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‘Frame by Frame Stop Motion’ by Tom Gasek
November 17, 2011
A new book just hot off the press and maybe not noticed yet and still under the radar, called ‘Frame by Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-traditional Animation Techniques’ by Tom Gasek. I remember Tom waaay back in the late 1980’s … he was one of the animation directors of the ‘New Adventures of Gumby‘ TV series shot in Marin County, California.
Stop Motion has varieties of sub-categories & styles, and you are now seeing them all over the internet and ads. The quality of these animations varies of course. For many, a hands-on creative outlet and not necessarily to win awards. The ‘all puppet’ animation forms (the Coralines & Fantastic Mr. Foxes style) and the Harryhausen-esque (stop mo mixed w/ live action) might be too complex or beyond the capabilities of the average person, however, that should not exclude people if they wish to partake in some form of animation creative outlet. This would include, Pixilation, Cut-out, Object, Silhouette and other forms of non-traditional frame-by-frame animation (stop motion) methods.
Although I do not have a copy of Tom’s book yet, from seeing the preview pages (Amazon), this is one you might consider adding to your library. It’s for anyone wanting to explore the many variations of frame by frame animation techniques, and it looks like Tom done a good job in this publication. Teachers and schools also, might consider having this as a guide to help them develop a curriculum of experimental animation at their education facilities. IMO, hands on tactile creative outlets (as opposed to the more sterile computer mouse clicking) provides nutrional exercise for the right brained types who what to creatively express themselves. Bill Plympton’s Blog Site – Check out Frame by Frame Stop Motion
Some examples of variety of frame-by-frame methods : Early Cut-Out style by Terry Gilliam – Advanced Cut-Out United commercial – Object Animation technique by Pes – Her Morning Elegance music video using Pixelation stop motion …. and of course much more out there
Topics: Biography-Books-History, General-Other Animation, How-to, Learning-Education-Tools, Stop Motion | 2 Comments »
THANK YOU! for posting this. I attempted to notify the stopmotionanimation forums community on this but I think most paid no mind. Glad to see Tom’s book get some recognition.
I want to send you an award for most heflpul internet writer.