CASE STUDIES

Stop motion productions are time consuming and difficult to create efficiently; therefore, Eitan and I decided to further research into other stop motion productions. The time it takes to create these productions varies depending on whether it is a full length film or short film, or how much detail the director puts into the production. 

Picture and information credited to NPR

Image from google, information from YouTube

The film Anomalisa was know for its realistic characteristics although the character are dolls. The film is about a middle aged man who meets a women that changes his view on life. According to the directors, Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman, certain shots took weeks, sometime months, to film. Everything in the film was created to fit the atmosphere and size of the dolls. The directors were able to control the lighting and any other factors. Stop motion was used for this film because the directors wanted to clarify that everything shown in the movie was purposeful. 



The short film, Zero, is about society outcasts finding each other and creating something that above the other. It is a dark storyline filled with violence and hate but ends with a form of acceptance. This project took 2 and a half years to film 12 minutes. However, most of that time was used to create all the puppets and set designs for the film. The creators of this short, went into extreme detail and produced a well made production. Each puppet, set design, and extra characteristics were created handmade; they put in the time and effort to make a product from scratch.

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The story of The Nightmare Before Christmas follows Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, and his adventure of turning the frightful halloween into Christmas. This stop motion production took 3 years to make with 24 shots to create a second worth of film. In the original poem, there was only 3 character, however, in the film, there were over 200 puppets used. Additionally, Jack Skellington had over 400 heads to portray each of his emotions.  A lot of hard work was put into this production and it paid off; it got great reviews and earned a lot of money. 



The Bottle is a short film about sand and snow communicating between an ocean through a glass bottle. The creator, Kristen Lepore, told PBS in an interview, "so many things went wrong but it only took 4 months of filming." Considering this short film took place in two different places at two different time, 4 months isn't that bad; the short film is about 6 minutes long. The creator has won many awards for her film and was the writer and director of the pilot episode of Adventure Time, a show on Cartoon Network. Overall, this story is heartwarming and really cute, I enjoyed watching it. 



Stop motion is a long and hard process, however, from researching these examples, we are able to learn from their challenges. Eitan and I have a difficult road ahead of us but I am confident that we will be efficient by working hard and planning thoroughly.