an excuse to discuss rudolph the red-nosed reindeer

I’ve always been fascinated with stop action animation as a medium, probably because it’s so labor intensive (and probably also because I grew up with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Wallace &
Gromit and so many other claymation kid-oriented work out there). Working in precise, meticulous terms is always something that I’m awed by, probably because fiction writing allows me the opportunity to write in a whirlwind and correct later, rather than create in a slower way which requires working out things on a micro level until it works before moving on. I don’t have the patience for it, and so I’m intrigued by it.

But the stop-action in Stop Motion Studies is of a very different breed. And I found myself even becoming impatient with it as it went along. Perhaps it’s the disconnect of it, the jump between sections both in the actual photographs and for the “reader,” who is experiencing brief pieces, linking only a few photos that are presented in loops of no more than a couple of seconds that one can watch once or twice or sit staring at indefinitely. Because these are only short loops connected by the reader’s navigation between screens and whatever thematic (and clearly locational) correlations he or she makes, it never fully coalesces into one piece for me, becomes there are too many jumps.

So this may seem like a silly question, but I’m curious why this (side note: while searching for Wallace and Gromit videos on youtube, I found a LOT of edited together and played with versions, which felt relevant to me; thus the clip I’m giving you guys is one some guy edited together with Flight of the Conchords music layered on top of it, which amused me):



is less appealing to me than the stop motion pieces, why I am drawn to Wallace and Gromit and even silly remixes of it, but am put off by these other pieces, despite the similar attention to detail that I find fascinating about both poles of what we consider “stop action/motion.” I’m sure there are a lot of little reasons. Wallace and Gromit is adorable. It involves an evil penguin and a wide assortment of cheese. There are a lot of very simple jokes in it (Gromit getting into the fridge and finding a handful of bunnies pretending to be condiments and hiding behind celery). But I have a feeling there’s something more basic to it too.

I feel like I get the point to Wallace and Gromit, whatever that point might be. It’s linear, it’s accessible, it says something clear. I find myself alienated in all these ways from the Stop Motion Studies. There’s no linearity to it apart from the omnipresence of the subway. We are only given small, distant glimpses of people and as a result are alienated from them, something I think is aggravated by the fact that people usually appear in three sections or less. There is no consistency of personality in it. So what am I supposed to feel from beginning to end? I’ve gone through a lot of it and I still have no idea.

Perhaps the delineative aspects of it are exactly its point, that it’s saying something is essentially delineated about life and that observences on the subway offer us perfect examples of this. But in this case, the point is labored. Why continue to make essentially the same piece over and over again? As usual, I might feel clueless on this, but I am, as so often happens, lost.

I’m intrigued by the idea of searching for lines in things that might not necessarily have lines. Putting lines where they don’t belong. If I felt like a plot was implied in these images, particularly if it’s clear there was none in the first place, perhaps I would be less resistant to them.