STOP-MOTION BEHIND THE SCENES
These three short videos illustrate the creative process
and techniques of animating stop-motion films.
ANIMATING A SCENE FROM THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE
CHRISTMAS
Richard C. Zimmerman animates Zero and the crowd, while I
animate Jack, the sleigh, and the reindeer. This movie was the
first to utilize digital frame grabbers and video assist to help
the animation process, although we still are using surface gauges
extensively as the grabbers would only display 3 frames. A black
and white video in step-timelapse, followed by a clip of the final
animation. Shot at Skellington Productions, San Francisco, CA in
1993. Musical accompaniment by Bjorn Lynne.
ANIMATING RALPH S. MOUSE
Puppet pushing at the Churchill Films studio in 1990 for
the third installment of the Mouse and Motorcycle trilogy. Justin
Kohn animates the country mice chase scene on a revolving stage.
The studio is very hot due to the movie lights and summer heat!
Yours truly Joel Fletcher animates the Laser XL7 road racer
sequence in the Mountain View Inn set. Smaller movements of the
characters are calculated by hand and eye, but the main movement is
carefully measured with surface gauges. Scenes from the finished
movie illustrate what we are doing.
ANIMATING UNCLE ELEPHANT
I
documented my fellow animators Justin Kohn, Kent Burton, Mike
Belzer, and Mark Kendrick animating multi-character shots. Access
to the stop-motion puppets is key and two clever solutions are
demonstrated, the trap-door and movable walls. Traditional
old-school use of surface gauges are utilized for the main
characters, but gauges are usually skipped for the crowds. Note the
use of blue-screen for the addition of background imagery in post.
Clips of the final animation are included. Shot at director John
Clark Matthew's studio in 1991.