Claymations

Over Thanksgiving break I saw a trailer for an animated movie “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.” This particular animation was claymation. Although we did not talk much about animated movies in class, I think that many of the topics that we have discussed can apply to this particular genre. Creating an animated movie, specifically a claymation, can be even more difficult than creating a live movie. Both kinds of movies have the three steps, preproduction, production, and postproduction, but there is one major difference, live movies have actors and animated movies have characters. In claymation, these characters have to be adjusted each time they are supposed to move because they are made out of clay. This adds another obstacle and more time in the production process. It seems as though, creating a claymation movie would require more time in each step of production. For example, in preproduction not only would the plot be established, but the characters would also have to be designed and prototypes would have to be created. Production takes more time in a claymation, because every time the character is supposed to move, the character must be modified to show the changes in movement. Finally in postproduction, the editing must be seamless to give the illusion that the clay character is actually moving. It seems as though it could take years to create a claymation. I think that it is going to be difficult creating a short film featuring live people, but I could not imagine how daunting it would be to create a claymation.