Aardman animations is a British animation company that specialises in stop motion. The models used are typically made of clay and armatures- a development on O’Brien’s armatures used in King Kong. First they make the metal frame so that they are able to move them realistically as they build joints, shoulders, hips, etc so that when they move the limbs they keep their form. After this they build the clay up around the skeleton. We see the characters breathing, speaking and moving realistically. Aardman developed O’Brian’s use of armatures and model making. Aardman use ball and socket armatures as these are much more flexible but are more expensive, hence why animators on a budget use wire armatures. O’Brian used ball and socket armatures in 1933 for King Kong, which prompted many later animators to do the same. Ball and socket armatures make the animation more realistic as the skeletons are more realistic so enable the models to move properly. Wire armatures have more limited movement as they do not have joints so movement will not be as smooth. Ball and socket armatures are also strong as they are made out of pieces of metal joined together, whereas, wire is a lot thinner.
Aardman have developed lip syncing. King Kong for example, did not need to use lip syncing as the gorilla did not speak. However, as characters in Aardman animations speak for a feature length production, they need to develop lip syncing to dialogue. The mouths lip sync the dialogue so smoothly that you wouldn’t notice that it is lip synced. The jaw is part of the armature that will move to create the movement and the clay is then moved over the top of that to create the expression of the mouth. Aardman often stick to the standard 24 frames per second, while Chicken Run was only 20 frames per second due to budget restrictions.
Modern animators introduced stop motion animation to a much wider audience as it is used inblockbusters with huge budgets. The models have also improved greatly as the models now have facial expressions, where they werent able to do this previously. As a blockbuster the animators have much higher budgets to previously as well as developed technology. The movement of models is now much more realistic then it was previously. The armatures are also more advanced (see left) as they have joints, hinges and metal plates under the models. You can now watch an animation and forget that this movement is made frame by frame as it is so realistic.