OK, who else is just jazzed out of their brains looking forward to the Wallace & Gromit feature film this fall? And as if that weren't enough the stuff I've seen from the Corpse Bride trailer makes me go get a towel for all the drool I keep slabbering about. I'm going to go broke on theater tickets this fall watching these two flicks over and over and over and over and over and.. well, you get the idea.
I love stop motion. It's by far my favorite style of animation. I think I'm the only Yank who owns the two season DVD set of "Rex the Runt". I'm a sucker for it all. Such texture! Such humanness! Sure it can be done poorly (see entire Rankin Bass library), but even then there's just such warmth and charm in the work. Musta been all those mornings watching Davey & Goliath as a kid that got me infected with the stop-mo bug. Growing up I never dreamt of being a Disney animator (heresy, I know). But to be honest Disney films never really made much of an impact on me as a kid. We didn't often go see them in the theaters back then. That and being a blue collar kid in a blue collar steel town you're not often encouraged to pursue the arts. But tinker with puppets? You betcha! Lord willing one of these days I'll make a stop mo film. Maybe when I'm retired? Who knows. Still, to get your sto-mo-geek going head here and here and enjoy the tease! Time to start a savings plan to buy all those movie tickets....
-k
4 comments:
I hear ya Keith. Stop-motion is truly an inspiring medium. I, myself, am a big fan of Jan Svankmajer's Alice and The Brothers Quay. But my all-time number one favorite stop motion movie is "The Adventures of Mark Twain". Vinton studios did it back in the 80's and it was a staple of my childhood. There's a ton of great stories recreated in this particular Claymation, but "The Mysterious Stranger" is by far the creepiest. The children meet the faceless man (aka the devil) in one story and the whole film showcases a lot of Twain's darker side. I don't believe it's available on DVD, but if you can get a copy on VHS you won't be dissapointed.
Definitely some great stuff coming out for the stop-motion world. And yes... I am as well drooling over both films. Not sure if you were aware, but on Comedy Central recently, they have been showing a lot of different Creature Comforts shorts. Check out the web site for scheduling and such. All by, of course, Nick Park and the gang at Aardman.
Here is the link to the shows: http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/search_results.jhtml?searchterm=creature+comforts
Sure Rankin Bass are great examples of bad stop motion work, but you have to admit that they had some great designs (as well as a few bad ones). And they also develiped the replacement method for animating lipsink. Nightmare improved on that technique, but they paved the way. Stop-motion is my favorete animation method, I wish there was more of it out there.
What do you think of stop-mo in 3D?
When I think of some of the work Aardman has done simulating the feel (the blobs, some of the advert work - I belive - was in 3D)I think its very inspiring.
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