Cinematography Skills Workshop

Ray Harryhausen - Developer

Ray Harryhausen is one of the most successful stop motion animators in history. Many things inspired him from a young age such as king kong by Willis O'Brien and visits to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Once he owned a camera he created stop motion animation films and took his interest in this subject further and studied photography and editing at university. Through doing this, he came up with the idea of creating a film. However his first idea was a flop as his idea on a film about an unusual creature, was unrecognised. His second attempt consisted of dinosaurs as one of the main aspects, which happened to be good quality although it was filmed in a garage. Stop motion animation pioneer George pal, recognised Rays work and hired him to create puppetoons.

From then on, Ray Harryhausen worked on a number of films. He created films which have been recreated today. This shows that his work has inspired and developed ideas into the modern world.

Willis O'Brien - Developer

Willis O'Brien was a famous special effects and stop motion animation pioneer. Willis is most famous for his creation of using stop motion animation on King Kong. This had an incredible effect on the audience as nobody had ever seen a stop motion animation so long and detailed before.

Willis had always been very interested in sculpturing. He would produce models with rubber connected on them to bring them to life, which lead on to his talent in stop motion. He then went on to produce some fantastic films using stop motion which proved to be inspirational to other animators and film makers.

The Lumiere Brothers - Pioneers

The lumiere brothers Auguste and Louis came from France. They were the first people to create a camera and a device called a cinématographe. They decided to design a camera, after getting inspiration from the kinetoscope. The cinématographe, was a device with a lantern, which projected films which the brothers had taken.

The films the Lumières' had taken, were approximately 50 seconds long. The video I have linked is the first film which was ever to shown to an audience. It was also the first time an audience had seen moving pictures projected onto a screen, so this obviously had a huge effect on people.

Later After their first public screening, the brothers began commercial production which was soon in demand across the world.

Eadweard James Muybridge - Pioneer

Eadweard James Muybridge ( 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was a famous English photographer. From a young age, he was experimental with his photography and discovering different forms of stop motion animation. He then went on to trying speed photography, which lead him to experiment with the horse in motion. Eadward set up a series of 50 different cameras all in a line, which was facing the horse track. He made sure the camera would capture each image by connecting the camera shutters to trip wires across the track. This was considered to be the first moving picture. In 1879 Eadweard Muybridge invented a device called the zoopraxiscope. This projected a series of images that gave the illusion of movement. The zoopraxiscope used discs to create movement which was similar to the phenakistoscope. However, the zoopraxiscope discs were made out of glass.

Eadweard's inventions gave inspiration to Thomas Edison and William Dickson to create another device called the kinetoscope. The kinetoscope viewing a sequence of images on a film strip by looking through a small window. It had a light positioned behind this and a high shutter speed. It was run by an electric motor which therefore provided movement of the images to go around the kinetoscope. The video below demonstrates how all the mechanisms work inside the kinetoscope.

 

 

 

Charles-Émile Reynaud - Pioneer

Charles-Émile Reynaud (8 December 1844 – 9 January 1918) created the first projected animated cartoon films. Reynaud created the Theatre Optique in December 1888 and the Praxinoscope in 1877.

The praxinoscope is an improvement to the zoetrope. A series of images, one slightly different to the other, are placed inside a drum. The difference between this and the zoetrope, is that instead of viewing the images through the slits, the images would reflect onto mirrors which are placed in the centre of the drum. Through this different method, the result of using the mirrors were that it proved to be defined, brighter and more effective.

Later on reynaud developed the  praxinoscope into the theatre optique. He wanted to expand his invention and present his moving images onto a screen. The praxinoscope only produced about a second of animation. Through using the theatre optique, reynaud was able to produce a longer amount of animation as he could use a long roll of film.  

William Horner - Pioneer

William George Horner was known for inventing the zoetrope, aswell as being a successful British Mathematician.

William based his invention on the phenakistoscope which therefore later made joseph plateau’s invention unsuccessful. The difference between Williams zoetrope and josephs phenakistoscope, Was that the zoetrope did not require a viewing mirror. The second improvement of the zoetrope was that more than one person could view the moving pictures at the same time.

 The zoetrope  works from a drum with an open top, the drum is spun, which creates an illusion of movement, the faster the spin, the smoother the image you see will be. However, if the drum is spun too fast, the image the viewer will see, would be a blur, so they would therefore not be able to see it.

Here is a video of a zoetrope and a demonstration of how it works:

 

 

Joseph Plateau - Pioneer

Joseph plateau (October 14, 1801 – September 15, 1883) was a Belgian physicist, known for inventing the stroboscope.  He was the first person to show an illusion of a moving image.

In 1832, Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope, also known as the spindle viewer. It was a device where Pictures on a disc were viewed through slots in the other, it appeared to move when the two discs were spun and viewed in a mirror. It was also invented by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna in the same year, who called his invention a stroboscope. Plateau's inspiration had come from the work of Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget. Michael Faraday had invented a device which had two discs that spun in opposite directions from one another. Joseph adapted Faraday's wheel into a toy, which he named the phenakistoscope.

Below, is a video of an example of a phenakistoscope. The spinning wheel creates the illusion of movement.

Josephs invention was successful for two years, until another invention was brought out which had better improvements. As the phenakistoscope was the first device of stop motion, I believe that it made a big impact towards the history of stop motion and it therefore influenced other inventors to create something better.

Tim Burton

Tim Burton’s Stop-motion animation technique is the process of photographing a model, moving it minutely then photographing it again, then the photographs are put together and the tiny movements appear to be action.

They use toys, sets, dollhouse props and clay (for facial expressions) in their stop-motion videos to create their story line. The concept is easy to understand and execute but in reality it takes an enormous amount of time and needs a lot of patience.

Stop-motion animation can be very realistic, stylistic and captivating. For example, Corpse Bride, shows that stop-motion isn't a genre, but a medium that allows artists to create whatever they imagine which has a large impact on any audience as it makes animation life like and is exciting to watch. Each character in his films, for example the nightmare before christmas, has a number of different versions of bodies and heads in order to capture the most human movements and expressions. The sets are also created with the same attention to detail, creating a dark, beautiful world. Audiences of different age levels have enjoyed animation movies as it is more realistic than cartoon figures. The only limitation it may have is that it is extremely time consuming but it is worth the effort as the results are fantastic. Below is a video of the process of the making of Corpse Bride.

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations, is a British animation studio which is in Bristol. The studio is famous for films which uses stop-motion clay animation techniques, especially those that feature Plasticine characters, for example Wallace and Gromit, shaun and angry boys.

Wallace and Gromit are movies that use a technique called stop motion animation. It is a story based on plasticine models that make the characters come to life. The animated characters are shot one frame at a time which creates the illusion of movement when all of the frames are played as a continuous sequence. Then are moved slightly, to give the impression of movement in the final film. He uses clay because it is easy to manipulate for different expression and movement but some use movable dolls. This technique may duplicate frames sometimes to be used in similar movements. A film has twenty four separate frames. A typical Wallace and Gromit film takes around 30 frames per day. It makes a lifeless objects come to life. Here is a video of behind the scenes of Wallace and gromit

Before the 80’s animation techniques were divided into two categories which was drawn animation and model or stop-motion animation. It involved photographing a series of two dimensional images such as drawings and sometimes cut-out shapes. Both techniques developed quickly in the early years of cinema. Stop motion helped reduce the work required to produce drawn animation as it eliminated the need to redraw the backgrounds and all the characters again. This type of technique seems to suit all ages depending on the story line but preferably younger children.

In stop motion animation it is life like and feels more in depth of the character and the surrounding but as a contrast it may have some disadvantages causing some limitations as time is the essence in productivity and it takes many hours of work producing limited footage. It is very time consuming.

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