About Stop-Motion Videos

Stop-motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frame is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their easy of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.

Also, other techiniques of creating stop-motion are flip books, drawings and paintings on paper or buildings, which take a lot of time and effort, people making small movements at a time, and can create a method which looks like the person is flying etc, and many more.

There are many directors who use stop-motion within their films and programmes, such as Henry Selick, Tim Burton, Nick Park, Ray Harryhausen, Phil Tippett, George Pal, and many more.

Tim Burton is a well known famous film producer, he is very active in the field of stop-motion animation. One of Burton's first films, Vincent, is a six minute stop-motion animation about a young boy who wants to be Vincent Price. Several of his early live-action films such as 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure' and 'Beetlejuice' made use of stop-motion. In 1993, Burton produced the all-stop motion animation 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. The film was in production for three years due to the length of the time it takes to shoot stop-motion. The main characters in the films were puppets, that in order to create realism in the film were structured hundreds of face models with different expressions. The film is based on a poem Burton wrote inspired by ' 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' - it was then directed by Henry Selick. Selick later directed the adaptation of 'James and the Giant Peach', a blend between stop-motion animation and live action film. In 2005, 'Corpse Bride' was released, another stop motion piece from Burton.