Research into Stop Motion

After completing my summer project, I gained a real interest in stop motion and spent a while looking at various stop motion shorts and gaining an idea of the variety of styles of animated shorts. I also did some quick stop motion myself:

The first stop motion animated short that I looked at was a professional piece by Tim Burton. 'Vincent' is one of his earlier creations but even back in 1982, you can easily tell that the short is a Tim Burton creation as his style is clearly conveyed in the aesthetics of both the backgrounds and the character. The movement is so smooth that it appears more like an animation than a stop motion short which indicates that it was made using a lot of pictures and took a very long time to create. I, personally, love how distinct Tim Burton's style is and his work inspires me to create something as creative and original as his works.

'Gulp' is a short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman, depicting a fisherman going about his daily catch. Shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales, every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics. The film has broken a world record for the 'largest stop-motion animation set', with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet. I really like this stop motion film as it uses a simple location to its full potential and the idea to draw each shot in the sand is such a creative and original idea that I would love to do however I know that it would take a lot of time and I would probably need a lot of help to draw each separate shot.

Another short I saw was a stop motion made by two guys from Venezula - Diego and Daniel Macario. It is a simple short film about a character travelling into outer space and realising that he doesn't belong on Earth, he belongs in the sky with the stars. I quite like this short as it is very simple and just made with pieces of paper. While I like it however, I'm not sure whether something like this is of a high enough standard that I want to achieve for my A-level as I admit, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Also, while I like this short, I dont think that it is original enough for me to fully appreciate.

One stop motion short that I particularly liked is this next one. It takes a simple activity - making spaghetti bolognese - but makes it into something fun and completely different to your expectations. It's a completely original idea and this is the kind of weird and wacky idea that I can take inspiration from.

My favourite stop motion animation short that I have watched is by the same people that made 'Western Spaghetti'. I, being a gamer, really love this short as I think that it is really quirky and original.