BBDO
- Davey
The
art
of stop frame animation is tedious, exacting work. It involves all of
the complexities of live action shooting, with the added challenge of
fabricating all of the actors and locations, in miniature. It is an
art form in which small characters, or puppets are hand crafted out
of a multitude of diverse materials. These puppets must be fabricated
with complicated internal skeletons, or armatures, in order to enable
the incremental repositioning necessary for stop motion animation. Additionally,
entire worlds must be constructed for the puppets to exist in. Lighting
and audio also present their own unique challenges as they relate to
dimensional animation. The fact that so much of this art form is in
the hands of the artists is what gives the end product such a strong
statement in style. Not merely a two dimensional representation of 3D
space, these characters exist and "live" in our three dimensional world.
The
Goliath mold is fit with an armature, or mechanical skeleton, so that
the finished
puppet can be incrementally repositioned.
Exact
duplicates, clothes and all,must be made of the main characters, so
that shooting can be scheduled on multiple sets at the same time.
Cameras
and characters are placed in position and
everything is "locked down" before
the animator can begin.
An
animator's face can become very expressive while
in the process of projecting emotion and
breathing life into our little cast of characters.
© 2001 Pepsi-Cola Company,
All Rights Reserved
