The Introduction:
“Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea which it was not before possessed.” - Joseph Anderson
The main focus of this quote to me is the taking an object and by using it in a new and unexpected way . The concept of giving an idea to something that wasn't associated with it before is fairly interesting to me.
The popular Youtube video “Deadline” uses post-it’s in a way that you would have imagined them to have been used. The post-its are stuck on a wall and together they form a huge image, using a stop-motion technique they are then animated to create an inspirational animation. This brings us a pleasure of seeing and everyday object being used in an unconventional manor,and it also surprises us and we think to ourselves “Why didn't I think of that?”. Using an object like this also evokes curiosity in the viewer with the question always asked “Is this real”. The video uses a stop-frame animation technique to bring live to the post-its with great effect.
Stop Motion
"The process of stop-motion animation traditionally relies on simple movements to each and every subject in a set that is required to move. These are shot incrementally on a camera frame and the process is repeated again and again until the frames are eventually seen together in quick succession, there by creating the illusion of movement." Andrew Selby - Animation in Process.
What makes stop-frame animation more appealing to an audience is the fact that its all real, all created by humans and moved by animators by hand. It would be easy to recreate it in a CGI environment but this would take something away from the final product. Andrew Selby makes this point by comparing stop-motion to a live theatre performance and how it has its own individuality. This is more present in clay animation where even the animators thumb prints are left on some of the models, both physically and metaphorically.
Although it seems obvious and unoriginal to mention Wallace and Gromit in a post about stop-frame animation I feel it is necessary to make a point about the appeal of stop frame. The one thing that struck me when I first saw the film Wallace and Gromit and The Curse of the Were Rabbit was the sheer beauty of the scenes. Knowing everything in that scene was crafted by hands, from props to background paintings. This appeals to me more than say the beauty of Pandora in Avatar because that is, although essentially humans created the concepts and modelled elements of it, computer generated which to me takes away something from it when compared to stop-frame.
Another appeal of stop-motion animation that appeals to me is that really any body, with very simple tools, can do it. Nearly everyone once in their life has created a from of stop-motion on the corner of a notebook or sketchpad. It is possible to create something that looks good with very basic tools. This is why I have chosen to create my piece using the stop-motion technique.
