“Kevin, this is possibly the most adorable creature I’ve ever been in contact with, and if she turns out to be as good looking as a mailbox… I would be crazy enough to turn my life upside down and marry her.” – Joe Fox
Yesterday in class we talked about stop-motion animation, which “use simple and/or found materials to create simulations of real situations” (this coming from our Project 3 handout.) I also looked for other definitions of stop-motion animation, and came up with “Stop motion animation is the cinematic process by which an armatured, poseable puppet is brought to life on screen by making up the figure’s motion into increments and filming one frame of film per increment.” (http://www.pharosproductions.com/aosma/aosma_intro.html). It seems like really neat stuff, but I can’t help thinking about how much time and effort must go in to even making a very short stop-motion animation film. It must take a lot of patience to set everything up and take shots one frame at a time.
We also looked at a number of stop-motion videos, from the work of Eat Pes to Jan Svankmajer. Both of these artists had pretty amazing work. Jan Svankmajer’s “Meat Love” seemed to be the very best one of all – perhaps our professor had saved the best video for last! I really liked it, it not only told a story but also gave life-like characteristics to two normally inanimate objects (two pieces of meat.) Of course in real life two slabs of meat would never actual dance with one another and fall in love, but the video somehow made the absurd cute and something that the viewer could relate to. I think that shows the success of the film, that people can relate to it and it evokes feelings in the viewer.
-Katie
