A Month Celebrating the Acheivement of Stop-Motion Film

February 4, 2019

We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable.
Nick Park

One moment of Ovid’s Metamorphoses details the plight of Pygmalion, an ivory carver who falls deeply in love with his own sculpture. Inspired by his passion and devotion, Aphrodite opts to breathe life into his creation, transforming a rendition into an actual woman. Pygmalion would build a family with his animated partner and (perhaps further propelled by Carlo Collodi nearly two millennia later) the conceptual birth of stop-motion would emerge.

Exemplified in much of early cinema out of technological necessity, the craft would quickly garner traction. Rather than be eviscerated by the advent of CGI, the animation actually grew in tandem with it. Years of development would lead to the career of Nick Park, classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the prevalence of Laika.

This month, we investigate the history, themes, and narratives made possible through the art of stop-motion. Don’t be surprised if a monstrous rabbit, a mutant samurai or a pack of revolutionary canines find themselves embedded within a thesis or two.