 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(October 2025) |
Direct manipulation animation [1] is one of the many forms of stop motion, but certainly blurring the distinction between stop motion and regular flat (drawing or "cel") animation.
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Direct manipulation is a simplified variation of graphic animation which involves the frame-by-frame altering (erasing or adding to) a single drawing or graphic image, while taking a frame of film or video as each small change is made, as close as the stop motion process gets to simply animating a series of drawings, but without actually changing to completely separate drawings or graphics for each frame of film, a more traditional process that most people associate with the generic "animation' term.
Examples of direct-manipulation-animation are parts of J. Stuart Blackton's 1906 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces , the chalk animation opening sequence of Will Vinton's Dinosaur (1980), and parts of Mike Jittlov's 1977 short film, Animato.
