Stop Motion Geek

“I am who I am because of her,” – begins the narration of the short film Preetha's Poem – the trailer for the recently released, four-part Netflix documentary, Daughters of Destiny . The New York Times describes the documentary as “a celebration of a pioneering school for the children of Dalits, members of the lowest group in the oppressive caste system that still shapes Indian society.” Preetha’s Poem features a glimpse of this struggle as the author of the poem and one of the documentary’s protagonists, a girl named Preetha, describes the pain and struggle in and throughout her and her mother’s lives. “I come from the dull brown of my mother’s eyes watching over me while my eyes see darkness, Her warmth throwing me back into reality.” The stop motion visual accompaniment for the poem is just as eloquent and touching as the poem itself. It features the central characters in the poem – Preetha and her mother – as well as several sets, all of which are beautiful...

The London-based rock band El Deyma has begun to release via their YouTube channel a series of serialized multi-media music videos entitled “The Magic Shoe,” in which each instalment features one of their songs. Each episode features a different cinematographic technique, so far having explored both live action and two styles of stop motion. Each video features the next chapter in an on-going narrative about a red shoe’s search for his twin, beginning – in episode one – in the bedroom of it’s owner, before the shoe eventually hits the streets of London in its quest, which is where the second episode – a live action piece – begins. The third episode , which is this week’s Stop Motion Geek “pick of the week,” follows the shoe’s exploits through a surreal, collage-style, stop-motion version of Venice, the soundtrack to which is the band’s song “Dino Monkey.” The original idea for the Magic Shoe series (originally conceived for what became episode one, featuring El Deyma’s song, ...

It begins with the explosion of a supernova: Hundreds of stars are brought forth into existence, and, out of them – riding on the celestial whirlwind – appear two constellations: one of a galloping horse and one of a soaring eagle. The two animals proceed to chase each other, traversing across the vast expanse of stylized outer space. In their journey they encounter strange planets boasting cacti and mountain ranges, all of which add to the surreal heavenly dance… This is the beginning of the music video Notre Vie Comme un Western , brought to life using stop-motion. The film – the brainchild of French writer-director Aćim Vasić and the illustrator-photographer-designer Emilee Seymour – came from the two creatives’ partnership with the band Paris Combo for their song “Notre Vie Comme Un Western,” which is off of their album “Tako Tsubo,” which was released on March 24th of this year. The music video has gone on to be the official selection of several prestigious film festivals,...

Last year, Annlin Chao – an animator currently living in London who grew up in Taiwan, directed a beautiful mixed-medium (but primarily stop motion) video entitled Traveling Through Brush and Ink  for the National Palace Museum in Taiwan which was featured in their 2016 annual exhibition. The inspiration and the subject of the piece were four separate landscape paintings from three distinctive eras of Chinese history: the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties. The four paintings which each scene in the film are based off are: Emperor Minghuang’s Journey to Shu – Anonymous, Tang dynasty Travelers Among Mountains and Streams – Fan Kuan (ca. 950-1031), Song dynasty Ancient Temple in a Mountain Pass – Jia Shigu (fl. 1131-1162), Song dynasty Autumn Colors on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains – Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322), Yuan dynasty The piece opens with a two-dimensional traditionally-animated character – a little modern man – who discovers each of these paintings in a scroll. He is th...

Creative Capers, an animation studio out of Altadena, California, has begun to produce and publish via YouTube episodic, 2-minute videos in a stop motion series which they call, The Wonderful World of Walt . The inspiration for the films comes from rare, unachieved audio recordings of the most famous animation film legend of all, Walt Disney. So far three short films in the series have been published on the Creative Caper YouTube channel, each focusing on a slightly different aspect of Walt Disney’s personality, life, and career. That being said, more imagination goes into these shorts than you might imagine, as all the animators, design crew, and creative team at Creative Capers have to work with is Walt’s voice. Everything, from the minutiae of Walt’s office and desk to his personality-specific gestures have to be thought-up by the team at Creative Capers from scratch, with the challenge of still doing justice to Mr. Disney. The first episode is entitled, “Mr. Disney…What...