| Chicken Run, Coraline, James and the Giant Peach, and The Nightmare Before Christmas were all big hits1. Moreover, these movies were all made using stop-motion animation2. This filming technique is still used, although not nearly as often as the main forms of animation like computer-generated or hand-drawn images. There is a good reason why it is not frequently used. Stop-motion animation is a very slow and time-consuming3 process.
The technique involves shooting something on film frame by frame4. For example, filmmakers5 shoot one frame of a doll. Then the doll's arm is moved a tiny bit and another frame is shot. This process is repeated over and over until the full movement is completed. Usually, one minute of stop-motion animation requires 1,440 individual frames. Afterwards, the frames are put together and played one after another, creating the appearance of the doll lifting its arm. Now imagine making a whole movie with many characters and lots of complex actions. Not only would filmmakers need lots of patience, but they would also have to have a good eye for detail.
Stop-motion animation has a special magic that people love. It is used to make objects in real life move, whereas CGI6 might seem real enough in movies like Avatar. People are attracted to stop-motion animation because there is nothing like seeing a real desk, lamp, or ordinary object come to life. |
