Book Review: Cracking Animation, The Aarman Book of 3D Animation

Cracking Animation is one of the very few book in the medium that covers everything on the subject of Stop Motion, it doesn't spend 240 pages babbling on about passion and never getting down to how to actually execute making a film.

The book starts with an intro by Nick Park (Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep) and is followed by a note by Peter Lord (founder at Aardman) then jumps right into the history of Stop Motion, including the history of Aardman. Now we finally get the juice, by which I mean DIY animation studio. Now the book breaks up into chapters that concentrates on essential skills needed to make a Stop Motion short, TV show, or feature film. My personal favorite chapter is, what I believe is chapter 5 'Puppet Making.' This chapter includes how they made the character Shaun for the Shaun the Sheep TV show, this is wire armature to final fabrication so, 100% start to finish.

Cracking Animation is a great mentor that will hold your hand through the entire process which is glorious. So if your just beginning or just dabbing with Stop Motion or you are an experienced professional this book will give you brand new insight on your project, and hey, might even open a few door that were closed before.

*Note: I never suggest taking one book and copying there business model entirely. If you did that you would just end up with a Wallace & Gromit rip-off. But what I do recommend is to apply the information to your brain so that in the future you can critique your production with helpful tips and tricks from Nick Park, Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Steve Box and many, many more.

Overall score:

Pros: Great insight on how Aardman executes an Oscar winning film. Chapters including model making, puppet fabrication, screenwriting, storyboard writing, and lighting.
Cons: N/A
Amazon price: $26.09
Link: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Animation-Aardma

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Interview with Samuel Lewis - Animator, Character Designer, and Sculptor on Stop Motion Short Film, "Lost & Found"

Knotjira, a clumsy dinosaur made of wool, as seen in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. “If I had to pick a starting point for my career as a stop motion animator I would have to say it was my obsession as a six year old with a book called ‘Playing with Plasticine’ by Barbara Reid,” Samuel Lewis – a London-based stop motion and 2D animator and director, whose most recent labor of love can be seen in his contribution to the Australian stop motion short film, Lost & Found – tells Stop Motion Geek. Upon reflection, Lewis explains that his love for the medium of stop motion began very early in life, and has merely managed to burn ever brighter in his fervor to master the craft. “I would spend countless hours fixated on sculpting tiny snails, fruit bowls and dinosaurs to the point where I would stay inside on family holidays sculpting a surfer in a beach scene rather than going to the actual beach that was only a short walk away,” Lewis recalls wistfully. “...

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Interview with Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter, Directors of Oscar® Nominated Stop Motion Short Film, "Negative Space"

Sam walks to his car in Negative Space . Source: Vimeo. Across the Baltimore-based director-duo Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter’s Oscar® nominated short film Negative Space ’s 5 minute runtime, rooted in the profoundly emotional soil of the film’s essence , an extraordinary spectrum of deep themes are explored – death, grief, what one’s childhood means once one has “grown up” – yet perhaps none are as front-and-center than that which binds all of the film’s themes together: that of the relationship between father and son. Negative Space , a film inspired by a 150-word poem of the same by Ron Koertge , is, at its heart, the story of Sam, a young man, as he internally processes his relationship with his father throughout his life as well as the grief and emotion that come with the loss of his father as he travels to his recently-passed father’s funeral. Sam looks upon a toy taxicab in Negative Space . Source: Vimeo. Undoubtedly the primary visual motif as well as the crux of t...

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Interview with Heather Colbert, Filmmaker Behind The Music Video for Tom Rosenthal’s “How Have You Been?”

Hypnos looking on at the moon. Photo courtesy of Heather Colbert. “After talking with Tom, I just let the track play, while I drew or noted down ideas that came into my head,” Heather Colbert—a Bristol-based animator and filmmaker—tells Stop Motion Geek about the origins of her newest project: creating, almost single-handedly, the music video for English singer-songwriter Tom Rosenthal’s “How Have You Been?”—a haunting and beautiful acapella piece off his latest album, Z-Sides . “He told me the album was about sleep and so the images that came to me were of nocturnal and natural things. I also saw a connection in the beautiful lyrics to a character living with mental health issues, especially in the line ‘I woke up, but it didn’t go away’. So I began to see a creature trying their best to get on with their task, but being hindered by the fear of the world that they inhabit.” Hypnos (left) and Shadow (right) in the film. Photo courtesy of Heather Colbert. The third musi...

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Interview with Joseph Wallace, Director and Animator of Psychedelic, Cut-out Stop Motion Music Video for Canadian Artist Parker Bossley's "Chemicals"

Parker Bossley as seen in Chemicals . Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace. “I think the thing I’ve always found wonderful about cut out animation is that it’s one of the most immediate forms of animation,” muses British stop motion animation director Joseph Wallace – currently based in Bristol, UK, where, in January of this year, he founded the stop motion studio Hangar Puppet Animation Studio – in discussion of the medium he employed in his most recent film – the surreal, psychedelic music video for Canadian artist Parker Bossley’s debut single, Chemicals , which has already won a Vimeo Staff Pick. Perhaps more than anything else – perfectly suiting the film’s subject matter –the style and medium allow to film to transcend to time itself, just as Wallace implies, undoubtedly allowing the film to become just that – immediate. Almost so much so one gets the feeling they’re clawing at air in search for a handle on reality as they fall…along with Bossley – also the film’s protagoni...

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Interview with Robert Shaw, Director, Writer, and Co-Animator of Stop Motion Short Film "The Machine"

Parables and allegories, amidst every other kind of story that can be told, have a unique and extraordinarily powerful quality that is all their own: They allow us – the audience – to learn lessons about and to see ourselves, others, and the world in which we live through a completely different lens – that of narrative. The best allegories and parables, in fact, have the unique ability to simultaneously act as conduits for important lessons and to also exist as literal stories, which gives them the unique ability to challenge beliefs and ideas held by the audience in a way that only art can do. Some of the most cherished stories ever composed, illustrated, and put on film are parables and allegories, and what makes them so exceptional are how powerful the lessons are that they teach. The Machine meets The Farmer in The Machine . Photo courtesy of Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw, in his haunting and beautiful stop motion short film The Machine – which he wrote, directed, and co-anim...

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Interview with Norman Yeend – Director, Animator, and Co-Producer of Ident for "Aquaman" Director James Wan’s Production Company, Atomic Monster

Atomic Monster logo. Photo courtesy of Norman Yeend. “At the time he made contact, he was working as an assistant to James Wan on the film Aquaman ,” Norman Yeend—a thirty-year veteran in the stop motion industry as a director, animator, and model maker—tells Stop Motion Geek, describing a moment towards the end of 2017 when he got the call from his friend, coworker, and fellow Australian, Craig Sinclair, a producer, who pitched to Yeend what became his next labor of love—one which checked all the right boxes for him to stoke his passion for classic, practical-effects movie monsters and their delightfully fun flavor of mayhem. “James had mentioned to him that he was keen to re-create his company logo using primarily stop-motion and miniatures, and Craig figured he knew just the guy for the job.” For Yeend there isn’t a pivotal moment he can pinpoint when his passion for stop motion was first ignited, his love for the medium instead one which slowly grew from his youth, the ea...

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Interview with Chris Randall, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Second Home Studios

Chris Randall in the Mills & Reeve Innovation 50 list. Source: https://twitter.com/SecondHomeChris/status/904681346060230656 “I came to animation mainly from a point-of-view of blind curiosity,” Chris Randall—the creative director and co-founder of Second Home Studios, a Birmingham, United Kingdom-based, award-winning animation studio—tells Stop Motion Geek. “I’d always loved the medium but never took it seriously, or saw myself with a part to play in it. It wasn’t until after Uni that I realised I basically like tinkering and trying out new things, whilst at the same time telling stories. So, animation is a perfect fit for me.” First founded in 2004, Second Home Studios has garnered multiple BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards and nominations for many of the films in their diverse repertoire of artistic and commissioned projects, encompassing all styles of animation—from stop motion to CGI to 2D—as well as puppetry and mixed-media. In their fourteen-and-counting years...

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Interview with Mark Smith, Director and Writer of Stop Motion Short Film, "Two Balloons"

A still from Two Balloons featuring the character of Elba. Photo courtesy of Mark Smith. As I sit, listening to Peter Broderick’s moving composition for piano More Of A Composition , I close my eyes and envisage an enormous funnel cloud skimming across the crystalline face of an ocean – the skies are murky and unusually dark, lightning crackles, spider-webbing across the darkened skies before then vanishing, and still, after its gone, an electricity continues to hum in the air and I simply know that it’s going to soon strike again. And as the scene presents itself to me, I suddenly feel something similar to what director Mark C. Smith felt when he saw the same image as he sailed to a small island called Grenada along with his wife in a timeworn sailboat. For him, in that moment inspiration struck, and the idea suddenly came to him for his heartfelt stop motion film, Two Balloons . For me, I open my eyes and feel as I did the instant Two Balloons ...

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Making Kirsten Lepore's Stop Motion "Adventure Time" Episode, "Bad Jubies"

Last year a unique infusion of stop motion came to the wildly weird and zany Land of Ooo – the magical fantasy world of the popular Cartoon Network show Adventure Time . The 11-minute all-stop-motion episode was spearheaded by animator and filmmaker Kirsten Lepore and the talented crew at Bix Pix Entertainment – a California-based stop motion studio. In the making-of video for this season 7 episode – Bad Jubies – Kelli Bixler, executive producer on the project, explains that Kirsten was the ideal candidate to bring episode-length stop motion to the show because of the simplistic aesthetic of the show and its correlation to her prior work in animation. Her past work in stop motion, such as is employed in her short films Move Mountain and Sweet Dreams , has a unique aesthetic – one that is very minimalistic and yet charming, giving her work a very intimate feel. Rachel Larsen , Animation supervisor on the project and an artist at Bix Pix, elaborates concerning Kirsten’s work, “When...

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Interview with Bradley Slabe, Co-Director of Stop Motion Love Story, "Lost & Found" (Part 1/2 of Interview with "Lost & Found" Directors)

Knotjira (foreground) and Knitsune (background) in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. The true essence of art – a reflection of life itself – is very much akin to the Japanese aesthetic of “wabi-sabi”: it’s imperfect, impermanent, and, at times, profoundly...incomplete. It is both at once a fundamental truth, and, curiously, more often than not, a thing incredibly hard to acknowledge, to make peace with. Yet perhaps our resistance is justifiable, for once we admit that the world is full of unknowns – unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect – we are just as soon confronted with the actualization of a deep, intrinsic, and very human fear: the fear of a future full of...unknowns that aren’t ideal, that aren’t perfect. Yet it’s the confrontal of that fear that is the most terrifying reality of all, for the moment we make peace with it we have just as soon have acknowledged that our paths in life aren’t in our own hands, or something we can contro...

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