History of Stop Motion Animation
15:32 | 
Posted by
Jack Witherden
Some early examples of stop motion films and techniques can be seen in the "The Humpty Dumpty Circus" (1898) and in "Fun in a Bakery Shop" (1902). In 1907 "The Haunted Hotel" was a very successful movie with the cinema audience of the time. In 1912 one of the first clay animation movies using stop motion was released to great critical acclaim. It was called "Modeling Extraordinary" In 1916, the first woman animator, Helena Smith Dayton, began experimenting with clay stop motion. She released her first film in 1917, Romeo and Juliet. December of 1916, brought the first of Willie Hopkin's 54 episodes of "Miracles in Mud" to the big screen.
It was during the 1950s which was the transformation period of stop motion animation. Stop motion not only gained a wide audience appeal and was accepted in pop culture, but for the animators involved in the studios, the stop motion process was a convenient alternative to the traditional hand-drawn process.
This was also a time of commercialism for stop motion animation. Not only was it used more often in films, but stop motion could be seen in television and commercials. All this is credited to the well-known television show "Gumby", which sparked the interest of stop motion to pop culture.
Art Clokey is best known for his creation of the clay animation “Gumby”. The character, Gumby, was created in his 1955 student film project while attending USC (University of Southern California). He pitched his film to Sam Engel of 20th Century Fox, and the rest is history. Clokey is also distinguished for creating clay animation commercials for Budweiser and Coca Cola
An extremely strange (and amazing) feature film was made in 1993 by the Bolex Brothers using the pixelation technique in which live action is fused with stop motion by using actual people in frame by frame animation, 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb' (1993).
Last year saw the first feature length stop motion film shot in 3D, 'Coraline' from director Henry Selick. The film breaks a lot of milestones: at 100 minutes it’s the longest stop-motion feature ever, and the first to be shot entirely in 3D.
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