Animating with Stop Motion Pro

Chapter 5

Animate Puppets

Ladislas Starewitch

Eastern Europe was the birthplace of many stop motion pioneers. John Halas and Roger Manvell, in their book The Technique of Film Animation (Focal Press, 1953), postulated a likely reason: “The main development of the puppet-doll film has been in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and Germany, all of those countries where there is a peasant tradition of craftsmanship in the carving and designing of puppets and dolls.” (p. 263)

One of the earliest known practitioners of the puppet film from this region began as a natural scientist. Ladislas Starewitch was a Polish-Russian scientist who began documenting insect life using motion pictures during his stay at the Museum of Natural History at Korvo, Russia. ...