Ray Herryhausen was a writer, producer, and visual effects editor who was responsible for the creation of the stop-motion model animation known as "dynamation". He has produced and worked on dozens of films including the animation in Mighty Joe Young that won an academy award in 1949 just for its special effects. This movie was inspired by King Kong, but had way more advanced special effects. His stop motion effects are considered more realistic then CGI. He is known for making breathing giants and oversized serpents come alive. He also was known for his work with dinosaur animation making then stomp around as real as ever. The work that Herryhausen did may seem clunky and the work time consuming, but for his time he pushed the boundaries and made things happen that never looked so real before.
Here is some of the work he has done.
The Dynamation that Harryhausen did was very time consuming and particular. It combined the foreground and the background images. To do this, he photographed miniature creatures in front of a projection screen or sometimes through a partially masked glass pane. Later he would superimpose the live footage on the part that was masked. The way he balanced the lighting and color was flawless. Because this was before green screen it was amazing and was something no one in the business had ever seen. His work and contributions to special effects and animation play a large part in why and how we are capable to do what we can do today.
Stop motion animation has been around for a very long time, and at its core it couldn't be simpler: move something a tiny bit, take a picture, then move it a tiny bit again, then take another picture and so on. While the beginning concept might be simple, in practice it is very time consuming meticulous work, especially when you consider how many things need to be moved every frame, and just how many frames create a second of animation.
A variation of stop motion animation is "claymation", in which all the characters and often worlds they inhabit are made of clay. Here's an example from 'The Neverhood' (Which is a video game!):
Another variant is "cutout animation" which is where the characters and backgrounds are made of paper. Popular examples of this are 'Blue's Clues' and 'South Park' (Though today they are both animated on computers, they still maintain the paper visual style) Below is an example of cutout animation by Trey Parker (the co-creator of 'South Park')
Stop motion animation is even used in feature films. Lately most examples of this have been from Laika, with recent productions being 'Paranorman' and 'Coraline'. They're next major feature is going to be 'The Box Trolls', which is animated mostly with stop motion.
Stop motion animation can also be created with everyday objects. One of my favorite stop motion animators is PES, who likes to use everyday objects in place of other objects, from mountains to animals. One of his animations was nominated for an Academy award:
What makes PES' animations especially great, is his use of sound. For stop motion especially, sound is incredibly important. It adds so much to the depth and weight of the objects and characters in the piece. The everyday objects in PES' animations take on new life by both their new uses as well as the sounds they create when interacted with. Most all of his animations do this extraordinarily well, including his latest piece, which captures the deep ocean.
