Are feature film stopmotion productions becoming ‘too perfect’?
Aardman released their long-awaited sequel ‘Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget’ in December last year. However, I put off watching it because the trailer looked ‘too perfect.’ Over the past few years, I have noticed that Aardman productions have become slicker; it has become harder to find the human touch, the tell-tale fingerprints, and little wobbly movements.
One of the reasons why I love stopmotion is because of these slight flaws, the little mistakes, being able to see the stitching and dried paint. It reminds me that I am watching something that started off as raw materials which has manually been turned into an entire world.
Watching ‘The Making of’ film was interesting as you can see the huge amount of effort and time that goes into making a production of this scale. They clean up the mouth and face connection lines using CGI. But I wonder if this makes the characters lose some of their charm? If a puppet looks perfect and blemish free, then is there an argument to use CGI to create clay textured puppets which can be rigged instead? What would happen if you left these lines; would audiences complain, or would they find it endearing?
It is a fine line balancing analogue and digital in stopmotion animations. For my World Animation Presentation, I researched ‘Smallfilms,’ a British stopmotion company making films in the late 1950’s to 1980’s, before the days of computer editing and dragonframe.
As technology develops it is up to us as the animators and storytellers to decide what we want to use and how it will add to our story.
I have now watched ‘Chicken Run: Dawn of The Nugget’ and I really enjoyed it. CGI was used very cleverly to bring different sets and backgrounds together and remove any traces of dirt or dust on the models. The movement of the puppets is incredible and very inspiring. Since starting this course, I now watch animations much more carefully, looking for the twelve principles and observing the plot and character narrative arcs.
I also went to The National Film and Television School Animation Screening which was mostly stopmotion. There seemed to be more ‘charm.’ Perhaps because these were short films instead of feature films and worked on by a smaller crew. I really hope I can volunteer to help with one of the productions.
I am realising the potential that CGI and digital processes can have on stopmotion animations and the importance of being open to change. However, I am also very keen to carry on bringing handmade design elements into my stopmotion animations.