Stop motion animators

Stop motion animation

Ray Harryhausen

American born British artist. He was an artist, designer, visual effects creator, writer and producer. Known for created a form of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation". Dynamation used a split screen and rear projection.  His technique of use rear and front-projecting footage one frame at a time while animating is still used by animators today. 

His works include: Might Joe Young (1949), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and Clash of the Titans (1981)

His work inspired filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Wes Anderson, Henry Selick, Tim Burton, Nick Park, James Cameron, and Guilermo del Toro. Most of his films featured modeled animated characters that interact with, or are part of, the live action world. Also, Harryhausen maintained full technical control by developing and executing most of this miniature work himself.

Phil Tippett

American movie director, Oscar and Emmy award winner. He is a visual effects supervisor and producer, specilising in creature design, stop-motion, and computerised character animation. He has worked with Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and DreamWorks, but then moving on to form his own company, Tippett Studio, in 1984.

Known for working on the original Star Wars trilogy, Dragonslayer, Jurassic Park, and Starship Troopers. He also created Go motion. Go motion is a variation of stop motion animation which incorporates motion blur into each frame that involves motion.

Though he was talented at stop-motion, he moved on into CGI. The most likely reason for this is due to the influence of the world changing and wanting more CGI in their films. It was faster and easier than physically making every different creature and having to move them one step at a time.

I like both of their works and it is hard to pick with one I liked the most, but I think I will have to go with Phil Tippet (when he works on others works but not his own) with Star Wars and Jurassic Park. For the time, these were amazingly done and till this day still looks really good. I like how he was able to merge the two different worlds of animation and live action together without much trouble. I wish to one day create something that can have both aspects of animation and real life for myself.