Clay Animation

 Clay Animation


Clay animation is one form of stop motion animation. It’s a very traditional way of creating an animation, it involves taking a series of still pictures of the figures, then putting the pictures together and playing the frames back at a rate of 10-12 frames per second to create the illusion of movement. The characters and sometimes the background are made of a malleable substance such as clay, so the figures are easy to change. The procress involved is very time consuming and thought provoking.

The technique is very simple, each figure is usually made of clay around a armature, so that the figures stay strong but can also easily change shape when played with. The technique involves the figures being placed around a background, the figures are constantly moved slightly by hand, after each movement a still picture is taken. This is repeated around 64,800 times for a full length 90 minute film, very time consuming, but the technique is successful. One popular animated film created by clay animation is ‘Wallace and Gromit’.

From looking at this clip, you can see that the figures and the most of the background is made from a malleable substance, however even if you watch the clip closely, you can’t tell that the film has been made using stop motion because the human mind processes the series of still images as motion, making the objects and figures look like they are moving.