Editing Claymation (section)

==History==
[[File:The Sculptor's Nightmare (Wallace McCutcheon, 1908).webm|thumb|thumbtime=2|''The Sculptor's Nightmare'' (1908)]]

[[William Harbutt]] developed [[plasticine]] in 1897. To promote his educational "Plastic Method" he made a handbook that included several photographs that displayed various stages of creative projects. The images suggest phases of motion or change, but the book probably did not have a direct influence on claymation films. Still, the plasticine product would become the favourite  product for clay animators, as it did not dry and harden (unlike normal clay) and was much more malleable than its harder and greasier Italian predecessor plasteline.<ref name="Frierson 1993 142–157">{{Cite journal|last=Frierson|first=Michael|date=1993|title=The Invention of Plasticine and the Use of Clay in Early Motion Pictures|journal=Film History|volume=5|issue=2|pages=142–157|jstor=27670717|issn=0892-2160}}</ref>

[[Edwin S. Porter]]'s ''[[Fun in a Bakery Shop]]'' (1902) shows a single shot of a baker quickly transforming a patch of dough into different faces. It reflects the [[vaudeville]] type of "lightning sketches" that [[J. Stuart Blackton]] filmed in ''[[The Enchanted Drawing]]'' (1902) with the addition of [[stop trick]]s, and with early cinematic animation in ''[[Humorous Phases of Funny Faces]]'' (1906). A similar form of "lightning sculpting" had been performed live on stage around the turn of the century.<ref name="Frierson 1993 142–157"/>

[[Segundo de Chomón]]'s ''Sculpteur Moderne'' was released on 31 January 1908<ref>{{Citation|title=Modern Sculptors (1908) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140537/reference|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-11-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201122165323/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140537/reference|url-status=live}}</ref> and features heaps of clay molding themselves into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into a sitting old lady.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55zbu|title=El escultor moderno - Vídeo Dailymotion|website=Dailymotion|date=22 April 2008 |language=en|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-06-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604033057/https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55zbu|url-status=live}}</ref> On 15 February 1908, Porter released the [[trick film]] ''A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream'' that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts.<ref>{{Citation|title=A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream (1908) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1864244/reference|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128223219/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1864244/reference|url-status=live}}</ref> No copy of the film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film ''The Sculptor's Nightmare'' (6 May 1908), directed by [[Wallace McCutcheon Sr.]] and photographed by [[Billy Bitzer]] with cameo appearances of [[D.W. Griffith]] and [[Mack Sennett]].<ref>{{Citation|title=The Sculptor's Nightmare (1908) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000756/reference|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-11-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201120205856/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000756/reference|url-status=live}}</ref> The busts are also animated to blink, speak, drink and turn left and right for a short sequence.

[[J. Stuart Blackton]]'s ''Chew Chew Land; or, The Adventures of Dolly and Jim'' (1910) features primitive claymation in chewing-gum inspired dream scenes.<ref>{{Citation|title=Chew Chew Land; or, The Adventures of Dolly and Jim (1910) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338854/plotsummary|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-11-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124093806/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338854/plotsummary|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Walter R. Booth]]'s ''Animated Putty'' (1911) featured clay molding itself into different shapes.<ref>{{cite video|title=Animated Putty (1911)|work=BFI National Archive|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=217&v=d_GyAAl6gW4&feature=emb_logo|via=YouTube|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2021-03-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310072302/https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=217&v=d_GyAAl6gW4&feature=emb_logo|url-status=live}}</ref>

Willie Hopkins produced over fifty clay-animated segments entitled ''Miracles in Mud''<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Harryhausen|first1=Ray|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h9o4AQAAIAAJ&q=%22miracles+in+mud%22|title=A Century of Stop Motion Animation: From Méliès to Aardman|last2=Dalton|first2=Tony|date=2008|publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications|isbn=978-0-8230-9980-1|language=en|access-date=2020-11-26|archive-date=2022-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728060053/https://books.google.com/books?id=h9o4AQAAIAAJ&q=%22miracles+in+mud%22|url-status=live}}</ref> for the weekly ''Universal Screen Magazine'' from 1916 to 1918.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}} He also made artistic modeled titles for the movie ''Everywoman'' (1919).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19200126&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1|title=Los Angeles Herald 26 January 1920 — California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=2020-02-20|archive-date=2020-07-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728155246/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19200126&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Stills from Helena Smith-Dayton films (1917-02 Popular Science Monthly V 90 p. 257).jpg|thumb|stills from ''Battle of the Suds'' and other Helena Smith-Dayton films (1917)]]

New York artist [[Helena Smith Dayton]], possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with claymation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' circa half a year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention from the press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and circa 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://journal.animationstudies.org/jason-douglass-artist-author-and-pioneering-motion-picture-animator-the-career-of-helena-smith-dayton-runner-up/|title=Jason Douglass – Artist, Author, and Pioneering Motion Picture Animator: The Career of Helena Smith Dayton (runner-up) – Animation Studies|language=en-US|access-date=2020-01-25|archive-date=2021-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308133430/https://journal.animationstudies.org/jason-douglass-artist-author-and-pioneering-motion-picture-animator-the-career-of-helena-smith-dayton-runner-up/|url-status=live}}</ref>

By the 1920s, drawn animation using either cels or the slash system was firmly established in the U.S. as the dominant mode of animation production. Increasingly, three-dimensional forms such as clay were driven into relative obscurity as the cel method became the preferred method for the studio cartoon.<ref name=Frierson>{{cite book|title=Clay comes out of the inkwell (in ''Animation Journal - Fall 1993'')|last=Frierson|first=Michael|year=1993}}</ref> Cel animation can be more easily divided into small tasks performed by many workers, like an assembly line.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116413&page=1|title=A History of Clay Animation|website=ABC News|access-date=2021-02-14|archive-date=2020-11-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109032209/https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116413&page=1|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1921, claymation appeared in a short sequence in the ''[[Out of the Inkwell]]'' episode ''Modeling'', a film from the newly formed [[Fleischer Brothers]] studio. ''Modeling'' included animated clay in eight shots, a novel integration of the technique into an existing cartoon series and one of the rare uses of claymation in a theatrical short from the 1920s.<ref name=Frierson/>

The oldest known extant claymation film (with claymation as its main production method) is ''Long Live the Bull'' (1926)<ref>{{Citation|last=Sunn|first=Joseph|title=Long Live the Bull|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7917740/|type=Animation, Short|publisher=Plastic Art Productions|access-date=2021-11-01|archive-date=2021-10-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028050127/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7917740/|url-status=live}}</ref> by [[Joseph Sunn]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://yestervid.com/the-oldest-surviving-claymation-film-from-1926/|title=The Oldest Surviving Claymation Film - From 1926!|date=2015-04-30|website=Yestervid|language=en|access-date=2020-01-25|archive-date=2020-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200125061809/http://yestervid.com/the-oldest-surviving-claymation-film-from-1926/|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Long Live the Bull! (1926).webm|thumb|thumbtime=10|''[[Long Live the Bull]]'' (1926), the oldest known extant claymation film.]]

[[Art Clokey]]'s short student film ''[[Gumbasia]]'' (1955) featured all kinds of clay objects changing shape and moving to a jazz tune.<ref>{{Citation|title=Gumbasia (1955) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0788085/reference|access-date=2020-01-25|archive-date=2020-11-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125072738/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0788085/reference|url-status=live}}</ref> He also created the iconic character [[Gumby]] that would feature in segments in ''[[Howdy Doody]]'' in 1955 and 1956, and afterwards got his own television series (1957-1969, 1987-1989) and a theatrical film (1995). Clokey also produced ''[[Davey and Goliath]]'' (1960–2004) for the [[United Lutheran Church in America]].

Claymation has been popularized on television in children's shows such as ''[[Mio Mao]]'' (1970-1976, 2002-2007 - Italy), ''[[The Red and the Blue (TV series)|The Red and the Blue]]'' (1976 - Italy) and  ''[[Pingu]]'' (1990-2000 - Switzerland, 2003-2006 - U.K.)

In 1972, at Marc Chinoy's Cineplast Films Studio in Munich, Germany, [[André Roche]] created a set of clay-animated German-language-instruction films (for non-German-speaking children) called ''[[Kli-Kla-Klawitter]]'' for the Second German TV-Channel; and another one for a traffic education series, ''Herr Daniel paßt auf'' ("Mr. Daniel Pays Attention").

[[File:Morph-NMM-Bradford.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Morph (TV series)|Morph]]]]
[[Aardman Animations]] was founded in 1972. In its early years, the studio mainly produced segments for television shows, with for instance the popular character [[Morph (animation)|Morph]] (appearing since 1977).

Claymation has been used in [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-winning short films such as ''[[Closed Mondays]]'' (Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner, 1974)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/06/will-vintons-claymation-marvels-thur.html|title=Oddball Films: Will Vinton's Claymation Marvels - Thur. June 12 - 8PM|access-date=2018-10-13|archive-date=2018-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180910061206/http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/2014/06/will-vintons-claymation-marvels-thur.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and ''[[The Sand Castle (1977 film)|The Sand Castle]]'' (1977).

Pioneering the [[clay painting]] technique was one-time [[Will Vinton Studios]] animator [[Joan Gratz]], first in her Oscar-nominated film ''The Creation'' (1980), and then in her Oscar-winning ''[[Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase]]'', filmed in 1992.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.opb.org/television/programs/artbeat/segment/portland-animator-joan-gratz-clay-painting-mona-lisa-descending-staircase/|title=Animator Joan Gratz Embraces Technology To Create Her Newest Films|last=Sarson|first=Katrina|date=April 27, 2017|website=Oregon Public Broadcasting|access-date=January 30, 2018|archive-date=December 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171204014333/https://www.opb.org/television/programs/artbeat/segment/portland-animator-joan-gratz-clay-painting-mona-lisa-descending-staircase/|url-status=live}}</ref> Another Vinton animator, [[Craig Bartlett]], developed a technique in which he not only used clay painting but sometimes built up clay images that rose off the plane of the flat support platform toward the [[Photographic lens|camera lens]] to give a more 3-D stop-motion look to his [[Hey Arnold!]] films.

[[Nick Park]] joined Aardman in 1985. Early in his career, he and Aardman helped make the award-winning animated video for [[Peter Gabriel]]'s song "[[Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel song)|Sledgehammer]]" in 1986.  Park would become the most successful claymation director, receiving a total of six [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] nominations and winning four with ''[[Creature Comforts]]'' (1989) (the first [[Wallace and Gromit]] film ''[[A Grand Day Out]]'' was also nominated), ''[[The Wrong Trousers]]'' (1993), ''[[A Close Shave]]'' (1995) and ''[[Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit]]'' (2005).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aardman.com/about-us/history/|title=Aaardman – Company History|access-date=12 Oct 2011|archive-date=24 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200824064404/https://www.aardman.com/the-studio/history//|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Wallace and Gromit'' spin-off ''[[Shaun the Sheep]]'' has also proved hugely successful with long-running television series (since 2007), theatrical movies and its own spin-off ''[[Timmy Time]]'' (since 2009).

Aardman's ''[[Chicken Run]]'' (2000) became the [[List of highest-grossing animated films#Stop motion animation|highest-grossing stop motion animated film in history]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The Longer View: British animation|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z9xvcwx|publisher=BBC|access-date=9 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928030113/http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z9xvcwx|archive-date=28 September 2015|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Aardman's ''[[Flushed Away]]'' is a [[computer-generated imagery|CGI]] replication of claymation.<ref name="bbc1st">{{cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4720176.stm | title=First look at Aardman's rat movie | date=16 February 2006 | publisher=BBC | work=BBC News Online | access-date=13 October 2018 | archive-date=28 July 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728060054/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4720176.stm | url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Alexander Tatarsky]] managed to get work at Multtelefilm division of Studio Ekran with the help of [[Eduard Uspensky]] who wrote the screenplay for Tatarsky's first director's effort — ''[[Plasticine Crow]]'' (1981), which also happened to be Soviet first claymation film. After the enormous success Tatarsky was offered to create new opening and closing sequences for the popular children's TV show ''[[Good Night, Little Ones!]]'' also made of plasticine; they were later included into the Guinness Book of Records by the number of broadcasts. It was followed by two other claymation shorts: ''[[New Year's Eve Song by Ded Moroz]]'' (1982) and ''[[Last Year's Snow Was Falling]]'' (1983).

[[Garri Bardin]] directed several claymation comedy films, including ''[[Break!]]'', a parody on a boxing match for which Bardin received a Golden Dove award at the 1986 [[Dok Leipzig]].

[[Television advertisement|Television commercials]] have utilized claymation, spawning for instance ''[[The California Raisins]]'' (1986-1998, Vinton Studios) and the [[Chevron Cars]] ads (Aardman).

''[[The PJs]]'' (1999–2001) was a sitcom featuring the voice of [[Eddie Murphy]], produced by Murphy in collaboration with [[Ron Howard]], the Will Vinton Studios and others.

Many independent young filmmakers have published claymations online, on such sites as [[Newgrounds]].

More adult-oriented claymation shows have been broadcast on [[Cartoon Network]]'s [[Adult Swim]] lineup, including ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' (which uses claymation and [[action figure]]s as stop-motion puppets in conjunction) and ''[[Moral Orel]].'' [[Nickelodeon]]'s [[Nick at Nite]] later developed their own adult show, ''[[Glenn Martin, DDS]]'' (2009-2011).

Several [[Video game|computer games]] have been produced using claymation, including ''[[The Neverhood]]'', ''[[ClayFighter (video game)|ClayFighter]]'', ''[[Platypus (game)|Platypus]]'', Clay Moon (iPhone app), and ''[[Primal Rage]]''. The surrealist [[role-playing video game]]s ''[[Hylics]]'' (2015) and ''[[Hylics 2]]'' (2020) both utilize claymation to achieve a distinctive visual style.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gach |first=Ethan |date=2018-01-17 |title=Claymation JRPG Hylics 2 Is Looking Twisted As Heck |url=https://kotaku.com/claymation-jrpg-hylics-2-is-looking-twisted-as-heck-1822166645 |access-date=2024-07-02 |website=Kotaku |language=en}}</ref> Probably the most spectacular use of model animation for a computer game was for the [[Virgin Interactive Entertainment]] [[Mythos Games|Mythos]] game ''[[Magic and Mayhem]]'' (1998), for which stop-motion animator and special-effects expert Alan Friswell constructed over 25 monsters and mythological characters utilising both modelling clay and latex rubber, over wire and ball-and-socket skeletons, much like the designs of [[Willis O'Brien]] and [[Ray Harryhausen]].