Frame by Frame

I was at work the other day going through our dreadful movie collection and the only thing that could possible redeem the wad of crap that is generally now placed on display was Gumby. Not a lot of people remember the Gumby and Pokey series because it ran from 1956 until about 1963. Of course Gumby made a comeback around the 80's and was welcomed once again into the households of many children and other viewers . Creator Art Clokey brought clay animation to the front line with this series which focused on heartfelt story telling that truly had meaning. The main substance that drew me to claymation was that it was one of the many forms of stop-motion animation and the techniques used in the process. Sculpting an object in clay or plasticine around a wire skeleton called armature and placing it on a set background is extremely laborious. An object is moved slightly in every film frame until you reached your desired film. There are usually 24 films used per second, so in a 30 min episode there would be about 21,600 stops to adjust. One of the most important thing in claymation is consistence in a whole. Played back in rapid succession and the illusion of a timeless motion is complete. Like any form of art, clay animation has evolved over time. Some-what of a fad now, its been shown in Wallace and Grommit, Chicken Run and my favorites Morel Orel and The PJs. I must say that its been attempted by Pixar but mastered by Dreamworks. Now is even thrown into computer games and since claymation and stop motion go hand you can see a growth in both.

___________________________________________________________________________

I love the simplicity of this video...its very unique and refreshing and the flying objects makes it even better, very beautiful abstract piece.