Animation is the method that encompasses myriad filmmaking techniques, 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 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 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.
Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films and television series made using stop-motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace and Gromit, 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.
Arthur Clokey was an American animator, director, producer, screenwriter and voice actor, he was pioneer in the popularization of stop-motion clay animation, best known as the creator of the character Gumby and the original voice of Gumby's sidekick, Pokey. Clokey's career began in 1953 with a film experiment called Gumbasia, which was influenced by his professor, Slavko Vorkapich, at the University of Southern California. Clokey and his wife Ruth subsequently came up with the clay character Gumby and his horse Pokey, who first appeared in the Howdy Doody Show and later got their own series The Adventures of Gumby, from which they became a familiar presence on American television. The characters enjoyed a renewal of interest in the 1980s when American actor and comedian Eddie Murphy parodied Gumby in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
Charles Henry Selick Jr. is an American filmmaker and animator. He is best known for directing the stop-motion animated films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Monkeybone (2001), Coraline (2009), and Wendell & Wild (2022). Selick is also known for his collaborations with the late voice actor and artist Joe Ranft.
The Squawkin' Hawk is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on August 8, 1942, and is the first to star the young Henery Hawk. It was animated by Phil Monroe and was written by Michael Maltese, the latter being his first collaboration with Jones.
Anima Mundi is a competitive Brazilian video and film festival devoted exclusively to animation, held every July in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.
Laika is an American stop-motion animation studio specializing in feature films, commercial content for all media, music videos, and short films. The studio is best known for its stop-motion feature films Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link. It is owned by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and is located in Hillsboro, Oregon, part of the Portland metropolitan area. Knight's son, Travis Knight, acts as Laika's president and CEO.
Arnaldo Angeli Filho, more commonly known as Angeli, born August 31, 1956, in São Paulo, Brazil, is one of the best-known Brazilian cartoonists.
Jiří Barta is a Czech stop-motion animation director. Many of his films use wood as a medium for animation. Among his notable films are the 1986 film The Pied Piper.
Tsuneo Gōda is a Japanese stop motion animator. He is known for creating the character Domo (Domo-kun), the official mascot of Japanese public broadcasting company NHK, as well as directing an animated TV series starring Domo. He is also the founder of studio dwarf inc., an animation studio specializing in stop motion animation and character design.
Mio Mao, also known as Mio and Mao, is a stop-motion animated children's television series created by Francesco Misseri in the 1970s, produced using Claymation animation.
Mark "Thurop" Ashton Van Orman is an American cartoonist, animator, writer, producer, director, and voice actor. He is best known for being the creator and executive producer of the Cartoon Network series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (2008–2010), in which he voices the title character, as well as directing his directorial debut The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019).
Case of the Naves Brothers is a 1967 Brazilian drama film directed by Luis Sérgio Person. Based on a book by João Alamy Filho, the Naves brothers' lawyer, it tells the story of Joaquim and Sebastião Naves, who were arrested during the Estado Novo dictatorship and after being tortured confessed to a crime they did not commit. It was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was also selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 40th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Bobby Yeah is a psychological surreal British stop motion animated short horror film written, directed and animated by Robert Morgan. It was made independently and completed in 2011, and later uploaded on Robert's YouTube Channel in HD in 2017.
Head over Heels is a 2012 British stop-motion animated short film written and directed by Timothy Reckart. The film was nominated for Best Animated Short Film for the 85th Academy Awards. It also won the first Annie Award for Best Student film and the Cartoon d'Or for Best European Animated Short.
Adam is a 1992 British stop-motion clay animated short film written, animated and directed by Peter Lord of Aardman Animations. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short and the BAFTA Film Award for Short Animation in 1992, and won two awards at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 1993. It is based on the beginning of the Book of Genesis. It was distributed by Aardman Animations.
The Early Worm Gets the Bird is a 1940 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon supervised by Tex Avery. The short was released on January 13, 1940. The name is a play on the adage "The early bird gets the worm."
