STOP-MOTION ANIMATION

Armature wrestling…

TOY ORIGIN STORY

Stop-motion animation – where shots are taken of inanimate objects in incrementally different positions, then played back at speed to give the illusion of movement – is almost as old as cinema itself. The first documented commercial film to use the technique is the now-lost The Humpty Dumpty Circus (circa 1898). Centred on a big-top gathering of toys that magically come to life, it set a precedent for fusing figures with fantasy.

MAKE WAY FOR THE KING

FX wizard Willis O’Brien wowed audiences with his work on The Lost World (1925), which saw flesh-and-blood actors explore a prehistoric land teeming with animated beasts. But it was 1933’s King Kong that established O’Brien as a filmmaking legend. Blending stop-motion with live action, matte paintings, rear projection and miniatures, the result set a new standard in special effects and led one adoring fan to eventually become O’Brien’s apprentice: a young man named Ray Harryhausen.

RAY SHIFT

Keen to ape (ahem) O’Brien while in high school, Harryhausen began making his own models and experimenting with animation. When the two men met, the older filmmaker offered feedback on Harryhausen’s efforts and - after World War Two - they worked together on Mighty Joe Young (1949). Harryhausen went on to become a highly influential animator in his own right, his credits including such groundbreakers as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

STOP/RESTART

The tail end of the 20th century saw a renaissance of sorts for stop-motion at the movies, heralded by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). That film’s director, Henry Selick, later helmed studio Laika’s first production, Coraline (2009), an Oscar-nommed hit that announced them as a challenger to Aardman Animation - whose Chicken Run (2000) nonetheless remains the highest-grossing stop-motion toon of all time.

TIPPETT POINT

Though pixels are more common than puppets now, stop-motion still has auteurs in its corner. After working on Star Wars: A New Hope’s holo-chess sequence, Phil Tippett won an Oscar for Return of the Jedi (1983) and brought RoboCop’s (1987) ED-209 to life. While working on Jurassic Park (1993), his discovery that some of the dino-action would be digital led him to declare, ‘I’ve just become extinct.’ Thankfully he struck back in 2021 with passion project Mad God.

KEY MOVIES

DISNEY, NETFLIX, SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER BROS.

KING KONG 1933

★★★★★

Beauty killed the beast? Debatable. No question, though, that he truly lives thanks to Willis O’Brien’s expressive animation. A work of towering influence.

JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS 1963

★★★★☆

Don Chaffey directed, but the architect of this epic’s wildest pleasures – undead skeletons et al – was Ray Harryhausen.

CORALINE 2009

★★★★★

Stop-motion’s capacity to evoke the uncanny is showcased to frightful, delightful effect by Laika’s first – and still its best – feature. A true button-pusher.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO 2022

★★★★★

GDT and Mark Gustafson showed (current) Disney how it’s done, breathing new life into the oft-adapted tale.