FILM

THE MOST HUMANE ANIMATION

the very human art of stop-motion

By Jiwon Kim

Stop-Motion People in action

Many people think that we are living in a world of choice and that as artists we can tell a story in many different ways and that the choices we make are neutral and relatively unimportant. This is certainly true in the world of animation. There are so many different methods, styles, and forms. At this moment in animation, the choice is between the overwhelming dominance of computer animation and everything else, especially what I think is the most sophisticated and human form of animation: stop-motion animation. As a result, I am going to not only be writing a defense of stop-motion animation but also how it is a deeper expression of what it means to be human than computer animation.

Before the development of computer graphics, stop-motion contributed to a great deal of special effects, but that was a long time ago. Stop-motion animation is now primarily known for the way it uses and plays with clay, dolls, Legos, and various toys, editing minuscule changes of position into a fluid film. Surprisingly, stop-motion animation has the advantage of simplicity and the disadvantage of requiring a large amount of labor and concentration. It takes hundreds of hours to create the simplest of scenes. Because you have to edit images in frames, the number of shots needed for smooth, natural animation is large and time-consuming. The video we watch on average is 24 to 30 fps, and so most stop-motion animation needs more than 25 pictures per second to come close to anything resembling natural movements. In other words, more than 135,000 photos are needed to create a minute of stop-motion animation. We can see the beauty of stop-motion in films such as Henry Selick’s Coraline, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. They all tell radically different stories, but in the end, what we really get is a sense of humanity that only this unique form can achieve.

A unique look that is obviously made by a human being

In Selick’s Coraline, a witch tries to kidnap a little girl, Corline, and get her to stay in the witch’s lair by giving her anything she wants. The huge set and dolls of Coraline were made by hand, as well as all the props. This makes the objects that the witch gives Coraline that much more tempting and human. If you have seen this movie, you know that the witch’s garden is unforgettable. Full of plants of different colors and shapes, the production team and designers illuminated them with interior lights. They made 40 trees and colored the leaves one by one. You might think the final effect would be artificial, but instead, it is wonderfully human, perhaps because every last detail has been produced and touched by humans.

The Show must go on!

The play scene is also wonderfully human. This scene was also made by hand and more than 300 craftsmen worked for weeks to complete the 74-second sequence. In addition, 52 stages were built on more than 55 kilometers of land to create the proper scale, as if it were truly real. Looking at the huge production process, makes us feel as if Coraline’s fantasy is the real world. Again, if you think about it, the world we live in is the result of people making it one step at a time and so it’s not surprising that the labor-intensive aspect of stop-motion animation would have the same effect on us.

Parts of a whole

The character of Coraline experiences a wide range of emotions throughout the film, such as mischievous fun, loneliness, fear, and courage. In fact, 28 dolls were made just for Coraline. In particular, the producers put a lot of effort into her face to achieve a natural effect. At times, the doll Caroline makes more than 16 different expressions in 35 seconds and more than 200,000 facial expressions for the whole movie. The process of producing such a range of expressions begins with using a color 3D printer to produce hundreds of Coraline's faces, which are then hand-painted to give each freckle or blush the human touch. In addition, the production and design team used silicone components to achieve a greater fluidity of motion and expression. It’s clear that stop-motion animation is only possible through a deep understanding of human anatomy and movement in tandem with an artistry that uses all the tricks of the trade.

Stop-Motion is wedding between artistry and the human soul

Corpse Bride is also a movie that highlights each character’s natural movements. The production and design team planted an electric device in each puppet’s head to manipulate its facial expressions. The animators then controlled each doll, almost like using a wrench, to make it look alive: blinking, eye movements, facial expressions ranging from a stiff repose, raised cheeks, frowning, bright smiles, etc. The emotional range is as fluid as those of a real actor. Various expressions of emotion come and go as much as live action. I think the movements of these characters show the human quality of stop motion well. Other animation techniques work in virtual space, but stop motion works in the same dimensions as we live our lives.

The movement of the characters feels more realistic because they are subject to the same forces as us, most importantly, gravity that cannot be felt in the computer-generated animation. It is worth noting the way the movements change according to the characteristics of each person. For example, the first time Emily and Victor meet, Emily can be seen walking softly as if she is on the moon and not affected by the gravity of the world. On the other hand, Victor, who lives in our world walks with a forcefulness similar to real people. It is obvious that the production and design team put a lot of effort into thinking out every detail of the production. Here stop-motion animation catches a great deal of the individuality of the world, whether that individuality is of the moon or the earth, living or dead.

Making sushi

Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs (2018) was an incredibly difficult and technical movie to make. Filming took 445 days, spanning over three years. Prop artists would sometimes carve 53 different facial expressions for one character. One of the most human scenes in this technically complex film is also one of its most mechanical. Professor Watanabe, soon to be brutally poisoned, orders sushi, and Anderson and his design and production crew show us the entire process by which the sushi is made, poisoned, and then delivered to him.

The scene took six months to produce, and a total of four animators participated in the work over two months. It focuses not only on the human face but also on the movement of the human hand. In the process of cutting the fish, touching rice grains, and wrapping sushi in a lunch box, the stop-motion animation catches the entire process as if we were really watching a real sushi chef. Look at the rice in the sushi scene. Those are real grains and the architecture of the design is based not on a fantasy of rice, but on how rice actually functions in the real world. It’s another example of the way that stop-motion, at its core, understands that the world is a physical place and not a conceptual one. The whole team had to have not only an understanding of muscle movement in the hand but also an understanding of the skills required to prepare a great order of sushi.

Freckles as high art

Another complex piece of animation is when Tracy, an American international student, reveals a conspiracy to poison all dogs and informs the media. Tracy’s freckles move like crazy during the scene. And why shouldn’t they? They are the result of drawing 321 dots by hand. Tracy Puppet's face work was especially difficult because of the way freckles change position as the face moves. To catch the complexity of the freckled human face, they created a total of 40,000 unique freckles. The team identified the core freckles and moved the remaining freckles in a fixed pattern with each movement. This is a task that requires a complete understanding of the muscle movement of the human face, as well as how we register changing emotions.

For me, there can be no greater vision of what it means to be human than what stop-motion animation catches: The witch’s present, the way the Corpse Bride’s face lights up with emotion, and, of course, sushi and Tracy’s freckles.

©Jiwon Kim and the CCA Arts Review