Stop motion is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints or plasticine figures are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
The Flintstones is an American adult animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, which takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the Rubbles. It was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966, and was the first animated series with a prime-time slot on television.
The term independent animation refers to animated shorts, web series, and feature films produced outside a major national animation industry.
Pixilation is a stop motion technique in which live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a movie.
William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
Craig Michael Bartlett is an American animator. He wrote, directed, created, and produced the Nickelodeon television series Hey Arnold! and the PBS Kids television series Ready Jet Go! and Dinosaur Train.
Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Moonwalker is a 1988 American experimental anthology musical film starring Michael Jackson. Rather than featuring one continuous narrative, the film expresses the influence of fandom and innocence through a collection of short films about Jackson, several of which are long-form music videos from Jackson's 1987 album Bad. The film is named after the dance technique known as the moonwalk, which Jackson was known for performing.
The California Raisins were a fictional rhythm and blues animated musical group as well as advertising and merchandising characters composed of anthropomorphized raisins. Lead vocals were sung by musician Buddy Miles. The California Raisins were popular from 1986 to 2002 through claymation TV commercials and animated specials, winning an Emmy Award and one nomination.
The Weird Al Show is an American television show hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic. Produced in association with Dick Clark Productions and taped at NBC Studios, it aired on Saturday mornings on CBS. The show ran for one season, from September 13 to December 6, 1997, with reruns airing until September 26, 1998. The show was released on DVD on August 15, 2006.
Pannonia Film Studio was the largest animation studio in Hungary, based in the capital of Budapest. It was formed in 1951, becoming independent in 1957. The studio is said to have closed sometime around 2015.
Garri Yakovlevich Bardin is a Soviet and Russian animation director, screenwriter, producer and actor best known for his experimental musical and stop motion films. He was awarded the 1988 Short Film Palme d'Or for the Fioritures cartoon and the Order of Honour in 2011.
Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration is an animated Christmas television special originally broadcast on the American CBS TV network on December 21, 1987. The special featured stop motion clay animation and was produced and directed by Will Vinton. The special debuted alongside A Garfield Christmas and the two continued to be aired back to back in subsequent years.
"Jurassic Park" is a parody of Richard Harris's version of Jimmy Webb's song "MacArthur Park", written and performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic; it was released both as a single and as part of Yankovic's Alapalooza album in October 1993. "Jurassic Park" was penned by Yankovic after he remembered the enjoyment he had when he combined a classic rock track with a recent movie theme with his 1985 song "Yoda". Yankovic decided to combine the plot of the recent movie Jurassic Park—a film about a park on a fictional island where geneticists have succeeded in cloning dinosaurs—with the classic Richard Harris track "MacArthur Park".
Closed Mondays is an eight-minute clay animation film, created by Bob Gardiner and filmed by Will Vinton in 1974. It was produced by Lighthouse Productions, released by Pyramid Films in the United States, and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1975.
James Robbins "Bob" Gardiner was an American artist, painter, cartoonist, animator, holographer, musician, storyteller, and comedy writer. He invented the stop-motion 3-D clay animation technique which his collaborator Will Vinton would later market as Claymation, although Bob preferred the term Sculptimation for his frame-by-frame method of sculpting plasticine clay characters and sets.
Charles Dell "Chuck" Braverman is an American film director, collage animator, documentary filmmaker and producer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject for his 2000 documentary, Curtain Call; he was also nominated for three Directors Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, winning in 2000 for High School Boot Camp. He has also directed episodes of several major television series, including Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and Northern Exposure as well as television films such as the Prince of Bel Air and Brotherhood of Justice starring Keanu Reeves and Kiefer Sutherland.
Fantastic Animation Festival is a package film of animation segments, set mostly to music and released in theaters in 1977. It was one of the earliest of the sort of collections typified by Computer Animation Festival and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation.
Claymation Comedy of Horrors is a 1991 Halloween stop-motion short film by Will Vinton. Animator Teresa Drilling won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement for her work on this short. It was produced in 1990, and broadcast on CBS on May 29, 1991.
Susan Carol Shadburne was an American screenwriter, director, producer, and filmmaker, best known for her collaborations with her husband, claymation animator Will Vinton. She wrote the screenplay for The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985), directed by Vinton, and wrote and directed the supernatural thriller film Shadow Play (1986). In addition to feature films, Shadburne wrote and directed several short films. Two of the short films Shadburne wrote that Vinton directed—Rip Van Winkle (1978) and The Great Cognito (1983) –were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
