Welcome to the second part of our three-part series on the history of stop motion animation. In this installment, we focus on the golden age of stop motion special effects, highlighting the artists and films that revolutionized the medium and brought fantastical worlds to life. Stay tuned for the final part, where we’ll explore the transformation of stop motion in the digital age.

The Story of Ray Harryhausen

Possibly the most famous name in the world of stop motion animation is that of the legendary Ray Harryhausen. 

Born in Los Angeles in 1920, he was inspired by the work of animator Willis O’Brian, who had pioneered stop-motion creature effects for live-action films such as The Lost World (1925). As a young lad, Ray was enamoured by O’Brian’s incredible animation work in King Kong (1933), and decided to dedicate his career to the art of stop motion. Eventually, Ray got the chance to work with O’Brian as his protégé on Mighty Joe Young (1949)!

After that, Harryhausen’s career took off. Throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s he designed, crafted, and animated the special effects for many films, bringing a wide range of fantastical creatures and monsters to life. One of his most well-known sequences is from Jason and the Argonauts (1963), in which a group of stop motion skeletons battle with live-action actors. To not only animate a whole group of characters convincingly but also have their movements match and interact with live actors would have taken a lot of painstaking attention to detail. Remember, this was before the days of digital cameras, stop motion capture software, or green screens; what Ray managed to achieve here is nothing short of breathtaking!

Ray retired after the release of his final film, Clash of the Titans (1981), and lived the rest of his life in London until his death in 2013. His legacy has inspired many influential people in the world of animation and film, such as Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. Peter Lord of Aardman (read on for more info!) described Ray Harryhausen as “a one-man industry and a one-man genre.”

Stop motion in Eastern Europe

While the stop motion dinosaurs, monsters, and apes were taking off in America, a very different, somewhat spookier style of stop motion animation was flourishing in Eastern Europe. Throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Czech artist Jiří Trnka became well known for his stop motion animated films, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959). Many of these were full puppet animations with no live-action elements and were often aimed at a grown-up audience.

Following in Trnka’s footsteps, another Czech artist, Jan Švankmajer, has become famous for his surrealist stop-motion films, which often have a beautiful but very unsettling feeling to them, such as Alice (1988), a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, featuring some particularly nightmarish stop motion sequences!

Phill Tippett

The 70s and 80s hailed a golden age in Hollywood for miniature and stop motion special effects. In the wake of the techniques perfected by Ray Harryhausen, stop motion was frequently used to bring impossible imagery to the screen, such as this menacing killer robot in The Terminator (1984).

In the mid-1970s, the production of a small film called Star Wars (1977) used miniatures to help depict the machines and landscapes of its fantastical space setting. They hired a man called Phil Tippett to create and animate a group of stop motion monsters which starred as tiny characters in a game of holographic chess.

For the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Tippett was hired again for several scenes, including the gigantic walking ‘AT-AT’ tanks. He and his team used stop motion to animate the imposing mechanical beasts. 

Phil was soon known as the best in Hollywood when it came to stop motion special effects. His incredible creatures and machines can be seen in many films, including Dragonslayer (1981), Robocop (1987), and Willow (1988). He’s also created personal stop motion projects, such as his short film Prehistoric Beast (1984) and, more recently, a scary horror film called Mad God (2021).

Aardman Animations

Over in the UK, a pair called Peter Lord and David Sproxton had created a new company called Aardman Animations. They were experimenting with the use of modeling clay for stop motion, in a similar style to the American TV show Gumby, which began in 1956.

 In 1975, Lord and Sproxton created Morph, a simple character sculpted out of clay. Episodes of Morph are still being created today, and the medium of modelling clay creates a unique look and feel as it allows animators a lot of fine detail in the puppet’s movements. The company grew during the 80s, and in 1985 they were joined by Nick Park, who produced the iconic duo Wallace and Gromit, which grew into a huge hit throughout the 1990s. They teamed up with Dreamworks and released their first full-length film Chicken Run in 2000, which quickly became the most successful stop motion film ever made! Today, Aardman is a household name in the world of stop motion.

With the accessibility of technology such as digital cameras and software for capturing and playing back frames, it is now easier than ever for budding artists and filmmakers to get started creating their own masterpieces.

And you can too! Buy a HUE Animation Studio kit now to try recreating the above effects – and invent more of your own!

See all episodes in this series:
The history of stop motion part 1: Early cinematic experiments
The history of stop motion part 2: The rise of stop motion special effects
The history of stop motion part 3: Stop motion in the digital age

Author: Ruari Chisholm. Ruari works as a content creator for HUE, making animations and artworks. He has been classically trained in animation and loves everything stop motion!

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