How stop motion animation began
An unusual insect story was the start of an animation revolution.
Almanac Hollywouldn't is our miniseries on big changes to movies that came from outside Hollywood. Watch all of the episodes right here on KZread.
Episode 1: • The first movie with CGI
Episode 2: • Why movies went from 1...
Correction: A previous version of this video labeled King Kong and The Mascot as having come out in 1958. Both dates are 1933.
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In this episode of Vox Almanac, Vox’s Phil Edwards explores the delightfully strange beginning of stop motion animation. In a stop motion movie, an animator arranges an object, takes a picture, slightly adjusts the positioning, and then does it all over again. When the pictures are played in succession, it looks like motion. Though people have been experimenting with stop motion since the beginning of film, the new art really took off when an insect collector named Wladyslaw Starewicz (later Ladislas Starevich, among other spellings) wanted to see his beetles move.
His 1912 film, The Cameraman’s Revenge, was the most significant of those early experiments. By that time, he’d been discovered as a precocious museum director in a Lithuanian Natural History Museum, and that enabled him to make movies. The Cameraman’s Revenge was his boldest experiment yet, depicting a tryst between star-crossed (bug) lovers.
As the above video shows, he employed technical innovations to do so, including strings that controlled his unusual puppets. He also occasionally replaced legs and augmented their bodies with wheels to enhance his stop motion process. The results are strange, hilarious, and changed the medium.
Starewicz went on to animate many other classics in the genre, influencing filmmakers like Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson. And that legacy all started with the improbable story of cheating bugs and the museum director who loved them.
Further reading:
For a good overview, check out Puppet Animation in the Cinema by L. Bruce Holman. It’s a great tool to delve into the long history of puppet animation.
archive.org/details/PuppetAni...
American Cinematographer has a nice 1930 interview with Starewicz about his work.
archive.org/details/americanc...
The Magic Mirror by Denise Youngblood is a history of Soviet Film from 1908-1918 (including Starewicz and even some of the propaganda films most historians believe he was drafted into making).
archive.org/details/magicmirr...
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out www.vox.com.
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Пікірлер: 378
It’s must’ve been a hard day’s night for the beetles
@ishmaelveagra5436
4 жыл бұрын
Amazing 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@schnieti
4 жыл бұрын
Yeah they've been working like a bug
@skripnigor
4 жыл бұрын
I got the joke and it got me scared at how old I am.
@schnieti
4 жыл бұрын
@@skripnigor It should show you that you have a good taste in music rather than beeing old. So congrats :D
@majortom6174
4 жыл бұрын
@@skripnigor Age has nothing to do with it lol.
Mom: what are you doing Me, in the process of recording insect adult films: nothing
@wijcik
Жыл бұрын
🤣
@carolyngair7051
3 ай бұрын
And did you? Make a stopmotion insect film?
Nobody: Man from Lithuania: I want to see dancing insects
@luxembourgishempire2826
4 жыл бұрын
Boring meme.
@regeman100
4 жыл бұрын
he is from Poland actually, but i guess no one cares in the end
@luxembourgishempire2826
4 жыл бұрын
@@regeman100 He was Lithuanian.
@jeshkam
4 жыл бұрын
These memes are boring, annoying and looong dead. Think of something different.
@sircourgette
4 жыл бұрын
posaidon0802 I beg to differ
i swear, everything starts out as a kink
@mBUSHattack
4 жыл бұрын
🤣
@randyrichmondiii9021
4 жыл бұрын
@@mBUSHattack you deserve a sub
@matthewquartermain8291
2 жыл бұрын
@@davidpearson6346 a kink for commenting
@constantinethecataphract5949
Жыл бұрын
Insect fetish guy didn't invent it tho
there's always this magic of stop motion on being able to give life into inanimate objects. probably the reason why it's my favorite medium in animation.
@SSKMusicBeats
4 жыл бұрын
you mean dead bugs lol
@Flesh_licking_spider_monkeys
3 жыл бұрын
@@SSKMusicBeats dead bugs are technically inanimate objects.
Dat dragonfly a *T H O T*
@hpm06
4 жыл бұрын
Lol
I watched "The camera man's revenge" for the first time this month. Hella trippy. Had me engaged every second
When I was little I always watched the Wallace and Grommit shorts, and then I was gifted a behind the scenes book on the stop motion work done for Chicken Run and became really obsessed with Aardman and stop motion in general. I used to make my own figures out of clay and animate them on my dads old camcorder... wonder whatever happened to them...
@Bibliothekaresse
4 жыл бұрын
Toy Story-wise they're probably waiting for you to return home.
@DarkAngelEU
4 жыл бұрын
@@Bibliothekaresse Or they have become forgotten toys :'(
@heavyshift1
Жыл бұрын
Same as you!😊
Someone do this stop motion thing to my corpse
@CraftsmanShengCanweget10KSubs
4 жыл бұрын
no
@ShannonMcDowell71
4 жыл бұрын
Um, challenge accepted? :-D
@wylnd
4 жыл бұрын
Would be interesting for sure. With the consent of someone while they were still alive.
@sirsnakespeare
4 жыл бұрын
Necrophilia entered the chat
@Nopinopa
4 жыл бұрын
It's actually a nice idea...
beetles getting more action than me now
@RazorBlade-eh9br
4 жыл бұрын
dead beetles too
@retardpillprovider492
4 жыл бұрын
Oof
@retardpillprovider492
4 жыл бұрын
RazorBlade7201 *necrophilia has entered the chat*
Who else is here procrastinating?
@brnne
4 жыл бұрын
Me, or just running away from my problems
@_JayRamsey_
4 жыл бұрын
I kind of feel like most, if not all, time on KZread is spent procrastinating. There is always a more productive undertaking one could be putting his or her time toward. tl;dr: yeah, me.
@Lumberjack_king
4 жыл бұрын
Just woke up trying to not talk today aka don't talk to other people this is ok because I'm not making noise
@quiche_lorraine
4 жыл бұрын
I should be getting ready for work. But I'm not
@christlifemanembu8960
4 жыл бұрын
Its 4.46AM, i have classes at 10.30 and i haven't take a nap
"A staggeringly weird tale, of insect infidelity." You mean there's a normal tale?
@matty9460
4 жыл бұрын
"a staggeringly weird tale, of insect infedility"
@jessetorres8738
4 жыл бұрын
@@matty9460: Fixed it, thanks.
@matty9460
4 жыл бұрын
@@jessetorres8738 that wasn't my point, my point is the comma changed the meaning of the sentence With comma, the tale is staggerongly weird Without comma the tale of insect infidelity is staggeringly weird
@jessetorres8738
4 жыл бұрын
@@matty9460: I was referring to that I used "tell" instead of "tale."
@timothyhicks1365
4 жыл бұрын
A Bugs' Life
Lol beetle on beetle violence😂😂😂😂😂
@khanhnguyennam6007
4 жыл бұрын
Ger Many Like when John Lennon left?
@khanhnguyennam6007
4 жыл бұрын
Ger Many Man, you been missin out
As someone with a real interest in early cinema, it's great to see well researched and put together videos on the subject
Pingu is my favorite stop motion animation.
@HudaefCares
4 жыл бұрын
Nyot nyot 😂
@Espen.Johannesen
4 жыл бұрын
Yaaaayyy
@hawksdcc
4 жыл бұрын
Pingu! I also love Pat a Mat
@warrensterling3284
4 жыл бұрын
Noot noot
@maxdondada
4 жыл бұрын
R.E.F.N.E.V. Comerade? Me? Confused as I am Canadian and Pingu is Swiss.
Mary and Max is one of my favorite stop motion films. Dark poignant and beautiful
"The Sculptor's Nightmare (1908)" is still disturbing to this day! Is this an early use of "claymation?" Amazing work!
"I revolutionized stop motion by wanting to make my dead bug collection dance!" Weird flex but okay.
@arthursimsa9005
3 жыл бұрын
invented*
Stop motion movies makes me feel uneasy in general but since I'm from Lithuania, I press like
@timothyhicks1365
4 жыл бұрын
Thats loyalty
Jan Švankmajer, a great surrealist from the Czech republic!!! A lot of his films are on KZread for free
i used to do stopmotion when i was like 11 with monster high dolls, it's one of the coolest art forms to me and i kind of want to get back into it, it's awesome
Polish also argues that Starewicz belongs to their cultural heritage. Sadly, most people at least in Lithuania are oblivious of his legacy. Thanks for bringing this up in such a high production value.
I have been Living in Kaunas for 5 years now and I had no clue about this!
I always thought King Kong changed the stop motion animation forever. At least I now know the origins of stop motion.
This is awesome, so rich information... even some stuff I didn't know about the origins of the art form - love it :)
As someone who loves entomology and animation I am here for this
Great stop motion movies I can think of from the top of my head: The infamous "Tony vs Paul", which shows many great techniques and "Star Trek ENTERPRISE II Der Anfang vom Ende" Both must have taken an incredible amount of work and both are here on KZread for free.
Brilliant work!! Thanks Vox! Also check out (if it has not already been mentioned), Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren, his famous stop motion film is called Neighbours
The beetles ending was much more climactic than GOT season finale
@GregorShapiro
3 жыл бұрын
Yeah the GOT finale was so ... meh... that I have had to imagine my own!
If an insect cheats on his wife and nobody films it, did it even really happen?
This animation style has boosted the sales of lego
I really like Arch Model Studio. They worked on Frankenweenie, Isle Of Dogs, Grand Budapest Hotel & they did the Sipsmith gin advert, which is a thing of beauty.
I loved Reynard! Stop motion has always been fascinating to me.
Coraline has to be my favorite stop-motion movie ever. It scared the living heck out of me, when I was a kid
that's incredible!! thank you so much! oh, and my faves? rudolph the red nosed reindeer, gumby and wallace and gromit, but i haven't seen a lot of those old ones!! 💗
The Brothers Quay make incredible stop motion animations.
Jan Švankmajer's Food is a fave of mine along with Jiří Trnka's The Hand
@waddingo
4 жыл бұрын
Thank you for mentioning Švankmajer.
l love Vox-always learn about new amazing things
A stop motion film worthy of comment is the winner of the 1953 Academy award for best animated short "Neighbours", by Norman Maclaren. While this film does have a few short segments of live action, most of the film is a series of still images of the actors. Norman Maclaren also created the musical score in an almost unique fashion: the music was not recorded, but painted directly on the film. The technique is documented in the short film "Pen Point Percussion".
I love this, thanks for the lesson
As someone who does Stop motion, I thought this was great!
thank u vox for catering to my very niche interests
This is so cool. A week or two ago I tried to do stop motion
Lithuania, vox really? You're finally mentioning my small country! That's really cool actually now that you think about it. A million subscriber channel doing what was never needed to be done.
My favorite stop-motion movie has to be Fantastic Mr. Fox! I will no doubt be checking out Le Roman de Renard after this to see it's initial influence. Phenomenal work Phil
RoboCop 2 is the greatest example of a live action film using stop motion for visual effects in my opinion. The animation is fantastic and blended as well with the live action environments as I've ever seen.
These films creeped me out as a kid. I remember having nightmares only enhanced by grotesque and unnatural stop motion movements.
Best stop motion? There's so much goodness out there. But probably my all time fav is Street of Crocodiles by the Brothers Quay
It makes sense that the bar that the beetle enters has a French name. French cafes and architecture was wildly popular in Kaunas. Some even called the town “Little Paris”.
This man made a movie about bugs and toys coming alive that changed the industry of animation. Sounds familiar? (Pixar.)😊
@MH-qk9qg
4 жыл бұрын
A bug's life and toy story. I see you
Bored and sadistic people do amazing things
Thank you!!
That's so cool!!
My type of videos! So interesting !!
Fascinating 👍
Isle of Dogs has a special place in my heart :)
Fantastic Mr Fox
Wow this is so interesting. Ill have to dig out his films on d internet n watch them. I love stop motion animation. Love those done by Laika Studio, Wes Anderson n Tim Burton.
That was awesome 🌚❤️
Clash of the Titans!! Sad that dude died a few years back :(
Don't miss out on Soviet-era Russian stop-motion films! Check out My Green Crocodile (1966), Ball of Yarn (1968), Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena (1969), Hedghehog in the Fog (1975)...they're all like watching a fairy tale.
This is the original 'A Bug's Life'
@DarkAngelEU
4 жыл бұрын
And so much more authentic.
@kykale
4 жыл бұрын
rated R.
Thanks for this in depth look at Starewicsz. I wish you would have drawn a more direct line to how his film The Night Before Christmas inspired Tim Burton and Henry Selick, and their films. My favorite stop motion film of all time is Hedgehog in the Fog by Yuri Norshteyn. I would love to learn more about Norshteyn but I’m not sure where to start.
My favourite movie of all time is Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stop motion movie by Wes Anderson
Cerulia is one of my fav stop motion films
I like your content, so I'm here.
Interesting. Thank you. 🙂🖐️
Amongst the best stop motion films outside Hollywood: 1) TANGO (1980, Poland) Zbigniew Rybczyński; 2) Neighbours (1952, Scotland / Canada) Norman McLaren.
@DarkAngelEU
4 жыл бұрын
Also the Polish version of Alice in Wonderland. Now THAT'S a trip!
@kidkurmudgeon7015
4 жыл бұрын
@@DarkAngelEU Lil Otek (same director) & Shorts from the Brothers Quay
Finaly something interesting in Lithuania!
Some of my favorite stop motion animators: PES, Michel Gondry, Jan Švankmajer and one that made a big impression on me when I was a kid: Zbigniew Rybczyński with his Tango film!
I grew up in the golden age of stop action: Rudolph, Gumby, Davey and Goliath. My favorite memories of childhood.
Funny that this would come up as I'm in the middle of shaping my own characters for a stop motion series. Uncanny coincidence.
0:00 When you run out of Human ACTORS
Wow, he was a genius! I've never heard of him before, thank you!! So I guess my favorite must be the gdr production (originally) of the "Sandmännchen" (little sandman). I used to watch it everyday before I went to bed.
The National Film Board of Canada has published some bizarre and fantastic stop motion shorts from a number of decades ago. My favourite is "The Sand Castle," (hzvqmoPu2H4) but "Neighbours" is also very good (K1q8f-I6YsI), and is a weird combination of stop motion and live action.
Those first films were freaky. I love it.
when i was a kid, i accidentaly make a stop motion video about a helicopter with only a nokia phone. i didnt event know what stop motion is back then. Since knowing about it, i love stop motions because the efford for making them. fascinating indeed
I am big fan of Henry Selick's stop-motion animated films like 'James and the Giant Peach' and 'Coraline.' 'ParaNorman' and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' are also big faves of mine.
Mr. Beetle is amazing! Glad to see it get some recognition 100+ years later.
The art form which Lego KZreadrs has mastered
You need to check on Jan Svankmajer. Basically the same idea of animating bugs but then he went a whole lot more surreal where this guy went for detail. Two really interesting takes on the same niche aspect of a niche form of animation.
A little later and two-dimensional (animated silhouettes) was Lotte Reiniger, starting in 1919, and producing the feature-length "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" in 1926.
(3:20) A surprisingly poignant statement in light of what we are starting to see with regard to the debate surrounding digitally animating actors today.
Even before this film was a claymation short about a circus from the 1890s.
The beetles were paid act.... Wait.
@CraftsmanShengCanweget10KSubs
4 жыл бұрын
dead things don't get paid
@StoryMemories86
4 жыл бұрын
biokaese no animals were harmed in the maki... wait. Hhaha
This is gr8
The clips look amazing on a 60" TV but the audio is a bit too dynamic for full sized speakers (although L/C/R channels are nicely encoded).
What I learned today, we have Wallace and Gromit thanks to a guy that collected bugs
@jp975
4 жыл бұрын
Wallace and gromits so good
I really need to know the opening music track... What is it called and who made it...?
So weirdly good
Isn't it too early for insect voyeurism? LOL great video I loved it
i love his films!
I guess "The Cameraman's Revenge" really is a story about... stag beetles
Fantastic history
Thanks for the invention of stop motion, Pingu exist
Simply CAN'T get over this: for his subject in the most labor-intensive and time-consuming process known to film-making, he chooses... INSECTS! - probably because their tiny size, as well as their having all those extra, brittle legs to move, can only make the task that much more mind-numbingly complicated. TOO funny!
"Kubo and the Two Strings", "BOXTROLLS" are some nice STOP-motion Animation films. . . . Probably you(the reader) must watch them sometime.
@marlonmoncrieffe0728
4 жыл бұрын
Ah, yes! I love 'The Boxtrolls!' And have you seen 'ParaNorman?'
@kokulnath1368
4 жыл бұрын
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 nope
Big fan of Australia’s harvie krumpet it’s a great shot.
What's the music in the beginning?