Getting Moving - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 197

uncomfortably with the early shots. We just have to be ready and right on the i rst shot. In a
way this is like being a stand-up comedian, except slower. This is a tough way to work as you
can't help but discover things as you progress, little ways of holding the character's head, or
a l utter with the hand that you wish you had thought of earlier. You have to do extensive
homework and i nd this lexicon of movement for the character and stick with it.
Two beautifully performed puppets from Kawamoto's Dojoji Temple (Saemi Takahashi).
What is it about stop motion that we love? Is it the technique itself, or the
strange movement, or the design?
JD - Usually I was involved in animating creatures that didn't exist and wouldn't have looked too good as
costumed actors or mechanical creations. The Pillsbury dough boy portrayed by an actor in a costume …
I don't think so. Both the strange movement and the design make us love stop motion.
TB - For me, there is a sheer magical quality of shooting actual three-dimensional objects and
manipulating them in space with our hands, heart and eyes. It's tactile and fun. I have taught both stop
motion animation and computer animation classes at the college level, and one thing that seems to
be fairly constant is in the area of emotional attitude. In my stop motion classes, students are always
laughing, giggling, moving their bodies as they act through the movement, and generally having a heck