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# 3 Winter 1982

Reader’s Letters

ANIMATOR’S ASSOCIATION David, Animator’s Newsletter Number 2 is even more thought provoking than the first issue. I enclose my thoughts on an association of animator’s and an animation festival, and […]

Editor’s Comment

The big news in this issue of Animator’s newsletter is the plan to form an Animator’s Association. This will help extend the communication between readers of the newsletter. I think […]

Making Puppets for Stop-motion Films

Making Puppets for Stop-motion Films

COLIN DUNN TELLS US HIS METHOD OF MAKING PUPPETS WHICH IS BASED ON TECHNIQUES USED BY PROFESSIONAL ANIMATORS WHO HAVE DEVELOPED THEM OVER MANY YEARS.

At their simplest, puppets to be animated might be buttons, match sticks, or the perennial angle-poise lamps. We have all seen how the most unlikely objects can be imbued with real character by an imaginative animator. But if your project requires puppets that bear some resemblance to the human or animal form, you will run up against the problem of puppet construction, and for many beginners it is a real problem. You cannot animate well if you have only a poor puppet to work with.

Making Puppets for Stop-motion Films

In the case of this particular puppet it had a final coat of a special opalescent acrylic paint called moonstone, sold by Military Modeling suppliers. Available from them also is the invaluable epoxy putty, which becomes rock hard when dry. Use this to hold heavish bits of metal on the feet to weight them slightly. Spare nuts and bolts can be used. Put them in front of their plywood sandwich. Add a layer of papier mache around the sides of the feet, through which pins may be stuck, holding the puppet to the stage. The floor of this can be fiber board or some other such material. The outer cover of the feet will be leather or fabric.

Building an Animation Rostrum – part 3

Making a Rostrum

Part Three By Brian Clare

THE FINAL PART OF THIS SERIES GIVES DETAILS OF A NORTH/SOUTH, EAST/WEST MOVEMENT AND A PANTOGRAPH TABLE.

In part one of this series I covered the woodwork for the base and table. Now we look at a way of adding a controllable movement to this.

The mechanism consists of threaded rods running through nuts that are secured to the rostrum base and the moving table top.

The Perils of Plasticine

The Perils of Plasticine

LEWIS COOPER WON A MOVIE MAKER TEN BEST AWARD LAST YEAR WITH HIS PLASTICINE PUPPET FILM ‘THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOE SOAP’. HE GIVES US SOME TIPS ON MAKING OUR OWN PLASTICINE PUPPETS.

You’ve decided to make a film one frame at-a-time. To make it you’ll need lights which get very hot but the substance you have chosen to use slowly melts under those lights. Not only that, the substance has the alarming tendency of falling over at regular intervals, thereby flattening the features you’ve carefully modeled. Even if you can achieve the impossible and prevent it falling over, the very act of manipulating the substance to get your animation slowly disintegrates your model. You’ve guessed it – this melting, squashing, disintegrating substance is plasticine.

The Perils of Plasticine – Page 2

As you animate remember that you are making a FILM. It should have long shots, medium close-ups, big close ups and camera angle changes. Not only does this make the film look better, it is often a great help with shooting problems. Suppose you have a man who is required to walk, in long shot, across your set. It will take about ten paces for him to get across. You get to pace number four and he falls flat on his face. You have to pick him up, remodel his face, and put him back in exactly the same position, with arms and legs at the correct angle.

The Grasshopper Animators – part 3

The Grasshopper Animators

Part Three

THE FINAL PART OF THIS SERIES BY KEN CLARK TELLS HOW THE GROUP SOLVED THE MAMMOTH TASK OF ANIMATING THE BATTLE OF WANGAPORE.

When Sir J. Athur Rank’s film Empire ran into financial trouble, he was forced to close down uneconomic enterprises. G.B. Animation at Cookham was one of the Units that came under the axe. A move which effectively prevented a new series of coloured cartoons from reaching the cinema screens. Titled MAGICAL PAINTBOX, they were to have been a fully animated extension to Henry Stringer’s MUSICAL PAINTBOX series.

The Grasshopper Animators – part 3

Each frame of the sound-track was numbered, then pulled slowly past the playback head of a track reader and each synch frame noted on the dope sheet; this included the start and finish of dialogue, sound FX, musical interludes and scene changes.

The completed dope sheets clearly showed the number of frames required for each scone, the action in words, and the frames on which tight synch was necessary.

The Grasshopper Animators – part 3

In 1966 the Group moved to Shelton Street, home of the School of Film Technique. But with declining membership and minimal finance, a few years later the remaining stalwarts formed a limited company called Teamwork Films. They moved to Neal’s Yard and carried on in much reduced circumstances, relying for their existence on sponsored work. Eventually the venture failed leaving John Daborn with the few remaining group assets.

Setting the Scene

issue-03-page-20A page from the Hammersmith Hamsters comic showing the type of sets used in the film.

Setting the Scene

Setting the Scene

DAVID JEFFFRSON DESCRIBES THE METHODS HE USED TO MAKE SCENERY FOR HIS PUPPET FILM ‘MIND THAT BEND’.

My most ambitious puppet animation film to date is one featuring a group of animals known as the Hammersmith Hamsters. My father-in-law is a road safety officer in the London Borough of Hammersmith and this was planned as Hammersmith’s answer to Tufty, the squirrel character used to teach young children road safety.

Setting the Scene

They gave the go ahead and I decided it was worth starting afresh on the scenery. I made three models for the street. The main one was a flat view of the houses over the road, then two models with forced perspective showing views to the left and right.

Barry Leith at FilmFair Animation Studios (page 1 of 5)

Visit to FilmFair Animation Studios

AT THE END OF AN ALLEYWAY IN A TURNING OFF LONDON’S BAKER STREET LIE THE STUDIOS OF FILMFAIR. DAVID JEFFERSON WENT THERE TO MEET PROFESSIONAL PUPPET ANIMATOR BARRY LEITH.

Director of animation Barry Leith.

A lot of the rules of cartoon apply to three dimensional work and I was doing cartoons for two and a half years. You have to adapt it slightly because it’s a different media.

TV series work has always been double framed, to move the puppets on single frames wouldn’t double the time, it would treble it because you’ve got to be a lot more delicate. In fact there are very few people who ask for TV commercials to be single framed. The only time you have got to be careful with double framing is when you are combining it with live action because then the different sorts of movement become very apparent.

Barry Leith at FilmFair Animation Studios (page 2 of 5)

We are using a Bolex H16R 16mm camera. We got a guy to build this electric motor on for us. It gives a half second exposure. It has got a clutch on it so that it free rides along there and stops the film being jerked. It’s an ordinary commercial motor.

Barry Leith at FilmFair Animation Studios (page 3 of 5)

This Paddington puppet is new and his feet are a bit spongy, the fabric hasn’t worn really flat on the souls of his feet so when you stand him up he tends to faint, so you end up having to run a pin through to help him keep his balance, but give it about another two episodes and it will stand a lot easier. Lots of characters can actually balance for themselves when they are walking. If they have got to lean over to balance then if that character was for real he would lean over when he walks.

Barry Leith at FilmFair Animation Studios (page 4 of 5)

I have still got the first bit of film I ever did and it is terrible. It is too rushed because I was under the impression that every¬thing had to be moving. As far as I was concerned a freeze might have been six or eight frames but that is only a quarter of a second, you blink and you have missed it. It is surprising, you can leave a character standing there for as much as fifty frames, two seconds, if you bring him to a halt gently, shoot the fifty frames and start him off again very gently into his action.

Barry Macey at FilmFair Animation Studios (page 5 of 5)

I never place anything as a set. The camera sees it in the end so you may as well look through the camera and have another person moving the scenery until you get it in the right place to look good on film. If you move to a different angle and it looks a bit boring, you can change things a little. You can’t take them away, but you can alter the perspective of things to each other and the mind accepts it. The puppet is the predominant thing on the screen and the background is dressing for that.