Production - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 297

a character has to be passive to be contained within a close-up, which goes against most
animation. In Nick Park's brilliant Creature Comforts , and the subsequent series, what the
characters lack in bodily movement they make up with exceptionally mobile faces, and that is
the joyous point of this animation.
It should not be assumed that characters have to move constantly to be animated. Adam
Elliot's characters, such as Harvie Krumpet , do little more than blink, but they are alive.
At a festival, I saw a supposedly innovative dance piece, which featured a solo performer not
moving, while the music raced away. This may have challenged how dance and movement are
perceived, but I cannot say that the disgruntled audience came away with any satisfaction of an
experience or performance. Some members of the audience were screaming for the performer
to move, so at least there was a reaction. Maybe the point was to get the audience to move.
Some moved out of the theatre very quickly.
Anthony Gormley
One of Anthony Gormley's many fi gures on Crosby beach, 2007.
On a beach in north-west England Anthony Gormley planted 100 life-size iron casts of his
naked body, spread along a mile and half of beach, all with their eyes i xed on one point out at
sea. It is a stunningly beautiful sight. Although little more than weathered iron, they have such
presence, and being surrounded by the constant movement of the tide ebbing and l owing
implies a movement, or lack of it, of their own. They seem to be animated characters acting
out their own drama. Watching them drown and emerge twice a day is a complex emotional