Evaluation of Claymation

Evaluation of Claymation Animation.

During this unit, we were given the opportunity to produce our own Claymation.

Critical Analysis of my Claymation:

Upon starting this project we watched a short Ten minutes film about on the masterminds behind the character of ‘Morph’ (Lord and Sproxton) who are also the founders of Aardman.

Firstly, I made a Morph like version of Claymation using plasticine. I started my process by making the shape of a ball with my plasticine. The ball was then to be transformed in to the entire body of the Claymation character. I then began to shape the head of my character by pushing the clay in an upward motion, however maintaining its round shape.  I pulled the clay left and right and massaged it until each side had formed in shapes of hands. I pushed down on the clay to elongate the clay thus creating the body of my character. Having done this, I pulled each side of my Morph’s lower body in a downwards positioning in order to make its legs and feet.  In order to stabilize my Morph I had to thicken its feet for it to stand up and firmly. I did this by folding back its leg on itself and flattening it down. I then, gave my Morph eyes and a nose to make it human like. Having made my Morph character I had to incorporate it in an animation and I chose to do mine with Naomi. Our animation sees each of our Morphs’ having a dance off, which was tedious but fun to do. 

The complete process of producing my Morph was challenging. Morphing my character into the end product I had in mind was hard because pushing up and down and pulling the clay proved difficult as at some stages of the production it became rock hard and had to wait for the clay to warm up again before continuing the process.

Over all I feel that the unit went well. I enjoyed the project to some extent. The only things that could have gone better is if I spent a little more time making my Claymation looking like the actually Morph character that we studied.

Who is Morph and why is he significant to the success of Aardman?

Aardman Animations was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. This double act started this productions company after realizing their dreams of making motion picture projects. As a low-budgeted company they produced Gleebies. This was their first animated short film that got aired on the BBC during the year of 1975/76. From Gleebies came their most popular and significant project to date: Morph. Some would argue that Gleebies were the ancestors of Morph.  Morph is a important and significant part of the life of the two founders as he’s the character that landed them their big break, when Morph appeared on “Take Heart” (a Kids entertainment show starring Tony Heart) in 1997. This episode of the TV program, showed Morph messing up Tony Heart’s desk and hiding. Overall, it was a short but remember-able appearance. Aardman went ahead in later years to produce classic animated films such as ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Wallace and Gromit’ Which I feel have made up majority of my generations childhoods.

The Strengths and limitations of Claymation Animation.

Claymations are amazing for allowing the artist to become creative with whatever they wish to create. It allows them to think big and be creative with their characters. This may vary from producing simple 2D characters and shapes to 3D one. Doing this will personify their character and bring to life…such as the Aardman did with Morph. Even though Morph spoke no words, the audience understood everything he was saying as we have grown to connect with the character I feel. That is due to the creativity of his producers.

As well and good is the strengths of the Claymation animations, I personally feel that the limitations are greater.  Making a Claymation animation is very time consuming and frankly hard I found. Each shot taken to produce the end result requires the maker to have an outstanding level of accuracy. It is every important also that each move in consistent and follows the previous key-frame shot. This is crucial to making a smooth animated film at the end. As characters in the animation are made out of clay, it does restrict the movement of them in the animation, to keep it from falling apart. As I briefly mentioned in the first paragraph, the moulding of the character itself is very hard. One has to be sure that the temperature is at the right level. High temperatures can be fatal for the production of a Claymation. This is because the heat will met the clay and essentially ruin ones animation.

Evaluation of Claymation against other animation techniques.

Out of all the other animation techniques, Claymation is mostly similar to Cut Out Animation.  They both require a large amount of key frames and are equally time consuming. The way in which they differ is perhaps, the Cut Out is restricted to staying 2D and by the images cut from the magazine or newspaper and the Claymation isn’t for you can make anything you want from the clay.  Although Zoetrope, Muybridge, Cut out and Claymation all use the same kind of method such as key frames and the different shots in order to be produced, they all differ somewhat. The Zoetrope, because of circular shape and the splits which it has at the side makes it easier to produce, all which has to be done is the image to be drawn and put inside the Zoetrope. It makes the image seem consistent because of the way we perceive things. Muybridge’s methods of proving his theory of the horse’s four hooves being lifted from the ground at one time will be more suited to the Zoetrope.