Stop Motion Geek

Adam Savage (right) holding "The Farmer" puppet from Shaun the Sheep and Jay Smart (right). Copyright Tested. Along with the usual humdrum of press ranging from critic reviews and interviews with voice actors regarding British animation powerhouse Aardman Animation’s latest feature film – Early Man , a “prehistoric underdog sports story,” in the words of the film’s director Nick Park – has come by the way of the YouTube channel Tested something really exceptional and especially meant for stop motion enthusiasts – a deep-dive into the materials and plasticine techniques Aardman uses for their puppets presented by television personality and special effects aficionado Adam Savage and Jay Smart, a senior modeler at Aardman. During Savage’s tour of the plasticine department, Smart gives Savage a demonstration of a system Aardman began developing for Chicken Run , their first plasticine-driven feature film, to methodize a system for mixing large batches of plasticine to p...

A stop motion iteration of Toronto-based jazz musician Ori Dagan straightens his glossy red bowtie and straightens his hat – the kind that jazz icon Nat King Cole often wore – as he taps his foot to the beat of a lively and blissful piano. Then, looking directly into the camera, he raises an eyebrow and begins to sing. “He downed a sweet Bellini in the hometown of Fellini. He ordered fresh linguine with pancetta and rapini. But nothing could ever compare to Bib…im…bap,” Dagan reminisces happily in his rich baritone as the delicacies actualize out of midair, a glass of Bellini appearing in his hand and a pile of linguine raining down on him from above in Bristol-based stop motion animator Heather Colbert’s Bimimbap . The Ori Dagan puppet in the midst of being rained on by prop linguine. Photo courtesy of Heather Colbert. Bibimbap is Heather Colbert’s outstanding contribution to Toronto-based Ori Dagan’s “visual jazz album” for his album “Nathaniel: A Tribute to Nat King Co...

Kangmin Kim animating the dream sequence from Deer Flower . Photo courtesy of Kangmin Kim. The experience of childhood is something like existing within a waking dream. In childhood, as in particularly vibrant dreams, the distinct and unique experience presents itself to simply exist in each moment without explanation or reflection – to become fully and wholly enveloped in each and every moment, the option of operating outside of which is somehow nonexistent. In that special time in one’s life, moments simply are . And yet, childhood, like dreams, is a fragile and temporary reality. It’s not until one “wakes” from childhood, by entering adulthood, that one can reflect upon and appreciate the past and, in retrospect, realize just how odd and unusual certain experiences might have actually been. Korean filmmaker and animator Kangmin Kim captures this feeling beautifully in his outstanding short film Deer Flower . Deer Flower tells the semi-autobiographical of auteur Kangmin...

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  ...