Different Techniques - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 135

The characters from
Henry Selick's James and
the Giant Peach , many
of which featured
replaceable elements
in their faces (Saemi
Takahashi).
Do you aim to produce lifelike and realistic animation, or do you like to
push it stylistically while still remaining credible?
JD - That depends on the genre. I tried to make my creatures lifelike, avoiding the hyperdramatic
approach of Ray Harryhausen. Not that Ray's approach wasn't gloriously powerful, but he'd already
gone down that road.
TB - It depends on the story. For my recent project, The Labyrinth , I'm going with realistic puppets and
lifelike animation, because I perceive the story as a tragedy. If I were animating a cartoony-type fi lm
that's being shot on twos, then naturally, the approach would be different. Style is important to me, but
the style is generally dictated by the story. Would a Chicken Run story work for a stop motion version of
Othello ? Probably not, but it might be interesting to make a Chicken Run version of Othello . Who knows?
Imagine a chicken version of Desdemona being killed by a rooster Othello. The mind boggles.
RC - I haven't had broad stuff that would allow me to do something more exaggerated and be appropriate.
DC - I like to push my acting and to tackle new challenges, but I generally work on projects that have an
existing style and I have to adhere to that for continuity reasons.
SB - I don't think it has to be lifelike, just full of life. A lot of it is down to timing.
RH - I never see the point of making things too lifelike. Animation is a medium of its own, needing good
reasons for not producing it in live action. I aim to achieve a balance between soft, natural movements
and quirky, snappy poses that read.
JC - It's never been my aim to produce the most realistic animation possible. If that's your goal then live
action fi lming will do it better. I've wanted to produce characters that are alive but that have their own
sense of reality and timing … to create strange and new people and places.