Research #2 - Practitioners and Films

Jan Svankmajer - Food (1992) 

Here is the video on vimeo. 



Food is a 1992 Czech animated short film directed by Jan Svankmajer that uses claymation and pixilation. It examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Svankmajer was born in Prague from a German Bohemian descent, but has assimilated into Czech. 

An early influence on his later artistic development was a puppet theatre he was given for Christmas as a child.

Stop-motion features in most of his work, though recently his feature films have included much more live cation sequences than animation. 

Stephane Aubier - A Town Called Panic (2009)

Here is the English version trailer on YouTube.  

A Town Called Panic is a 2009 stop-motion animated film., co-produced by Belgium, Luxembourg and France. It is based on the TV series of the same name. It premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and was the first stop-motion film to be screened at the festival. 

The plot is three plastic toys names Cowboy, Indian and horse that share a house in a rural town. Cowboy and Indian plan to surprise Horse with a homemade barbecue for his birthday. However, they accidentally order 50 million bricks, instead of  the 50 they actually require. This sets off a chain of events as the trio travel to the centre of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe of pointy-headed creatures. 

The film was made over the course of 260 days in a studio on the outskirts of Brussels. 1,500 plastic toy figures were used during filming. 

Otmar Gutmann - Pingu (1986) 

Here is an episode called 'Pingu as a Chef'

Gutmann was a German television producer, animator and the founder of The Pygos Group, now controlled by HiT Entertainment. He is perhaps best known for his long running work in Pingu. 

The animated tales of 'Pingu' and his penguin friends and family, are known all over the world through television and video. Pingu was first presented at the Berlin Film Festival in 1987, in a short pilot film featuring a penguin in an Arctic snowscape. 

With the addition of plot lines, but without voice-over narration or traditional dialogue - the characters communicate with vocalised squeaks and grunts rather than words - Pingu became a successful series, appealing mainly to children under five.

Aardman  -  Purple and Brown/Dot and Gulp

Purple and Brown (2006) is a stop-motion animated short television series devised and directed by Rich Webber and edited by Mike Percival. The series first aired March 2006, on the Nickleodeon's UK channel and later became a staple on the American Nickleodeon network as part of part of its former Nick Extra short program. 

The storyline is led by the characters of two clay blob friends, one purple and the other brown, who get caught in ridiculous situations. Purple and Brown don't speak, but they understand everything. Despite any given predicament, the duo can never help but giggle with a low, recognisable laugh. 

Dot  (2010) is a short film created by Aardman Animations. It is a spot for the Nokia N8. It is the worlds smallest stop-motion animation. 

Aardman used innovative Rapid Prototyping 3D printing technology that used a computer-generated model of an object or characters and then prints it in full 2D using a plastic resin material. The entire set was no more than a metre and a half long, all elements of which were used to help sell the scale of the project to the viewer. 

Marketing Weeks explains the plot: "The film features Dot, a tiny 9mm girl who waked up in a magical, magnified world to discover her surrounding are caving in around her."

The short is in the Guinness Book of World Records as "the worlds smallest stop motion character animation."



Gulp  (2011) is a short film by Aardman Animations and is the worlds largest stop-motion animation. 

The film was shot on a Nokia N8, which was suspended over a beach. Sand sculptures were used in the production. The film stretches over 11,000 square feet. ShortOfTheWeek describes the plot as "a Jonah-style adventure of a fisherman getting caught in the belly of a giant fish."

Western Spaghetti (2008)

Amazing stop-motion artist Pes (Adam Pesapane) shows us how to cook spaghetti with tomato sauce using non-food ingredients. He uses inedible items, including a Rubik's cube as garlic, pick-up sticks as spaghetti and post-it notes as butter. 

PES is an American director and stop-motion animator of numerous short films and commercials. An early influence on his animation style is the work of Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer.

TIME Magazine named it the #2 Internet film of 2008 in its 'Top Ten of Everything 2008'. The film also won an Honourable Mention at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2009. 

Balance (1989)

Balance is a German animated film, directed and produced by twin brothers Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein. 

It depicts the struggle of five fisherman on a particularly unstable platform and the conflict that develops between them after they find a mysterious box.

In the 8-minute film, the brothers manage to create a powerful message about greed using a minimum of visuals and sounds. The visual design includes several of the same nondescript puppets dressed in drab clothing that is almost identical. 

 Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

A 17 minute stop-motion film made by Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, collectively known as Clyde Henry Productions.

Madame Tutli-Putli boards a night train for a mysterious and suspenseful journey. When train robbers cut open a man's stomach and steals his kidneys, she tries to escape. 

The stop-motion animation took them more than 5 years. Critics lauded the film for its groundbreaking techniques. Portrait artist Jason Walkers created the technique of adding composited human eyes to the stop motion puppets. For the lead character, actress Laurie Maher was recorded acting out the motions, but only her eyes and her eyebrows were ultimately visible in the final film.