Preparation - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 170

A legendary production for Opera North of Prokoi ev's Love of Three Oranges , designed by the
Brothers Quay, was one of animators' i rst forays into stage design, and they threw every trick
in the topic into it, coming up with some startling and hysterical illusions. One involved two
characters stuck in a desert. They decide to run of for help and race into the wings. A spilt second
later, smaller versions of themselves are seen running across the background. Then two small
children raced back across far upstage, giving the stage a huge perspective. It was a great moment,
bringing together tricks from all media, and done with a large knowing wink at the audience.
I love working with false-perspective sets, but usually these sequences have to be planned
meticulously, so that the illusion works. Another set in Hamilton Mattress had towering buildings
on either side of a narrow back alley. It looked deep, and thanks to clever set dressing and
hidden doorways, the animators were able to reach almost down the whole length of the set.
Feldwick, the caterpillar, was required at one point to scuttle of down this alleyway, but we had
to be careful that he didn't appear to grow as he receded. We couldn't shrink the puppet, so just
before the puppet appeared to grow in relation to his surroundings he subtly disappeared into
the shadows, and with the help of fading footsteps you appear to see him walking of into the
distance. To help set the mood of an emotionally downbeat scene, with the characters at their
lowest, rain was pouring out of drainpipes and newspapers were l ying about, all trying to make
things look cold, windy and wet. As these newspapers disappeared down the alleyway, they
could have given away the perspective, so we contrived to cut them smaller and smaller in each
frame the further they went down the alleyway. Likewise, we had prominent dustbins made,
getting progressively smaller and forcing the audience to see the depth.
Making the most of the physicality and depths of these sets depends on how they are shot and
lit. Whereas 50 mm lenses will squash and l atten the image, a 24 mm lens will begin to make
the same image look panoramic. Not every stop motion shoot has the luxury of camera moves,
being time-consuming and cumbersome to set up, but simple movements can give huge
depth owing to shifting parallaxes. Zoom lenses tend to be counterproductive as the parallax
doesn't change and emphasises the l atness, whereas a camera actually moving through a set
shows of the spatiality. As soon as a camera moves, though, it is expected to move the whole
time. It would be odd just to have one or two moving shots.
Likewise with lighting, the depths of sets are shown of by the characters moving in and out of
dapple. All movement is better when it's seen moving against something. With l at, shadowless
lighting movement can struggle to be seen as little seems to have changed from frame to frame.
It also helps to make full use of depth in the staging of a scene. It is easy for characters to end up
in a straight line, but that hardly makes use of the spatial advantage unique to stop motion.
Using the camera
Camera moves
When it comes to camera moves stop motion drew the short straw. CG animation produces
amazing, dazzling camerawork taking the viewer anywhere at the press of a
button. With planning, so can drawn animation, but with puppets, it's not easy. The
physicality that is such a joy in stop motion has the drawback of the camera being
in the way. In live action, the camera takes its motivation to move from the actors;
with stop motion, in ef ect, the animator takes his motivation from the camera.
Once a move is planned, as it must be, the animator has to move at a certain
speed, reaching a mark at a particular frame. If a camera move were to adjust to