Claymation Animation Evaluation

Claymation Animation is one of the various forms of stop motion animation, but with the advent of good technologies, including digital cameras and easy to use computer software . Each animated piece of object is made from clay, usually plasticine clay, it is then manipulated and filmed to produce an image of lifelike movements.

In claymation Animation the objects are made by clay or a similar moldable  material known as Plasticine. 

As in all stop motion animation, claymation animation is set up on the set (background) when film frame is exposed you move the object/ character slightly by hands to create an effect that it moved by itself. This cycle is repeated until the Animator has achieved the amount of minutes that is needed. 

I've had a positive experience using the plasticine to create slow motion animation comparing to cut out slow motion animation, this was because plasticine can be used with ease, it's moldable enough to created any form of object, it is flexible enough to be moved in any way, shape or form and it does not melt under hot studio lighting. Also, it makes a 3D effect. On the other hand,  cut out animation is more complicated seen as the actual characters can't stand up because it's 2D animation. the movement of the object is limited seen as you can't make the fade out of the film frame, nor can it looks as though it's coming out of the screen towards you.

Morph is the first plasticine claymation character sculpted by Peter Lord, appeared with the late Tony Hart. Morph appeared usually in 1 min shots through out the , with Tony Hart usually saying a line or few and Morph would reply with meaningful gestures. Morph was produced for the  BBC by Aardman Animation.  The character Morph inspired Aardman to create other claymation animation, like Wallace and Gomet, chicken run, flushed away, arthur christmas etc.  They also created television series and  short animated films such as, planet sketch, shaun sheep, timmy time, animated conversation etc.

The strengths of using claymation animation are that clay can take the shape of any character in any way shape or form where the clay maintains a recognizable character throughout the shot. It is easy to mold and flexible to move in any direction. It enables us to be very creative and we are free to make which ever character we want.

The limitations of claymation animation are it is very difficult to move the body parts of the character without it falling into pieces. It is also difficult to stick anything to the back of a particular character in order to play its role. For example, in my Claymation animation, one of the character is superman and as we all know superman saves the day. In order for the superman character to save the skater character he must pick him off the ground, doing so was very difficult. So my group decided to use strings to pick them both up, but it was pretty difficult because the string kept cutting through the plasticine, as it was so heavy.

Overall, i think comparing to all the other stop motion animation my class engaged in, this was the easiest. Comparing to cut out it took less time to prepare because we did not have to find suitable images, then cut them out. We just mold our characters and went straight for it.

animation