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42-453: The RD-175 was also notable as the first consumer digital camera to be used in a professional stop motion production, being used to create the full-motion claymation adventure video game The Neverhood . The camera uses Minolta A-mount lenses with a crop factor of 2. The light entering the central 12 mm × 16 mm area of the RD-175's focal plane was compressed by 0.56x relay optics behind

84-421: A "hot set," then no one is allowed to touch the set or else the shoot would be ruined. Certain scenes must be shot rather quickly. If a scene is left unfinished and the weather is perhaps humid, then the set and characters have an obvious difference. The clay puppets may be deformed from the humidity or the air pressure could have caused the set to shift slightly. These small differences can create an obvious flaw to

126-399: A Staircase , filmed in 1992. Another Vinton animator, Craig Bartlett , developed a technique in which he not only used clay painting but sometimes built up clay images that rose off the plane of the flat support platform toward the camera lens to give a more 3-D stop-motion look to his Hey Arnold! films. Nick Park joined Aardman in 1985. Early in his career, he and Aardman helped make

168-500: A distinctive visual style. Probably the most spectacular use of model animation for a computer game was for the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos game Magic and Mayhem (1998), for which stop-motion animator and special-effects expert Alan Friswell constructed over 25 monsters and mythological characters utilising both modelling clay and latex rubber, over wire and ball-and-socket skeletons, much like

210-507: A flat surface and moved like wet oil paints (as on a traditional artist's canvas) to produce any style of images, but with a clay look to them. A sub variation claymation can be informally called "clay melting". Any kind of heat source can be applied on or near (or below) clay to cause it to melt while an animation camera on a time-lapse setting slowly films the process. For example, consider Vinton's early short clay-animated film Closed Mondays (co produced by animator Bob Gardiner ) at

252-587: A medium. The work was cited by Wallace and Gromit creators, Peter Lord and David Sproxton , as a large influence on their work. In the early 1970s, Noyes filmed documentaries with Claudia Weil, including This Is the Home of Mrs. Levant Graham , a cinéma vérité film of the life of a Black family in Washington, D.C., and Aspen: 1970 , which concerned a "generational clash of architects". Noyes also used sand for his animations, including in his 1973 work Sandman and

294-545: A recognizable character throughout a shot, as in Art Clokey 's and Will Vinton's films. One variation of claymation is strata-cut animation , in which a long bread-like loaf of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Pioneered in both clay and blocks of wax by German animator Oskar Fischinger during

336-598: A series of two-minute animations. After relocating to Northern California in the 1990s, Noyes developed the Disney Channel afternoon programming block Zoog Disney with Walt Disney Imagineering . He was also involved in interactive projects with Pixar and served as the creative director for Oxygen television network in the late 1990s. In 2003, Noyes co-founded the animation production studio Alligator Planet with Ralph Guggenheim and Alan Buder. Noyes directed animation sequences for two films which were shortlisted for

378-509: A short sequence. J. Stuart Blackton 's Chew Chew Land; or, The Adventures of Dolly and Jim (1910) features primitive claymation in chewing-gum inspired dream scenes. Walter R. Booth 's Animated Putty (1911) featured clay molding itself into different shapes. Willie Hopkins produced over fifty clay-animated segments entitled Miracles in Mud for the weekly Universal Screen Magazine from 1916 to 1918. He also made artistic modeled titles for

420-515: A sitting old lady. On 15 February 1908, Porter released the trick film A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts. No copy of the film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film The Sculptor's Nightmare (6 May 1908), directed by Wallace McCutcheon Sr. and photographed by Billy Bitzer with cameo appearances of D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett . The busts are also animated to blink, speak, drink and turn left and right for

462-403: A viable animation material where a particular aesthetic is desired. Claymation can take several forms: "Freeform" claymation is an informal term referring to the process in which the shape of the clay changes radically as the animation progresses, such as in the work of Eli Noyes and Ivan Stang 's animated films. Clay can also take the form of "character" claymation, where the clay maintains

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504-502: Is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay . Traditional animation , from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films and video games , create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second . Each object or character

546-482: Is needed to maintain the illusion of continuity : objects must be consistently placed and lit. Producing a stop-motion animation using clay is extremely laborious. Normal film runs at 24 frames per second (frame/s). With the standard practice of "doubles" or "twos" (double-framing, exposing two frames for each shot), 12 changes are usually made for one second of film movement. Shooting a 30-minute movie would therefore require making approximately 21,600 stops to change

588-472: Is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as plasticine , usually around a wire skeleton, called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playback, the viewer perceives the series of slightly changing, rapidly succeeding images as motion. A consistent shooting environment

630-1046: The Chevron Cars ads (Aardman). The PJs (1999–2001) was a sitcom featuring the voice of Eddie Murphy , produced by Murphy in collaboration with Ron Howard , the Will Vinton Studios and others. Many independent young filmmakers have published claymations online, on such sites as Newgrounds . More adult-oriented claymation shows have been broadcast on Cartoon Network 's Adult Swim lineup, including Robot Chicken (which uses claymation and action figures as stop-motion puppets in conjunction) and Moral Orel . Nickelodeon 's Nick at Nite later developed their own adult show, Glenn Martin, DDS (2009-2011). Several computer games have been produced using claymation, including The Neverhood , ClayFighter , Platypus , Clay Moon (iPhone app), and Primal Rage . The surrealist role-playing video games Hylics (2015) and Hylics 2 (2020) both utilize claymation to achieve

672-543: The Nickelodeon show Pinwheel and the sand alphabet for Sesame Street . Noyes partnered with Kit Laybourne and created the show Braingames as well as the children's television series Eureeka's Castle and Gullah Gullah Island . He co-founded the studio Alligator Planet with Ralph Guggenheim and directed animation sequences for the documentaries Under Our Skin and The Most Dangerous Man in America . Noyes

714-411: The 1920s and 1930s, the technique was revived and highly refined in the mid-1990s by David Daniels, an associate of Will Vinton , in his 16-minute short film "Buzz Box". Another clay-animation technique, one that blurs the distinction between stop motion and traditional flat animation, is called clay painting (also a variation of the direct manipulation animation process), wherein clay is placed on

756-620: The 1976 pixelated stop motion Peanut Butter and Jelly . He also designed animated sand pinwheels for the Nickelodeon show Pinwheel and created the sand alphabet for Sesame Street . Noyes partnered with Kit Laybourne to establish Noyes and Laybourne Enterprises in 1983. One of their first series was Braingames on HBO, and they also later created Eureeka's Castle and Gullah Gullah Island for Nickelodeon. They created ten-second channel IDs for Nickelodeon that were rotoscoped . Noyes and Laybourne Enterprises became established as

798-595: The 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature , Under Our Skin and The Most Dangerous Man in America , a final nominee. Noyes designed "Go Green" postage stamps for the United States Postal Service in 2011. Noyes was married to Augusta Talbot and had two children, Isaac and Abigail. He and his family moved to San Francisco in 1991. He enjoyed jazz piano and played the accordion and oboe. Noyes died in San Francisco on March 23, 2024, at

840-619: The Blue (1976 - Italy) and Pingu (1990-2000 - Switzerland, 2003-2006 - U.K.) In 1972, at Marc Chinoy's Cineplast Films Studio in Munich, Germany, André Roche created a set of clay-animated German-language-instruction films (for non-German-speaking children) called Kli-Kla-Klawitter for the Second German TV-Channel; and another one for a traffic education series, Herr Daniel paßt auf ("Mr. Daniel Pays Attention"). Aardman Animations

882-591: The Were-Rabbit (2005). Wallace and Gromit spin-off Shaun the Sheep has also proved hugely successful with long-running television series (since 2007), theatrical movies and its own spin-off Timmy Time (since 2009). Aardman's Chicken Run (2000) became the highest-grossing stop motion animated film in history . Aardman's Flushed Away is a CGI replication of claymation. Alexander Tatarsky managed to get work at Multtelefilm division of Studio Ekran with

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924-569: The addition of stop tricks , and with early cinematic animation in Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906). A similar form of "lightning sculpting" had been performed live on stage around the turn of the century. Segundo de Chomón 's Sculpteur Moderne was released on 31 January 1908 and features heaps of clay molding themselves into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into

966-424: The award-winning animated video for Peter Gabriel 's song " Sledgehammer " in 1986. Park would become the most successful claymation director, receiving a total of six Academy Award nominations and winning four with Creature Comforts (1989) (the first Wallace and Gromit film A Grand Day Out was also nominated), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of

1008-502: The cel method became the preferred method for the studio cartoon. Cel animation can be more easily divided into small tasks performed by many workers, like an assembly line. In 1921, claymation appeared in a short sequence in the Out of the Inkwell episode Modeling , a film from the newly formed Fleischer Brothers studio. Modeling included animated clay in eight shots, a novel integration of

1050-438: The computer, importing and processing a single image could take from 50 to 108 seconds. SCREEN : Flip , Front Flip , Articulating This camera-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Claymation Claymation , sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation , is one of many forms of stop-motion animation . Each animated piece, either character or background,

1092-473: The designs of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen . Eli Noyes Eliot Fette Noyes, Jr. (October 18, 1942 – March 23, 2024) was an American animator most noted for his stop animation work using clay and sand. His 1964 work, Clay or the Origin of Species , was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and established claymation as a medium. He designed animated sand pinwheels for

1134-404: The east coast branch of Colossal Pictures , from which they produced animation and network graphics for MTV 's Liquid Television , as well as commercials for several major brands. In association with Colossal, Noyes directed and illustrated the 1994 interactive CD-ROM Ruff's Bone for Living Books , a project of Broderbund and Random House . He also directed and developed The Blockheads ,

1176-458: The end of the computer sequence. A similar technique was used in the climax scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark to "melt" the face of one of the antagonists. The term "hot set" is used amongst animators during production. It refers to a set where an animator is filming. The clay characters are set in a perfect position where they can continue shooting where they left off. If an animator calls his set

1218-455: The figures for the frames; a full-length (90-minute) movie, 64,800—and possibly many more if some parts were shot with "singles" or "ones" (one frame exposed for each shot). The object must not be altered by accident, slight smudges, dirt, hair, or dust. Feature-length productions have generally switched from clay to rubber silicone and resin cast components: Will Vinton has dubbed one foam-rubber process "Foamation". Nevertheless, clay remains

1260-502: The focal plane, similar to the optical reduction system used in the Nikon E series . The light bundled on the smaller sensor area increased the effective sensitivity ( ISO ) by 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 stops . Since state of the art single-CCD resolution at the time was insufficient for Minolta, the light was split and sent to three separate 4.8 × 6.4 mm sized 768 × 494 pixel (3 × 0.3 MP) image sensors , two used for green and one for

1302-478: The help of Eduard Uspensky who wrote the screenplay for Tatarsky's first director's effort — Plasticine Crow (1981), which also happened to be Soviet first claymation film. After the enormous success Tatarsky was offered to create new opening and closing sequences for the popular children's TV show Good Night, Little Ones! also made of plasticine; they were later included into the Guinness Book of Records by

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1344-544: The iconic character Gumby that would feature in segments in Howdy Doody in 1955 and 1956, and afterwards got his own television series (1957-1969, 1987-1989) and a theatrical film (1995). Clokey also produced Davey and Goliath (1960–2004) for the United Lutheran Church in America . Claymation has been popularized on television in children's shows such as Mio Mao (1970-1976, 2002-2007 - Italy), The Red and

1386-450: The movie Everywoman (1919). New York artist Helena Smith Dayton , possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with claymation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet circa half a year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention from

1428-478: The number of broadcasts. It was followed by two other claymation shorts: New Year's Eve Song by Ded Moroz (1982) and Last Year's Snow Was Falling (1983). Garri Bardin directed several claymation comedy films, including Break! , a parody on a boxing match for which Bardin received a Golden Dove award at the 1986 Dok Leipzig . Television commercials have utilized claymation, spawning for instance The California Raisins (1986-1998, Vinton Studios) and

1470-557: The plasticine product would become the favourite product for clay animators, as it did not dry and harden (unlike normal clay) and was much more malleable than its harder and greasier Italian predecessor plasteline. Edwin S. Porter 's Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902) shows a single shot of a baker quickly transforming a patch of dough into different faces. It reflects the vaudeville type of "lightning sketches" that J. Stuart Blackton filmed in The Enchanted Drawing (1902) with

1512-573: The press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and circa 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips. By the 1920s, drawn animation using either cels or the slash system was firmly established in the U.S. as the dominant mode of animation production. Increasingly, three-dimensional forms such as clay were driven into relative obscurity as

1554-426: The red and blue color, reducing the sensitivity increase to about 2 stops. The only usable ISO was 800. Images were stored on an internal 128MB PCMCIA hard drive . The output of the three sensors were combined digitally when imported to a computer and interpolated to the final size of 1.8  MP (1528×1146 pixels). On its original release, the bundled software was compatible only with Macintosh OS. Depending on

1596-418: The scene. To avoid these disasters, scenes normally have to be shot in one day or less. William Harbutt developed plasticine in 1897. To promote his educational "Plastic Method" he made a handbook that included several photographs that displayed various stages of creative projects. The images suggest phases of motion or change, but the book probably did not have a direct influence on claymation films. Still,

1638-461: The technique into an existing cartoon series and one of the rare uses of claymation in a theatrical short from the 1920s. The oldest known extant claymation film (with claymation as its main production method) is Long Live the Bull (1926) by Joseph Sunn . Art Clokey 's short student film Gumbasia (1955) featured all kinds of clay objects changing shape and moving to a jazz tune. He also created

1680-599: Was founded in 1972. In its early years, the studio mainly produced segments for television shows, with for instance the popular character Morph (appearing since 1977). Claymation has been used in Academy Award -winning short films such as Closed Mondays (Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner, 1974) and The Sand Castle (1977). Pioneering the clay painting technique was one-time Will Vinton Studios animator Joan Gratz , first in her Oscar-nominated film The Creation (1980), and then in her Oscar-winning Mona Lisa Descending

1722-423: Was mentored by National Film Board of Canada animator Derek Lamb . Noyes started creating animated images in his teens and was one of the first animators to use clay. In 1964, Noyes created the eight-minute animated film Clay or the Origin of Species which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film . The film is considered one of the earliest examples of claymation , establishing it as

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1764-551: Was the son of architect Eliot Noyes and graduated from Harvard University in 1964. Eliot Fette Noyes, Jr. was born on October 18, 1942, in Amherst, Massachusetts , the son of noted " Harvard Five " architect Eliot Noyes and interior designer Molly Duncan Weed Noyes. He was the brother of Fred Noyes. He attended the Putney School , graduating in 1960. He graduated from Harvard University in 1964. Alongside Caroline Leaf , Noyes

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