Stop-Motion Anime

T

Turtleheart

Kiznaiver
I'll start with what is perhaps the most famous and most loved (at least internationally) of stop-motion anime short films, Dôjôji (1976, dir. KAWAMOTO Kihachirô). I tried to pick just a few still which do something to convey how awesome this animation is, but without showing the very best bits, so as not to spoil the surprise of all them. I don't think I've been very successful… They look much better when they're moving. I myself find this film particularly notable for the combined use of 2D and 3D animation in the dragon attack sequence (the dragon being 3D, while the fire is 2D and translucent – I still don't know how this was achieved) and also for the singularly powerful use of only changes in lighting (the characters' faces being fixed, like nô masks) to convey emotion, drama and foreboding.
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There a few other filmmakers with which I'd like to continue this thread, but first I must give a shout out to Kawamoto: The Puppet Master, a season of the directors short films and feature The Book of the Dead which begins on 15 March 2008 (this month). Click the link for the Web site. There I found these stills from my two personal favourites of his works – Tabi (Travel, 1973) and, best of all, Ibara-Hime matawa Nemuri-Hime (Briar-Rose or The Sleeping Beauty, 1990).

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Out of the non-Kawamoto films which are also showing at some locations, I'd first and foremost recommended Joe Tucker's For the Love of God and then Barry Purves' Screen Play, which are the most powerful 10 minutes I've spent in a cinema and on YouTube respectively (though don't go searching for either of them; the trailer and excerpt are both quite spoilerrific).
 
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