Clay animation

Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay.

Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films to videogames, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second. The techniques involved in creating CGI are conversely generally removed from a frame-by-frame process.

Technique

Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as Plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playback, the human mind of the viewer perceives the series of slightly changing, rapidly succeeding images as motion.

List of films featuring clay animation

This is a list of media that showcase clay animation, and is divided into three sections: film (both short and feature-length), television (both series and made-for-television films), and music videos. For a list of stop motion films in general, please go here.

In film

In television

In music videos

References