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01-27-03: It's
been awhile since I posted new photos in my Gallery link,
but as usual, I don't take an opportunity to take
pictures of armatures. They all somewhat look the same to
me (especially human armatures). Actually, I have been
sort of on a hiatus doing Armatures, but still construct
them on a freelance basis, at special request. Anyway, I
did some Davey & Goliath armatures last year and I
only had a chance to capture the Goliath Armatures. Here
in About
page I mention it and here in Gallery page is where you can see Goliath
armatures .... scroll to bottom of both pages. 01-24-03: We all know that many current special effects people have been influenced strongly by the now almost icon figure and master, Ray Harryhausen. Here is a neat little archived article reminiscing about some of the classic stop motion works and a few people along the way who were involved with it. A trip down memory lane .... Hollywood Children of Ray Harryhausen From super
internet detective Marc Spess .....someone in Korea starting to offer
Armatures ... company or person called Clay-Mate. They use an open hole socketing
technique (which I used long time ago) and they say parts
are computer machined. Actually, not that much machining
required..... just drill the two socket holes then the
center tension screw hole. Brass metal is used and then
nickel-plated. Balls not soldered but turned from solid
brass rod. There are NO decent photos of armatures (only
small thumbnails?!) Maybe they are just setting-up the
website, or their gallery link does not work or has a
bug? 01-20-03: For
awhile there, it seemed like Jeff "Las Vegas"
Taylor wandered off into the desert and maybe never to be
heard from again? Good news .... he is still kicking
around. Actually, Jeff (from Nevada) is a fellow armature
designer/fabricator aka Taylor Design, and for two years, the brainchild
behind Imagine Nation Expo '01 & '02 in Las Vegas
....a Model Figure Kit exhibition, also starting to
include traditional special effects people, and also
features some Stop Motion as part of
this event. Imagine Nation Expo 2003 ... August
8, 9 & 10.... will be a tribute to King Kong
.... a stop motion & special effects
Icon/Classic celebrating its 70th anniversary.
Here is Jeff's post on the Message Board to confirm all this. This is early
notice but gives you plenty of time to plan your trip to
Las Vegas ! 01-16-03: It
seems that Britain's TV broadcast history has had much
Stop Motion content or as they sometimes call it, Model
Animation. I have read that Puppetry
in general, is more of a European tradition,
whereas the USA is primarily dominated by graphics-type
media and hence, mostly 2D Cartoon-Cel-Drawn animation
here. Cosgrove Hall is a well known
animation studio in England and has been
around since 1976. They do Stop Motion and also 2D
animation. Also, I noticed that some of English
television animated series are structured differently
than the USA. Many of Cosgrove's stop motion series run
10 minutes in length (instead of the typical USA 1/2 hour
shows with the commercials). Cosgrove's work is
not seen much in America. Here you can see what Stop
Motion show's they have done in the past Cosgrove Hall's Greatest Hits - Cosgrove Hall Ate my Brain 01-14-03: Got
this info from Marc Spess ... The return of Neil
& Nick ! No, it's not a show but two
Stop Motion pros down under in the land
of OZ aka Australia... far, far away from the conjestion
of the States, here. Their websites have been on hiatus
for a little while but they're back Neil Hughes Productions & Nick Hilligoss Online Photos: Stop
Motion 01-13-03:
About a year ago, I was approached by a freelance writer
regarding Stop Motion and she asked if she could use my
website as reference for one of her articles. The
writer's name is Elizabeth Burton and her objective was
to provide an overview of some of the special effects
methods used in the past (& some currently) so that
the general public could understand. It was written in
four parts with the fifth installment not completed yet
.... It's All in How You Look at It- Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 01-09-03: In
my ocassional mini-rants, I have sometimes mentioned
about the almost non-existence of a Stop Motion
curriculum or training in educational institutions and,
that in only a few years there now seems to be an excess
in pumping out only computer literate mouse clickers
that do very-very specialized jobs in CGI & Digital
effects. Well, here is one private school that is just
starting a new program in Animation that does
include Stop Motion and other animation
techniques, taught by the very eclectic Rick
Catizone ..... he has been doing it all ....
Cel, Computer, and especially Stop Motion Rick Catizone's Art of Animation 01-07-03: Remember the Cuppa Coffee Not for Sale news that was just posted here about a week ago? Well, some unknown studio (I never heard of it) in Canada has posted this Animators Wanted- Stop Motion Series in Toronto. This might be the Disney-Cuppa Coffee deal for 52 stop motion episodes/spots. They want resumes, demo reels or whatever by January 10 !? Kind of short notice? Soooo, drop everything and move to Toronto! Typical sometimes of the chaos nature of stop motion productions. Because Stop Motion specific skills or talent are not easily available, the process of ramping-up for a big stop motion production today, can be one of the "Achilles Heel" of this animation craft (compared to finding CGI people). Hopefully, this stop motion project can find the people they need in this very short hiring deadline. UPDATE 02-03-03: Just found out that the Animators Wanted Ad was not for Disney project but for a stop mo series called Henry's World being done by another company (The Ad link has been pulled). Cuppa did original Henry's World and now doing the Disney series, it is understandable that the email tip I got was in error. Well, the
Ray Harryhausen was broadcast yesterday on NPR's, Fresh
Air, hosted by Terry Gross. What is up with
Terry calling it Stop Time
Animation ??? She screwed-up on
that. I thought she was a veteran radio professional and
researched throroughly before the interviews. Also, she
did not take the interview to any deeper level. She did
not ask about the difficulty Ray had in selling Stop
Motion in the early days to studios/producers or talk
about his association with Charles Schneer. Also,
interview was only about half hour. You can go to Fresh Air site and listen to archive but you need
Real Audio. 01-06-03:
When Chicken Run was released not so
long ago, it certainly gave stop motionists &
fans-aficianado's a bit of hope for Stop Motion's
comeback (it has happened in its history). I did a quick
research of past online articles and this is one of the
better one's that I have read and briefly covers the
history of clay/stopmotion and also why it has not been
used often in mainstream Hollywood. In my opinion, this
writer for ABC news researched it better than others. The
only minor critique would be that the writer perhaps
lumps Stop Motion under Clay Animation but it is
generally a good article History of Clay Animation 01-03-03: George Pal .... to me a name in the league with Ray Harryhausen & Karel Zeman .... kind of like legends and trailblazers in cinema effects work. I know there are others, but these 3 are up there in mainstream entertainment of the past ... using stop motion and all sorts of traditional special effects methods. George Pal really refined the replacement stop motion animation method. Take a look at this small page about ThePuppetoon's . George Pal was making all-animated music videos way back in the early 1940's ! Astounding .... the replacement animation technique and for me mesmerizing watching it .... pure hand crafted art through sweat equity & creativity. In spite of today's so-called super slick computer generated imagery, these old traditional methods amazes me much more .... they have soul, a surrealness and that touch of humaness. There is a DVD available, The Puppetoon Movie and you can see for yourself-! Ray
Harryhausen on radio..... Monday, January 6th on the
Fresh Air program which is broadcast on NPR
(National Public Radio). It also repeats in the evening.
Check your local radio program schedule. On this site, http://freshair.npr.org, the program will be archived
later and you can listen on Real Audio. 01-02-03: Here
is something that I am guessing has been on the web,
since maybe about 1997? This short stop motion film from
Germany won quite a few awards back in ' 96-' 97
(including an Oscar).... title of it is Quest.
I do not quite remember it or if there was any extensive
publicity back then about this animated short. If you go
to that site you will be able to see stills from the
short, a few behind-the-scene stills and some clips. It
has a strange-surreal Svankmajer Euro quality (but of
course .... made in Germany!) |
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