Major Post 14: Tadahito Mochiaga

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

 

Today in class we discussed Japanese animation. However, between the discussion of the amazing 2d animation of Hayao Miyazaki and Tezuka Osamu Professor Zhang mentioned one man that I had never heard of before. That man was Tadahito Mochiaga. It found him very interesting since in my preliminary research for this post I found that he holds the unique pleasure of being one of the only artists to have worked in both the Chinese and Japanese animation industry.

Tadahito Mochiaga  pioneered Japanese stop motion animation and is best known for working with MOM Productions. This Japan based studio was regularly outsourced by American directors, like Arthur Rankin Jr., to do the animations for their various films and commercials. He was an animation supervision on one of my favorite holiday stop motion movies “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as well as a very interesting film called Mad Monster Party?. I will link the trailer below. The animation in it seems much more seamless and life like compared to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

LeAnn Schmitt

Major Post 9 – Stop-motion Animation Studios

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

It was great to see the small beginnings of stop-motion animation using puppets. Earliest forms of it realeased around 1899 and it continued to developed even further as time passed. Not only was it used purely for animation, this technique would also be featured in live action films as well. Most notable films that made use of this was The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933). Nowadays, there are companies who specialize in this type of animation production. Two of the more popular studios are Aardman Animations and Laika Animation Studios.

Aardman Animations was founded in 1972 and is most well-known for their animated shorts featuring the adventures of Wallace and Gromit. Some of their most notable films are Chicken Run (2000), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and Flushed Away (2006). They are also known for the children’s cartoon series Shaun the Sheep (2007). During their earlier years they formed a partnership with Dreamworks Animation. They helped them create the films listed above, however, after the box-office reception of Flushed Away Dreamwork’s decided to end their partnership. This was despite the film receiving a nomination for the BAFTA award for Best Animated Film.

Laika Studios was founded back in 2005 and they specialize in feature films, commercial content for all media, music videos, and short films. Their most notable films include Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and Missing Link (2019). Their films have received nominations and awards from different ceremonies. They’re known to show their meticulous process to the public. Seeing their process and then the final outcome must be very fulfilling for them.

It’s great to see the development of this technique throughout the years and I hope that it continues on and evolves even further.

Julia Reymundo