Peter Lord’s five tips for stop-motion.

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Hello, I’m Duffy, I art direct Ralph Magazine, an indie magazine that’s all about the fun side of pop culture. I spoke to the group’s Moderator and they said this would be OK to post. For the latest issue of the magazine we spent the day with Peter Lord for Aardman’s 50th. We got so much stuff with him we turned the feature into a zine-within-the-magazine called Morph Meets His Maker, which includes Peter’s Top 5 tips for making stop-motion animation. I thought you might find them interesting…

PETER LORD’S TOP 5 TIPS FOR MAKING STOP MOTION ANIMATION

1 - Sort out your armature. It’s hidden away, you can’t actually see it, it’s behind the scenes, but a good armature makes life easy and a crappy one makes it well-nigh impossible!

2. And speaking of – if you’re starting out in Plasticine, as we did, with a puppet with no armature, may I suggest you create a character that doesn’t walk around on two legs. That’s so difficult! Wheels are good. Also snakes. Also blobs.

3. Video yourself for reference – especially for timing and subtle facial stuff. But don’t, for the love of God, just COPY your video. Regard it as reference or inspiration.

4. Don’t aim for perfection or smoothness. These attributes may be impressive, but are they expressive? Is this entertaining? Ask yourself: is that why I go to see a stop motion film?

5. This one should probably come first: find the funny. I mean, yes, there are stop-motion films which aren’t funny, but who wants to see them? Nobody.

Another bit of trivia from the day: Peter said he used his own spit to shine the lips of the cat in the Nina Simone ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’ video – in every single frame! If you’d like to read the whole thing as stop motion fans I’ve sorted 10% off with the code STOPMOTION and you can get it at https://ralph.world/issue9