Stop-
Motion Animation
‘The Nightmare before Christmas’
Subsequent to the
previous post ‘the most recently viewed animation’, today's post will explore a specific type of animation - stop-motion animation - and how this has been utilised through films. In
order to undergo our assessment in creating a stop-motion
animation, knowledge and exploration is required in order to understand
the processes behind it.
In light of
this, the current post studies many aspects of an American stop motion musical
fantasy film that I have chosen as a demonstration, namely 'The Nightmare
Before Christmas'. Despite the failure of its original success, it is now one of the most cherished seasonal films
across the UK and USA (Carr, 2013).
The origin of The
Nightmare Before Christmas came from a well known American director, writer,
producer, animator, artist and a pure genius in the realm of creation; Tim
Burton. Disney hired Tim following his graduation from the California Institute
of Arts where he studied animation. Later on in his career, Disney became
attracted to an old poem that Burton had written of the same title as the film
in the 1980’s (Mendoza, 2011).
Carr (2013) claims that the inspiration of the poem
came from Burton’s lack of seasonal experiences; he grew up in Burbank,
California, where seasons are recognised by the various seasonal decorations in
stores that represent the different occasions throughout the year. The
foreseeable merging of Halloween and Christmas decorations in stores is an
example and is one that enthused Burton’s poem. In addition to this, as a child
Burton recalls sneaking Halloween decorations onto the Christmas tree
ornaments; this sparked his idea to juxtapose both Halloween and Christmas into
one throughout the film (Carr, 2013).
The following
lines came from Burton’s original poem:
 |
| Tim Burton |
It was late one fall in Halloweenland,
and the air had quite a chill.
Against the moon a skeleton sat,
alone upon a hill.
He was tall and thin with a bat bow tie;
Jack Skellington was his name.
He was tired and bored in Halloweenland…
Burton originally
wanted to direct the stop-motion film himself, however at the time of
production he was concerned with another film he was directing, therefore he
produced and co-wrote the script for ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and Henry
Selick became the director. It wasn’t until 1990 that Burton had made the deal
with Walt Disney to turn his stimulating poem into a full-length film (Carr,
2013).
Here
is a brief clip from the film The Nightmare Before Christmas- This clip shows
the scientific scenes of the movie. Jack Skellington after his visit in
Christmas town wants to understand the meaning of Christmas! Is there a logical
explanation as he suggests? He studies all the books for Christmas and follows
the scientific method…..
Stop motion animation
(also known as stop frame animation) has a long history in film and is often
used to show objects moving as if they were by magic (Beal, 2014) . It
captures one frame at a time, using physical objects that are moved between
each frame. When sequences of images are replayed, they create the illusion of
movement, which is an advantage of this type of animation. In addition, scenes
within films that are not possible in real life can be captured by stop-motion
animation, thus making it highly popular for the film industry, social media
and video sharing sites (Qudos Animation, 2014).
Furthermore, Qudos Animation (2014), states that companies
are conclusive in using this magical animation, as it is unique as the cameras
bring to life the necessary objects for the scene. Many business are now
integrating animating videos into their advertisement campaigns and media
promoting strategies as it helps to make sure that the audience views the
entire advertisement (Miller, 2014).
The production for The Nightmare Before Christmas was set up in a
warehouse in San Francisco, with a collection of more than 120 artists present.
Nineteen miniature sets were constructed and numerous copies of each character
were manufactured so that animators could work simultaneously on various scenes
with the same character. The crew worked continuously for three years to
produce the film and created 70 seconds of finished film in a week (Miller, 2014).
In summary, the film received many positive reviews from critics and has
continued to obtain prevalent critical appraisal. The film holds a rating of
94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its consensus suggests that the film is a
stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation.
Many other comments have been documented about the films success in capturing
fun and fright with the explosion of magical animation in which adults and
children can enjoy (Miller, 2014).
Given
that this post has been about stop-motion animation, I thought this ten minute
clip that illustrates the top ten stop-motion animation moves by Watch Mojo
would be an interest listen. Note that ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ comes
in at number one for it's modern wave of stop-motion animation. According to
the commentary, the nightmare film brought attention and exhilaration back to
the notion of stop-motion animation, after it had previously fallen into
scrutiny.
Reference List
Beal, V (2014) Retrieved 23rd October 2014 from Webopedia stop-motion animation. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/stop_motion_animation.html
Carr, K (2013) Retrieved 23rd October 2014 from film school rejects. http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/23-things-we-learned-from-the-nightmare-before-christmas-commentary.php
Mendoza, J (2011) Retrieved 23rd October 2014 from lomogrphy. http://www.lomography.com/magazine/lifestyle/2011/11/24/stop-motion-animation-the-nightmare-before-christmas
Miller, J., M (2014) Retrieved 23rd October 2014 from Film Article. http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/188767%7C0/The-Nightmare-Before-Christmas.html
Qudos Animation (2014) Benefits of Stop-motion animation Retrieved October 23rd 2014 from http://www.qudos-animations.co.uk/benefits-of-stop-motion-animation.html
