Stop-frame animation extends its reach

Another project that threatens to expand our attention span is The Miracle Maker, the feature-length story of the life of Jesus. Clocking in at 90 minutes, the co-production is financed by S4C in Cardiff and the BBC, with a subsidy from London-based government granting body British Screen. With the voice of Jesus provided by Ralph Fiennes, this US$10-million family feature combines puppet animation from S4C's longtime partner Christmas Films of Moscow for the main story, cel animation from Cartwn Cymru of Cardiff for flashback sequences, and computer animation by MPC in London to render the water of Galilee. The four-year project, overseen by Right Angle in Tenby, Wales, is scheduled for release this fall. Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment International in London is handling international sales.

Also in Cardiff, Aaargh! Animation, creator of the gassy, prehistoric clay animation family the Gogs, is moving to higher ground with its contribution to S4C's 26 x 12.5-minute co-production Animated Tales of the World (see item below). Aaargh!'s clay-animation short Aunt Tiger is based on a Taiwanese folktale.

Stop-frame animation is also capturing the interest of U.S. studios. Cubic Enterprises, the L.A.-based company with an animation studio in Korea, hopes to expand into the stop-frame series market with Koko The Pink Rabbit, a 30 x three-minute, clay-animation series produced at US$10,000 per episode. Narrie Kim, manager of acquisitions at Cubic, explains: "By using our sister studio in Korea, we can do just as well as Aardman [Animations in terms of production quality], but we can do it at a smaller cost. For example, we can do a 30-minute show at 24 [frames per second] for US$250,000." The company is in production on True Heart, a feature-length, clay-animation, family adventure film about an underwater king. A three-minute trailer will be shown at MIPCOM in October.

Will Vinton Studios, the Portland, Oregon-based studio that coined the term "claymation" in 1975, has recently launched its first TV series, The PJs. Best known for its California Raisins commercials, the studio is powering up for 22 more episodes of the Fox series from its initial run of 13. Eddie Murphy, one of the series' executive producers, narrates the voice of superintendent Thurgood Stubbs in this teenage- and adult-aimed comedy about the trials and tribulations of Stubbs and his extended family in the inner-city Projects. Launched in January this year, the half-hour series employs the technique of "foamation," a refined version of clay animation using foam latex to render more facial details. A small amount of computer graphic imaging creates the background. The use of foamation allows the producers to tackle social issues with humor. President and CEO of Will Vinton Studios Tom Turpin explains the advantage of using 3-D animation over live action: "We knew, with the writing, that we wanted to push in the direction of being real. And when you go into an environment like the Projects, where everything isn't happy all the time, it's nice to have the visual aspect of the show to remind everybody that, `hey, this is meant to be good-spirited, and you should have fun with it,' and I don't think you could accomplish it with 2-D animation. The problem is that it would start to feel so cartoony." The PJs is produced by Will Vinton Studios, Eddie Murphy Productions and Imagine Television in association with Touchstone Television, at a cost of approximately US$1 million per episode.

Will Vinton Studios just announced plans for eight half-hour episodes of the new claymation and CG series Gary and Mike. Created by Adam Small and Fax Bahr (who, along with Vinton and Turpin, will serve as executive producers), the late teen- and adult-targeted comedy follows the road trip adventures of two twenty-somethings in search of America. A co-production between Will Vinton Studios and Big Ticket Television, the series will be broadcast on Fox beginning in October.

Older audiences, new techniques, prime-time TV and feature-length films-could we be witnessing the renaissance of stop-frame?

Will Vinton, award-winning animator and chairman of Will Vinton Studios, comments tongue-in-cheek: "It's funny, I can remember in my [more than 20-year] career hearing, about three or four times, that stop-motion animation has finally died. And it's been resurrected about that many times as well."

He credits the latest stop-frame phoenix act to an overall resurgence of animation in general. "I would really say it's been since The Simpsons, since projects like that have caught on, that animation has found acceptance again [in prime-time television]." Vinton adds that the use of computers to simplify not only background imaging and camera movements, but also to organize the animation studio, has allowed stop-frame producers to work with greater efficiency and keep costs at a minimum, making the genre that much more attractive to buyers. "Most impressive for us has been the enormous breakthrough in production management," says Vinton. "I myself have had the bias that too much organization gets in the way of creativity, but if the organization is really well run and allows the animators and directors to be free of the details and problems that creep up in terms of production, and to really focus on what they care most about, which is the performance of the [animated] characters, then it ends up being an absolute plus as far as the artist is concerned. In fact, where we end up is not only being able to do television for the first time with really high-quality stop motion, but being able to do it on budget and on schedule."