Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets (cels) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are either traditional animations or computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, has continued to exist alongside these other forms.
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.
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
Jan Švankmajer is a Czech film director, animator, writer, playwright and artist. He draws and makes free graphics, collage, ceramics, tactile objects and assemblages. In the early 1960s, he explored informel, which later became an important part of the visual form of his animated films. He is a leading representative of late Czech surrealism. In his film work, he created an unmistakable and quite specific style, determined primarily by a compulsively unorthodox combination of externally disparate elements. The anti-artistic nature of this process, based on collage or assemblage, functions as a meaning-making factor. The author himself claims that the intersubjective communication between him and the viewer works only through evoked associations, and his films fulfil their subversive mission only when, even in the most fantastic moments, they look like a record of reality. Some of the works he created together with his wife Eva Švankmajerová.
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.
Mike Jittlov is an American animator and the creator of short films and one feature-length film using forms of special effects animation, including stop-motion animation, rotoscoping, and pixilation. He is best known for the 1988 feature-length film The Wizard of Speed and Time, based on his 1979 short film of the same name.
Cutout animation is a form of stop-motion animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets for stop motion. The world's earliest known animated feature films were cutout animations, as is the world's earliest surviving animated feature Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926) by Lotte Reiniger.
Alice is a 1988 surrealist dark fantasy film written and directed by Jan Švankmajer. Its original Czech title is Něco z Alenky, which means "Something from Alice". It is a loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's first Alice book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), about a girl who chases a white rabbit into a bizarre fantasy land. Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová. The film combines live-action with stop-motion animation, and is distinguished by its dark production design.
Jan Kounen is a Netherlands-born French film director and producer.
Neighbours is a 1952 anti-war film by Scottish-Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren for the National Film Board of Canada. In 1953, it won the Oscar for Best Documentary, Short Subject.
Charles David Menville was an American animator and writer for television. His credits included Batman: The Animated Series, Land of the Lost, The Real Ghostbusters, The Smurfs, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and Tiny Toon Adventures.
Food is a 1992 Czech animated comedy short film directed by Jan Švankmajer that uses claymation and pixilation. It examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
A Chairy Tale is a 1957 Canadian stop-motion pixilation short film co-directed by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra for the National Film Board of Canada. Set to the music of Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal, it comedically portrays Jutra's attempts to sit on an uncooperative chair.
bolexbrothers was an independent British animation studio founded by Dave Borthwick and Dave Alex Riddett in Bristol, UK. The studio specialised in stop motion and pixilation animation, producing numerous short films and commercials, as well as two feature films, The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993) and The Magic Roundabout (2005). The studio was named after the Bolex brand of 16mm cameras once popular with animators and was first established as a collective of artists in the 1980s before becoming a company in 1991 and running to roughly 2008.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to animation:
Grant Munro LL. D. was a Canadian animator, filmmaker and actor. In 1952, he co-starred with Jean-Paul Ladouceur in Norman McLaren's Neighbours. His film, Christmas Cracker, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1965.
Cinema16: European Short Films is a DVD featuring European short films. There are two different versions available, one for the UK and European market and a later one for the US market. They are, respectively, the second and fourth in a series of DVDs released by Cinema16.
Michael Langan is an American film director. He grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where he began his artistic career as a professional stage actor, and is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.
The Pearce Sisters is a 2007 short film created by Aardman Animations.
