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Stop motion is an animated filmmaking 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.
Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film.
Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Rex the Runt is a live-action stop-motion adult animated claymation pixilation comedy series, primarily consisting of a television show and two short films produced by Aardman Animations and Egmont Imagination for BBC Bristol, with EVA Entertainment co-producing the first series. Its main characters are four plasticine dogs: Rex, Wendy, Bad Bob and Vince.
Creature Comforts is a British adult stop-motion comedy mockumentary franchise originating in a 1989 British humorous animated short film of the same name. The film matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about their homes, making it appear as if the animals were being interviewed about their living conditions. It was created by Nick Park and Aardman Animations. The film later became the basis of a series of television advertisements for the electricity boards in the United Kingdom. In 2003, a television series in the same style was released. An American version of the series was also made. A sequel series, Things We Love, first aired on BBC One in 2024.
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.
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.
Morph is a British series of clay stop-motion comedy animations, named after the main character, who is a small terracotta-skinned plasticine man, who speaks an unintelligible language and lives on a tabletop, with his bedroom being a small wooden box. Morph was initially seen interacting with Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his British television programmes, notably Take Hart, Hartbeat and SMart.
Peter Duncan Fraser Lord CBE is an English animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. He also directed Chicken Run along with Nick Park from DreamWorks Animation, and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
Shaun the Sheep is a stop-motion animated silent comedy children's television series which is developed by Aardman Animations. A spin-off in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the series focuses on the adventures of Shaun, the eponymous sheep previously starring in A Close Shave, as the leader of his flock on an English farm. The series premiered on 5 March 2007 on CBBC in the UK, also airing on BBC Two. Since 2020, the series is streamed globally on Netflix. In March 2024, it was announced that the seventh series is in development and will premiere in 2025. With 170 episodes over 6 series, Shaun the Sheep is one of the longest-running animated series in British television.
Richard Starzak, previously known as Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, is an English animator, screenwriter, and film director.
Gogs is a Welsh claymation animated comedy television series created by Siôn Jones, Deiniol Morris, and Michael Mort and produced by Aaargh! Animation. The series is about the antics of the eponymous family of stereotypical dim-witted cavemen, which take the form of frequent slapstick and gross-out humour with no spoken dialogue.
Rubber hose animation was the first animation style that became standardized in the American animation field. The defining feature is a curving motion that most animated objects possess, resembling the motion and physical properties of a rubber hose. While the style fell out of fashion by the mid-1930s, it has seen a renewed interest since the 2010s.
United Kingdom Animation began at the very origins of the art form in the late 19th century. British animation has been strengthened by an influx of émigrés to the UK; renowned animators such as Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers. Notable full-length animated features to be produced in the UK include Animal Farm (1954), Yellow Submarine (1968), Watership Down (1978), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Christopher Sadler is a British animator, director and writer. He is primarily known for his work on Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Rex the Runt, Cracking Contraptions, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep.
Shaun the Sheep Movie is a 2015 animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton. It is based on the British television series Shaun the Sheep, in turn a spin-off of the Wallace & Gromit film A Close Shave (1995). Starring the voices of Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, and Omid Djalili, the film follows Shaun and his flock navigating the big city to save their amnesiac farmer, while an overzealous animal control worker pursues the group. It was produced by Aardman Animations, and financed by StudioCanal in association with Anton Capital Entertainment.
Counterfeit Cat is an animated television series developed by Aardman Animations, Cristina Fiumara, and Ben Marsaud. The series is produced by Wildseed Kids, Tricon Kids & Family, and Aardman Animations, in association with Teletoon, with the participation of Disney XD, and with animation provided by Atomic Cartoons. The series follows the lives of a Manx cat named Max and an alien named Gark as they live in an apartment alongside her animal friends, aliens, humans and many more zany adventures together.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is a 2019 animated science fiction comedy film produced by Aardman Animations. The film is directed by Richard Phelan and Will Becher and written by Mark Burton and Jon Brown, based on an idea by Richard Starzak. It is a stand-alone sequel to Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and is based on the claymation television series Shaun the Sheep, a spin-off from the Wallace & Gromit short film A Close Shave. It is the first sequel ever made by Aardman and in stop-motion in general. The film stars Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Kate Harbour, and Rich Webber reprising their voice roles from the series and the previous film, whilst new cast members include Amalia Vitale, David Holt and Chris Morrell. In the film, Shaun and the flock encounter an alien with extraordinary powers who crash-lands near Mossy Bottom Farm. They have to find a way to return her home in order to prevent her falling into the hands of the Ministry for Alien Detection.
References
- ↑ "Oscar and Friends Theme Song". TelevisionTunes.com. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "CAMERION CHITTOCK". Sasquatch Productions Ltd. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
- ↑ "Oscar and Friends". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
- ↑ "Oscar and Friends: Episode Guide". msn.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2012.