Types of stop motion animation:

There are 6 types of stop motion animation:

Clay this is a form of animation that uses clay or plasticine. The objects are deformable as well as the background but that will be up to you and also depending on how your animation goes. Clay animation began a short time after the invention of plasticine, plasticine was invented in 1897 and one of the first films to use clay was in 1902. It took 6 more years for the for another clay animation film to be released, this happened in 1908 where ‘A Sculptor's Welsh Rarebit Nightmare’ was released in February. Clay animation wasn’t really as popular as it was back then when it was first being introduced as it is today. It took until the mid to late 80’s for it to become popular and reaching the large scale phenomenon it is today. ‘Gumby’ is classed as being one of the most memorable clay animation works because he was one of the first to become famous. ‘Gumby’ was created in the early 1950’s by an American pioneer in the popularization of stop motion clay animation Arthur Clokey. He studied at the University of Southern California and made his first animation film in 1953, a three minute long piece called ‘Gumbasia’. ‘Gumby’ was inspired by a suggestion by his, she said that he based his character on the gingerbread man. Arthur Clokey thought ahead when planning his creation of Gumby. Gumby’s legs and feet were made wide for pragmatic reasons: they ensured the clay character would stand up during stop-motion filming.

Cut-out this a form of animation where flat 2D animation pieces are moved using a certain technique. Animations are created by cutting out flat characters, props and backgrounds form materials such as paper, card, cardboard, stiff fabric and photographs. When working with cut-out animation you can only work up down and left and right across the screen in a flat plane, this is a limitation. You simply cannot walk a cut-out puppet towards camera in relation to a fixed back ground or make it turn in three dimensions. Some limitations can actually have its advantages, you can design an inventive solution for each and very storytelling scenario. A character can be made to walk over a hill to disappear behind it, then reappear as a smaller cut-out figure ascending a more distant hill. The earliest known animated feature films were cut-out animations made in Argentina Quirino Cristiani. Quirino Cristiani was an Argentine animation director and cartoonist. A very well-known cut-out stop motion animation is Winter Days 2003 Japanese film.

Pixilation this is a stop motion animation technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame and frames. When they are being animated the actor or actress becomes a kind of living stop motion puppet, this is because you are in control. ‘The secret adventures of Tom Thumb is a stop motion animated film made in early 90’s. The film is largely dialogue free so not much talking, you occasionally hear grunts and other non-verbal vocalizations. First work known to use the pixilation technique was Emile Courtet’s 1911 film ‘Jobard ne peut pas voir les femmes travailler’ translated to ‘Jobard cannot see the women working’

Puppet this typically involves puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. When they are moved a photograph is taken and then moved again and another photograph is taken to give the illusion of movement. The smaller the adjustments when a photograph is taken the smoother animation looks but this also means that it will be time consuming especially if you accidentally mess something up like knocking the model over.  In a way, it defines animation where you give life to non-living objects and make them look life like.

Silhouette this is cut-out animation that becomes a dark black images when a light is shone from the back. This is referred to as silhouette animation. It was pioneered by the German animator Lotte Reiniger. Lotte Reiniger made over 40 films over the span of her career all using her own inventions. She used it to make many shorts as well as the oldest-surviving feature length animated film, ‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed’. Reiniger invented this technique of stop motion animation. It was inspired by shadow play.