Footnote #31 - Claymation

Fantasy/Animation

From the invention of Plasticine by William Harbutt in Britain in 1897 to the use of malleable materials in the earliest stop-motion ‘trick films’ of Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, and the Fleischer Brothers, the application of clay in animation has a history as long as the medium itself. In Footnote #31 of the podcast, Chris and Alex deliberate the evolution of clay animation, including the patenting of ‘Claymation’ in the early-1980s and its emergent synonymy with the Bristol-based Aardman studio; distinctions between more freeform and fluid clay animation and the moveable, modelled bodies of Wallace and Gromit; and how this craft-based handmade style came to embody (and continues to define) the Aardman studio’s animated spirit in an era of pervasive and pristine computer graphics.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**