as a supreme execution of Stop Motion special effects for it's time in 1970 ... Jim Danforth a special effects artist extraordinaire. Very advanced in realism, including adding of Motion Blurs. This was before any computer special effects that did not exist.
The Legend of Hillbilly John (1972) A flying vulture-like bird creature. Likely, a fly rig was used
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) Real BIG MUTHA WASP 😨
High-Rise (1980) - Variety of stop motion animated using flying rigs the alien craft & buildings hovering and and traveling through the sky and outer space. This short indie work created by Mark Sullivan
Sinbad - The Fifth Voyage (2014) - Giant Roc Bird protecting its egg. (homage to Harryhausen). This was also created by Mark Sullivan. At beginning of clip, the bird flying towards the mountain edge, it might have used a Flying Rig. It looks like it was shot blue/green screen, then the background added later. Or maybe, it was a large background painting..Also note the excellent detail work of the puppet fabrication.
Of course, there are more examples of other films or indie works out there where Flying Rigs might have been used but takes time to search them out. Also unfortunately, back in the early days of special effects, 'Behind the Scenes' was not common, so there is less documentation available.
The construction of flying rigs, can be simple or intricate. Many moons ago in the late 1980's when I worked on the New Gumby Adventures TV series, we would make our own temporary fly rigs with hot glued foam core pieces and wooden dowels. Nylon fishing line would be wrapped onto the dowels. I will post some links here to give you an idea. The rigs are of any size, custom made for the specific shots and puppets. The additional modification to a flat animation table, must be some kind of overhead support beam ... it can be long lengths of narrow wood lumber strips. that will hold the flying rig device. Study the photos and you will understand. Click on each thumbnail image below, to see full large size.
About 25 years ago, I did fabricate a test 'Flying Rig'. I thought I had lost it or accidentally tossed in garbage, but I found this rig buried in my storage area. I got the design idea for this flying rig from an old special effects magazine. I did not use it much and just mostly did tests with it. The rig required ceiling space for the overhead X-Y sliding movement set-up using long lengths of aluminum tubes. It was slightly wobbly. Testing the rig, it was somewhat okay and it might have worked better if I spent time tweaking it. The flying rig control, used geared spools, which can be slow to turn if you need to make large movements. CLICK on each of the thumbnail images if you want to see Whopper Super Sized Photos.
In the above photos, you can see its design. It was made from aluminum flat plate and aluminum tubing. Both plates are 5 inches by 5 inches square (127mm by 127mm square). One can instead, use thin plywood about 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch thick (9.5mm - 13mm). It does not need to be made from metal. The gear drive pegs are used in guitars to tension tune the strings.You can get them here > Guitar Tuners and the spools here > Wooden Thread Spools The tuners mounted to the metal plate or plywood with these > One Inch Corner Braces Or if you want more space between Spools and plate or wood piece, longer length > 1-1/2 inch Corner Braces NOTE: Looking at this Flying Rig again, I would change the design and have the Spools (pulleys) facing outside i.e., the spools should NOT be underneath the plate. Here it is ... I flipped the guitar tuners so that the spools (pulleys) are completely accessible and lessen the possibility of nylon lines getting tangled. Click on photo ....
ANTHONY SCOTT'S Stop Motion Animation website is no more, however he has an archived a few important informational pages. Here is a brief overview about > A SIMPLE FLYING RIG
MARK WOLF is very knowledgeable about Classic Special Effects, including Stop Motion. He has met Ray Harryhausen, Jim Danforth, Marcel Delgado, etc. many of the heroes & pioneers in special effects. Mark is on Facebook he can be reached at the Facebook group - Stop Motion Monsterland / Mark Wolf
With regards to my article/blog topic here, it was somewhat difficult to find photos or information about Flying Puppet Rigs ... it is as though, they are indeed, Extinct!
I am curious if any Stop Motion Practitioners still use old school PUPPET FLYING RIGS, using nylon fishing lines? If you have any photos, at your option, maybe share your photos of your rigs or stage set-ups ... contact me ... email or message me at my > Facebook Page
>
STOP MOTION WORKS 'Seal' - REAL Hand-Made Certified™ ( A.I.)
Being an old schooler neo-luddite, I basically have not paid much attention to the plethora of Star Wars sequels, prequels, spin-offs, different iterations. For me, it's Star Wars (1977), Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). THAT'S IT ... no more, no más, nicht mehr, pas plus!!
This series is titled Skeleton Crew under the Star Wars banner. It is not a theatrical movie. Series is online stream available if one is subscribed to Disney+. Since I have been out of touch with all the different incarnations of the Star Wars franchise, this is my first time seeing trailer about this specific series.
If you cannot hear the audio below, look for speaker icon (lower left) and turn on sound (unmute)
There are only a few behind the scenes.They are more like 'making of' shorts.
This one is moderately longer
At one of the Facebook groups, Webster Colcord who works at Tippett Studio, said, that in post production some motion blur added and also digital tweaking where the stop motion slightly chattered.
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!😁
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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.)
Geez ... it looks like Rankin-Bass was a high production animation factory farm 😮. Here are four more stop motion animagics that I was not aware of. They sure have squeezed every drop out of 'Christmas'🎄 If you are masochistic enough 😉 to endure this onslaught of Rankin/Bass, you can do a 'Study' of the animation and puppet build quality throughout the years. Example: The earlier animation might be slightly jerky & stiff compared to the newer animations where the puppet movements might be a little more smoother and the puppet fabrication may have a more finessed quality.
'The First Christmas' - 1975, length 23:43
'Nestor - The Long Eared Donkey' - 1977, length 24:32
'Rudolph & Frosty's Christmas in July' - 1979, feature length, 1 hour 37 min
'The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus' - 1985, 48:39
I do not have time to embed additional videos in this post but will provide links below where you can watch them ....
Rankin/Bass also produced many 2D cartoon works for series and other projects. OUCH ... this is too much. Going to take a long break from Rankin-Bass! For just about everything that they produced, here is a Wiki page. They got most of it but maybe only missed a few >> List of Rankin/Bass Productions films
Here are videos of the Rankin/Bass production company's cornucopia of wholesome family viewing stop motion animated specials from the vintage days going back to the mid 1960s. Since Christmas is coming up, these are focused on that holiday. Reviewing this, I am reminded about the high content production output of Rankin/Bass. Each of the specials were about 30 to 50 minutes in length and one was a full feature length at one and a half hours!
You should know that all the stop motion was outsourced to a Japan studio/artists and that Rankin/Bass somewhat trademarked or described their stop motion style as 'Animagic'. As stated, this is only the Christmas theme content. Rankin/Bass also produced other stop motion covering other themes or holidays and they also have done 2d cell (cartoon) animation.
Submitted for your review. You have the option to watch some of these, or not. You can also watch one or two each night, you know like The12 days of Christmas thing!. If you do, you might overdose & saturate yourself and possibly, never want to see another Rankin/Bass holiday special. LOL! 😁
NOTE - There are numerous videos here. If they do not all appear, just refresh, reload your browser a few times. 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' - 1964, length 51:43
'The Little Drummer Boy' - 1968, length 25:36
'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' - 1970, length 50:42
'The Year Without Santa Claus' - 1974, length 50:07
'Rudolph's Shiny New Year' - 1976, length 50:07
'The Little Drummer Boy, Book II' - 1976, length 23:37
'Jack Frost' -1979, length 48:21
'Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas' - 1979, feature length 1hour 37min
'Pinocchio's Christmas' - 1980, length 48:57
'The Leprechauns Christmas Gold' - 1981, length 24:47
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BONUS
This one below, might be an interesting one.. I think this one made around 2018. It is a ten minute Rudolph re-creation homage, duplicating the original Animagic look & style. It was not done by Rankin-Bass. This was on a DVD as a special featurette..I have no idea why '4D' is in the title ... it is your classic stop motion
'Re-imagining Rudolph in 4D' - 2018, length 9:17
You want more? The video below is the behind the scenes of Re-imagining Rudolph. Bent Image Labs Studio in Portand, Oregon, USA, produced this. I also recognize a veteran animator >>> Jerold Howard
'Re-imagining Rudolph, Behind the Scenes' - 2018, length 10:40
A FEW MORE!
This was around 2016. A collector at an auction acquired two original stop motion puppets Santa & Rudolph. They were not in good condition, so they found a stop motion studio to restore the puppets - length 3:40.
A retrospective & guest commentaries by Henry Selick, Chiodo Brothers, and others
'The Animagic World of Rankin/Bass' - 2018, length 47 min
Okay, this post kind of BURNED me out! 😦 Do you know how much time it takes to search these videos, then tediously inserting each video here!? You might bookmark and save this one for future, if you ever want to revisit or show any of these videos to your kids or family!!
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Since Coraline's original release in theaters in February 2009, I lost count how many times it was re-released thereafter to theaters again! The most recent ones, was the Re-mastered version this summer of August 2024 (a limited theater run), and now a newer 3D Re-mastered Coraline, again, to be re-released to theaters, October 31 & November 2024. As far as I know, there are no new scenes. (link below)
Below ... a revisit of a few behind the scenes. This is 15 year old tech & methods but still cool for us stop motion nerd heads. Today, in high end stop motion features, the production pipeline is still basically the same with the continued emphasis on the "hand-made". In addition, currently there some more refined methods of printing puppet anatomical parts and also, there is much post production digital cgi combined with the stop motion.
Hand-Making Coraline - Laika Studio first Feature
The Stop Motion Puppets
Animator Eric Leighton's physical contortions doing Stop Motion
Hand Made in Stereo 3D
Henry Selick explains deleted scenes -Extra Features on Dvd (July, 2009)
BONUS
BONUS - BONUS
You can stream watch the original Coraline at the listed links below. Keep in mind that it may not be highest definition as in the re-mastered versions at theaters and you will not have the 3D immersion visual effect. Also, you willnothave the experience of viewing movies in an actual theater with a live audience. Or what about missing the enjoyment of getting your tubs of heavily buttered popcorn and sugar-high soda pops?😁
Just released, a new 2024 version of a Brisk Iced Tea commercial in the style similar to the classic ads from back around the mid to late 1990s, when they first appeared on TV. If you do a (click >) Search of this new ad, apparently, the ad agency & almost everyone else is referring to it as (click >) Claymation? Well, the 'Animation Puppets' are NOT Clay! 😠 The correct description is 'Stop Motion Puppet Animation'! Those classic early Brisk ads were stop motion caricatures of well known or iconic celebrities. This Brisk ad features 'Doja Cat'? 😲 I have no idea who that is and so I looked it up ...(click >) she is a 'Rapper'. Hmmm ... I assume someone that appeals to the Gen Z'ers. Sigh 😕... not like the old school days of the Brisk Tea ads.
Here it is ....
It appears that 3D printed replacement faces were used. With most of the publicity press releases, they did not mention who actually did this work. I did find it ... Peter Sluszka is credited as the Director. Here is the website page link where you can see all the credits ....
I also see that the studio, (click >) Standing Figure Studio is credited. Someone who I have known for a long time, a veteran in the Stop Motion sphere ... Patrick Zung who is one of the studio team members. He is an inventive engineer, machinist, creative designer, problem solver, etc., not only Stop Motion but just about anything that has to do with the 'Mechanical & Gadgeteering'.
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TIME TRAVEL ... Brisk Iced Tea History
Compilation of some of the Brisk commercials ....
Making of Frank Sinatra Brisk Tea ad. At video time stamp 3 minutes 14 second you will see some of the stop motion puppet fabrication details by (click >) Mackinnon & Saunders ....
Making of Danny Devito Brisk Ad. I think (click >) Loose Moose Productions, a UK based studio did the stop motion work here, including the older original, black & white versions of the Brisk ads ....
The Way of the Brisk - MMA Champ, Chuck Liddell. The puppet armature by (click >) John Wright Modelmaking, the intricate head mechanism by (click >) Ron Cole, and I think, (click >) David Bell or his studio did the puppet fabrication. David and (click >) Tatia Rosenthal did the hands on stop motion animation ....
Time lapse of one the later versions of the Brisk Tea commercials and the stop motion animator is (click >) Webster Colcord ....
STOP MOTION WORKS 'Seal' - REAL Hand-Made Certified™ ( A.I.)
A.I.)
