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Pixilation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pixilation (from pixilated) is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor becomes a kind of living stop motion puppet. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a film, such as in The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb by the Bolex Brothers, which used the technique to compelling and eerie effect.
The first work known to use the pixilation technique was Emile Courtet's 1911 film Jobard ne peut pas voir les femmes travailler (Jobard cannot see the women working).
Other well-known examples include Norman McLaren's short films Neighbours and A Chairy Tale, Chuck Menville and Len Janson's extraordinary trilogy of pixilated short films (Vicious Cycles - 1967, Blaze GLory - 1968, and Sergeant Swell of the Mounties - 1972), the music videos for "Road to Nowhere" by Talking Heads, "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, "Point of No Return" by Nu Shooz, "Heard 'Em Say" by Kanye West, "Shopping Trolley" by Beth Orton, and Mike Jittlov's tour-de-force short The Wizard of Speed and Time. Jittlov made a feature film with many pixiliation sequences, also titled The Wizard of Speed and Time, based on the making of the original short.
The pixilation technique was also used for the opening of Claymation, Will Vinton's 1978 17 minute documentary about his animation studio's production techniques, the first time the famous trademarked Claymation term was used, now a term synonymous with all clay animation.
The Czech animator Jan Švankmajer also uses pixilation in most of his work; most notably "Food." A recent example of the technique is the Stephen Malkmus' video clip "Baby C'mon" [1].
An effect similar to Pixilation can be achieved by dropping occasional frames from a conventionally-recorded film. While obviously easier than the stop-frame technique, this doesn't achieve the same quality.