Claymation/Stop motion animation

Claymation or Clay Animation is a form of stop motion animation, all characters, objects and background pieces are made of a "deformable" and malleable substance, such as Plasticine.

Plasticine has a non-drying property and is a mold-able material that is a popular choice for stop-motion animation and claymation, it is popular because this material can be used for more pronounced pieces such as characters, tools and other interactable objects, as well permanent structures like buildings and the ground in an animation.
The first clay animation, Gumbasia was produced in 1953 and released two years later in 1955 on the 2nd of September.

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One of the most famous claymation/stop motion animation is Wallace and Gromit, created by Nick Park, from Aardman Animations, for a Graduation Project, the short film became a major hit and from which, the amazing animation series, including Wallace and Gromit A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and the full length movie Wallace and Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Aardman Animations and Dreamworks united to create the animations: Chicken Run, Flushed Away and Wallace and Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but the partnership didn't last long due to "creative differences".

Filming Clay Animations
When filming a clay animation, one takes a lot of photographs and plays each as a frame. A standard film runs at 24 frames per second, each second of movement regularly consists of 12 stops, in order to rearrange the figure, this is general practice with the "doubles" technique, this technique exposes two frames per shot.
A 30 minute film requires a count of 21,600 stops, a 90 minute film would take 64,800 stops, the stops may increase or decrease depending on if you use "doubles" or "singles" filming technique, the doubles technique is where you do two frames in one stop and the singles technique only uses one frame.

Other Methods of Stop Motion
You do not have to use clay in a stop motion piece. If you can take many pictures in succession, you can turn that into a stop motion piece. Bear in mind that all you need to make a stop motion piece is a good camera.

Troubleshooting
Although Claymation can seem like fun at first, it can be incredibly tedious. Make sure you have a lot of time on your hands if you plan to do this form of animation but also try to make the stop motion as smooth as possible.

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