Claymation: Stop Motion Animation Using Malleable Clay
Claymation is stop-motion animation performed with malleable clay figures—typically plasticine modeled over wire armatures—photographed and adjusted frame by frame; the term was trademarked by animator Will Vinton but is now used generically.
Claymation (clay animation) is a form of stop motion in which characters are sculpted from malleable clay and photographed one frame at a time, with small adjustments between frames. Played back at the standard 24-frames-per-second frame rate, the sequence produces the illusion of motion. **Materials and method.** The standard material is plasticine, an oil-based clay that does not dry or harden, allowing endless re-posing. Figures are usually built over wire armatures that give them a stable, bendable internal skeleton. Animating \"on twos\" (one pose held for two frames) requires about 12 adjustments per second of film; a 90-minute feature can demand on the order of 65,000 individual frame changes. **Styles.** *Character claymation* keeps figures in consistent recognizable forms. *Freeform claymation* lets shapes morph radically. *Strata-cut* animation slices through a prepared clay loaf to reveal evolving internal images, and *clay painting* manipulates clay like wet paint on a flat surface. **History and notable works.** Early clay films include Edwin S. Porter's *Fun in a Bakery Shop* (1902). Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner won an Academy Award for *Closed Mondays* (1974), and Vinton trademarked the term \"Claymation.\" Joan Gratz's *Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase* won an Oscar in 1992. The most commercially successful clay animation comes from Aardman Animations—Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit and *Creature Comforts* (1989), and *Chicken Run* (2000), long the highest-grossing stop-motion film.