Production - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 294

rumours about the Loch Ness monster; a happily susceptible public wanting their own
monsters. It is great that stop motion can have such an ef ect. I can't see that happening with
an equivalent drawn scene from a i lm, or even a sophisticated CG creation today. For so many,
that serpent was real.
Mention Kong in cynical company and you're likely to get a cheap gag about fur crawling. The
fur never once bothered me. I understood why it crawled, but put it down to wind or, rather
bizarrely, l eas. The fur was a worry even to the i lm-makers, until during the i lm some RKO
suits commented on how clever O'Brien had been to get the fur to bristle when Kong was
scared. Fur will always be a problem as long as animators need to touch the puppet. Only
holding Kong in furless places such as his chest might have helped, as would hairspray. I have
worked with characters where a good percentage of the fur has been sculpted, with loose
strands laid over the top confusing the appearance.
Sometimes such fur-covered i gures are manipulated with rods attached to the various limbs.
I would feel disconnected but it does seem to work. Likewise, some puppets are manipulated
Ronnie Burkett with his marionettes, after a performance of 10 Days on Earth , Manchester,
2007.
by rods connected to a computer. This can make the move itself through various
motors, or the animator can move the puppet and its movement is recorded by
the computer and can then be reproduced and i ne-tuned at will. This has its uses,
especially where absolute perfection and reproduction are needed, but I would still
like to touch the puppet and feel it moving in my hands. I'm not sure how I would
feel if I had to share the manipulation and animation of a single puppet with others.