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Ball Face becomes first film to win four awards in one year at OIAF Laurence Thérien's clay-animated student short Ball Face won four prizes at the 50th Ottawa International Animation Festival: the Public Prize, Canadian Student Award, Bento Box…
Animator Sammy Lewis describes the 15-year path to Aardman and Beast of Mossy Bottom Australian animator Sammy Lewis has described the 15-year path from arriving unannounced at Aardman with a student showreel to returning as an animator on Shaun the Sheep: The…
SCAD AnimationFest spotlights stop-motion with The Tooth Seed and Wildwood artists SCAD AnimationFest opened its 10th-anniversary edition in Atlanta with a new animation competition that includes Cecilia Mendoza's stop-motion short The Tooth Seed. SCAD's…
My Melody & Kuromi receives 2026 International Emmy nomination The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated My Melody & Kuromi in the Kids: Animation category for the 2026 International Emmy Awards. The Japanese…
Wildwood's voice cast reveal how filmed booth sessions -- not just audio -- became animator reference Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay and director Chris Butler describe how Wildwood's voice performances -- recorded as early as 2021, years before animation began -- were filmed…
Aardman auctions Wallace, Gromit, Feathers McGraw and the original Morph puppets for its 50th anniversary Aardman is auctioning more than 220 lots of production puppets and props through Propstore to mark its 50th anniversary, with bidding open since September 4, 2026 and the live…
LAIKA's release-week set visit names Wildwood's fabrication crew, puppet mechanisms and a 142,030-face record Paragraph 1: A cluster of release-week studio-visit pieces (Animation Scoop's Bill Desowitz, 2026-09-16; The Nerds of Color's Mike Manalo, 2026-09-17, reporting on a July 2026…
Aardman on lighting, "thumbiness" and Gaussian-splat sets for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom Ahead of its September 18, 2026 theatrical release, two interviews laid out how Aardman built its third Shaun the Sheep feature -- and how the studio thinks about craft versus…
LAIKA opens Wildwood: Inside the Performance exhibit at TIFF 2026 LAIKA opened a public Wildwood exhibit at Portland Square Gallery during TIFF week (media preview September 9, public hours September 10-19, 2026), displaying actual production…
LAIKA launches "Made By Humans" interview series with Sony Music Group LAIKA debuted "Made By Humans: Creatives in Conversation" on September 9, 2026, a multi-episode interview series produced with Sony Music Group that pairs LAIKA artists with…
Ambriz Bros' stop-motion follow-up heads to Venice; Aardman marks 50 years with a puppet auction I Am Frankelda directors Roy and Arturo Ambriz (Cinema Fantasma) presented their next stop-motion feature, The Ballad of the Phoenix, at the Venice Gap-Financing Market (Sept 4-6,…
Aardman marks 50th anniversary at Annecy; LAIKA's Wildwood confirmed for Oct 23 release This run's sweep found Aardman celebrating its 50th anniversary with an Annecy showcase reaffirming Let's Go Timmy! and Danger Delilah (both already catalogued) plus a newly…
Wildwood's cinematography: Caleb Deschanel on shooting his first stop-motion feature At the Telluride Film Festival on September 7, 2026, LAIKA paired director Travis Knight with six-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel -- shooting his…
Memoir of a Snail's making-of: hand-mixed tears and an all-practical clay workflow Coverage around Memoir of a Snail's 2024 release detailed writer-director Adam Elliot's insistence on an entirely practical, no-CGI claymation shoot at his independent Melbourne…
Ambriz Brothers take stop-motion follow-up 'The Ballad of the Phoenix' to Venice's financing market Roy and Arturo Ambriz ('I Am Frankelda') are bringing their long-gestating stop-motion fantasy 'The Ballad of the Phoenix' to Venice's financing market. The film follows Virian, a…
Inside Tippett Studio's stop-motion Cyclops puppet for Poker Face Tippett Studio built a stop-motion Cyclops creature for "The Orpheus Syndrome," an Emmy-nominated episode of Peacock's Poker Face (director Rian Johnson) that pays tribute to Phil…
Annecy 2026 puts stop-motion center stage: honorary Cristal for the Brothers Quay, 50th-anniversary Aardman tribute The 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival gave stop-motion a headline role: honorary Cristal Awards went to the Brothers Quay, credited by artistic director Marcel…
PFCAT 2026 posts its awards page, naming five stop-motion works already in the catalogue as winners PFCAT (Portland, Aug 18-23, 2026) published its 2026 awards page. Stop-motion winners: Best Animated Feature -- Memory Hotel (Heinrich Sabl); Grand Prize in Animation and Best…
Indy Shorts 2026 crowns Bára Anna Stejskalová's stop-motion/CGI hybrid '9 Million Colors'; Brothers Quay's Annecy honor surfaces 9 Million Colors (Bionaut/Foliascope/Trollfilm), a dialogue-free stop-motion/CGI hybrid short about a mantis shrimp and a blind fish, won the Academy Award-Qualifying Animated…
Phil Tippett closes his Berkeley studio after nearly 40 years Phil Tippett closed the Berkeley, California facility of Tippett Studio in late August 2026, holding a three-day liquidation auction (August 28-30) of stop-motion models, cameras…
PFCAT 2026 spotlights 30+ stop-motion films as LAIKA's Wildwood and Aardman's Beast of Mossy Bottom near release The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT), Aug 18-23, 2026, features more than 30 stop-motion works including two features -- Heinrich Sabl's Memory Hotel…
Dragonframe's Arc motion control adds DUCO, DOBOT and Fairino cobot arm support Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog has widened Arc, the motion-control workspace, beyond the Universal Robots six-axis arm support it added in July: the 2027.01…
A making-of retrospective details how Virgil Widrich folded 65,000 printed frames into Fast Film's paper sets Animation World Network's 'Tearing up the Tracks: Virgil Widrich's Fast Film' documents the making of Widrich's 2003 short, built from more than 65,000 individual paper printouts…
A 2025 R&D case study details Aardman's VR 'Puppet Sculpt' tool for reviewing digital puppet designs A 2025 case study in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, by researcher Tom Livingstone (University of the West of England) working…
Ottawa 2026 marks 50th edition with von Bahr short in competition The Ottawa International Animation Festival announced its 2026 selections for its 50th-anniversary edition (September 23-27, 2026, ~200+ films). Niki Lindroth von Bahr's…
LAIKA drops first Wildwood trailer; PFCAT 2026 spotlights 30+ stop-motion films in Portland LAIKA released the first full trailer for Wildwood, Travis Knight's stop-motion adaptation of Colin Meloy's novel, ahead of its October 23, 2026 US theatrical release. Separately,…
Miyu's "Animation in Conversation" debut: Anna Mantzaris and the Cartoon Physics duo on directing while making, and reference from real reactions Miyu Distribution launched a new interview series, "Animation in Conversation," on its Bang Bang YouTube channel (2026-08-21) -- an unscripted, roughly 40-minute conversation…
How Aardman faked a marching robot army for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl without building dozens of puppets For a scene needing a marching crowd of small robot henchmen ("Norbots") in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Aardman avoided building dozens of individual puppets.…
Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts is running a stop-motion puppet exhibition through November Community sweep of Cartoon Brew, AWN and studio press found the Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta) is midway through 'Frame by Frame: The Art of Stop-Motion Animation' (June 12 -…
Annecy 2026 stop-motion wins and LAIKA/Aardman release dates confirmed Community sweep of Cartoon Brew, AWN, and Annecy 2026 coverage found the festival Young Audience Award going to Antonin Niclass stop-motion short Into the Forest, plus fresh…
PFCAT and Frame Fest bring dozens of stop-motion selections to late-August 2026 festival calendar Two U.S. festivals with substantial stop-motion programming land in the second half of August 2026: the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT, Aug 18-23)…
LAIKA's Craft in Motion series shows how animators fake motion blur with hand-built smear frames LAIKA's official "Craft in Motion" video series published a new entry, "Craft in Motion: Smear Frames in Stop-Motion Animation" (LAIKA Studios YouTube channel, 2026-07-03),…
How Aardman faked 300-mph motion blur on The Wrong Trousers' toy-train chase by moving the camera, not the train Inverse's retrospective on the making of Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) recounts how cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett and the camera crew created the model-train…
Deborah Cook on engineering Kubo and the Two Strings' costumes down to the millimeter LAIKA costume designer Deborah Cook (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link) described stop-motion costuming as an engineering discipline…
The Inventor heads to US theaters Aug 25; CEE Animation Forum 2026 selects 33 projects for its November Pilsen edition Blue Fox Entertainment released an official trailer for Jim Capobianco's stop-motion musical The Inventor (already catalogued, France/Ireland/US, voice cast including Stephen Fry,…
Detlev wins Germany's top short-film prize for a forced-perspective, almost-all-in-camera parking lot Ferdinand Ehrhardt's diploma film Detlev -- a silicone-puppet short about a lonely man's nightly petrol-station ritual -- won the 2025 Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (Germany's national…
Kodansha's LIGHT HOLE prints Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Attack on Titan pages into a papercraft world LIGHT HOLE, Kodansha's third global branded film, was directed by Toru Katori -- an independent creator selected from roughly 150 open-call submissions -- with Takuro Oishi as…
Frame by Frame at the Center for Puppetry Arts puts stop-motion puppets from Corpse Bride to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio on public display Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts opened Frame by Frame: The Art of Stop-Motion Animation on 2026-08-07, running through 2026-11-01: more than 80 original puppets, sets,…
See Creature's CNESST spot animates a puppet that unravels -- built entirely from crocheted wool Montreal's See Creature Animation built "Hanging by a Thread," a workplace-psychological-health campaign for Quebec's CNESST, around a puppet made almost entirely of…
How Aardman's Oscar-winning Creature Comforts got its dialogue: real people, unscripted Animation Obsessive's history of Aardman's "vox pop" dialogue technique traces it from Faith and John Hubley's unscripted 1950s American TV commercials -- "We did not use a…
PFCAT 2026 lineup spotlights 30+ stop-motion films in Portland The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT), Aug 18-23, 2026 at OMSI, announced an expanded lineup with 30+ stop-motion films including two features: Heinrich…
How Scale Model Studios shot a one-take rotating build reveal for Bristol's Aviva Arena Dragonframe's showcase blog profiled Scale Model Studios' stop-motion preview film for Bristol's Aviva Arena (opening late 2028): a hand-built 1:500 scale model with 3D-printed…
PFCAT 2026 lineup confirms Memory Hotel, Lure of the Ponies and Siqi Song's She Creates Change already catalogued The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT) released its expanded 2026 lineup (Aug 18-23, OMSI): 170+ films, 30+ stop-motion works and two stop-motion features…
How The Girl Who Cried Pearls tracked CG mouth replacements with invisible UV ink befores & afters' technical deep dive (2026-01-06, building on its 2025-11-24 overview) reports how The Girl Who Cried Pearls (Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, National Film…
Annecy 2026 wrap-up: Pokémon x Aardman first look, Insectario expands to 4 countries, I Am Frankelda directors on Mexico's first stop-motion feature 2026-07-19 daily sweep of Cartoon Brew and Skwigly picked up fresh Annecy 2026 coverage: Sofía Carrillo's stop-motion feature debut Insectario has expanded into a 4-country…
Hidari lands Keanu Reeves and feature financing at Annecy's Cannes showcase At the Annecy Animation Showcase during Cannes' Marche du Film (May 2026), writer-director Masashi Kawamura and producer Noriko Matsumoto presented the feature-length plans for…
Laika details Wildwood's scale: 136 sets, 231 puppets, 54 hero characters LAIKA's own behind-the-scenes reveal for Wildwood (catalogued here as Wildwood), reported by Screen Rant, puts the production at 136 physical sets -- several large enough for the…
ACLU's Know Your Rights University traces back to a Stoopid Buddy Stoodios stop-motion animator A stop-motion animator's path from studio floor to civics education: Brandon Lake, previously catalogued here only as an animator/camera assistant at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (Robot…
MoMA opens a century-spanning animation exhibition with stop-motion among 13 techniques The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition It's Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection opens on 1 August 2026 and draws from a collection covering 13 animation techniques,…
Inside Pinocchio's cinematography: lens-matching, dust-safe DSLRs, and switching to on-ones to beat strobing Befores & Afters' account of cinematography on Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) quotes director of photography Frank Passingham on the shot-level camera choices behind the…
PFCAT 2026 brings more than 30 stop-motion works to Portland The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology will run August 18–23, 2026 at OMSI with a programme of more than 170 films from 31 countries. Animation World Network…
How Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio pushed puppet armatures into 3D-printed metal Skwigly Animation Magazine's October 2022 interview with puppet supervisor Georgina Hayns and production designer Guy Davis, conducted by Laura-Beth Cowley, describes how…
Inside Hidari's five-minute pilot: wooden puppets, a Volo motion-control crane, and hand-moved smear frames Animation Obsessive's account of Hidari's 2023 five-minute pilot -- the hand-carved-wood samurai short from director Masashi Kawamura that is now in development as a feature with…
Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton knighted; Royal Mint issues 50th-anniversary 50p coin Aardman's June 2026 news round-up (via aardman.com/latest-news) confirms co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton were honoured in the King's Birthday Honours, and that the Royal…
A set visit inside Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget's puppet and animation departments Animation Magazine's Rich Johnson toured Aardman during the final months of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget's six-year production (2023-12-06). In the puppetry department, head of…
How Mackinnon & Saunders engineered Pinocchio's mechanical and 3D-printed puppet heads befores & afters (Ian Failes, 2022-12-12) reports on how Mackinnon & Saunders built the mechanical and 3D-printed puppet heads for Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, drawing on…
Industry sweep: Mackinnon & Saunders x Nihil Declarandum 'Heads', Il Baracchino, and a Secret Agent stop-motion cameo Cartoon Brew's stop-motion feed this run centred on LAIKA's Wildwood press tour (theatrical release Oct 23, 2026), Aardman's Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom trailer and…
Aardman's Newplast plasticine supply ran out in 2023 -- the clay it built Wallace & Gromit on is now back as HUE Clay In 2023, the single factory that made Newplast -- the plasticine Aardman has animated on since its 1972 founding, across Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep and Star…
LAIKA launches handcrafted Wildwood portal experience at San Diego Comic-Con LAIKA opened The Forest is Calling Portal Experience outside the Hard Rock Hotel during San Diego Comic-Con, presenting the first public, in-person environment based on Wildwood.…
Kevin Parry animates an office chair ‘driving’ itself in stop motion Independent stop-motion animator Kevin Parry built a short scene of an office chair ‘driving’ itself through a room and into a chase, shot as 444 still photographs over 10 days,…
Dragonframe adds Canon EOS C50, EOS R6 Mark V and Sony Alpha A7 V camera support Dragonframe's camera-support table now lists Canon's EOS C50 and EOS R6 Mark V and Sony's Alpha A7 V as its newest supported cameras, all gated to Dragonframe version 2026.07.1 or…
Dragonframe's development branch expands its Python scripting API Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog has moved into a new 2027.01 build cycle, and alongside small interface refinements (new Arc orbit-tool graphics, a +/- control…
MOTK Capture Stage 02 rebuilds the app around CAM and STAGE and draws a clear line to MOTK Shoot MOTK Capture Stage 02 replaces the Stage 01 tab-drawer shell with a camera-first instrument that has exactly two modes. CAM covers everything decided before and between shots:…
MOTK Capture adds a native iPhone still-save path while keeping its browser and Windows beta MOTK Capture is the public identity for this independent stop-motion product. Stage 01 provides a cyan-and-amber shooting instrument with a large camera stage, editable exposure…
MOTK Shoot 0.4.7 beta adds a focused Windows stop-motion studio without removing the timeline MOTK Shoot 0.4.7-beta.1 adds MOTK Shoot Local, a focused Windows application for animators who want the camera-room workflow without production administration or post-production…
MOTK Companion publishes a reproducible full software verification gate MOTK Companion's public beta now includes one reproducible verification command for its complete non-hardware software surface. Twenty-one test groups cover local pairing and…
MOTK Shoot 0.4.4 and Companion 0.4.0-beta.7: SIGMA fp native capture verified, one-click Companion launch MOTK Shoot 0.4.4-beta.1 and MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.7 complete the free toolset's native camera path: SIGMA fp still capture now works end to end and was verified on real…
LAIKA unveils Wildwood's fully-articulated eagle puppet at Annecy LAIKA opened "Wildwood: Discovering a Handcrafted World," a first-look exhibition at Annecys Galerie de la Cite (running through September 27, 2026), built around a miniature set…
Niki Lindroth von Bahr's The End premieres in Cannes Official Short Film Competition; Aardman confirms Tom Parkinson to direct Pokemon x Aardman series Swedish stop-motion director Niki Lindroth von Bahr (The Burden, Bath House) premiered her 15-minute stop-motion short The End -- a dark tale of death at an international airport,…
MOTK Companion beta 4 reduces Windows control to Shoot and Files MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.4 replaces the earlier collection of setup, start, pairing-key, folder, documentation and maintenance entries with one visual Windows Control Center. Its…
MOTK Companion beta 3 makes running Windows updates transactional MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.3 fixes a Windows update failure discovered immediately after the visual installer was released. When Companion was still running, the earlier installer…
MOTK Companion beta 2 replaces PowerShell-first installation with a Windows setup MOTK Companion 0.4.0-beta.2 replaces the first public beta's command-line-first Windows entry with a normal double-click path. After extracting the ZIP, a user opens INSTALL MOTK…
MOTK Media Tools launches with Universal VideoCutter and a shared Companion contract MOTK Media Tools has opened in public beta as a browser surface for small, repeatable media jobs that should not require uploading production sources to a cloud service. Its first…
MOTK Shoot 0.4.2 fixes phone landscape controls and makes capture storage explicit MOTK Shoot 0.4.2-beta.1 corrects a phone and tablet interaction regression in the camera-room Focus view. In landscape, the entire Focus control layer now accepts touch input…
MOTK Shoot 0.4.1 keeps earlier captures closed and restores phone playback MOTK Shoot 0.4.1-beta.1 changes how the free browser shooting tool starts a working session. A new browser tab or later browser session now opens with a new empty shoot instead of…
MOTK Web now creates a complete, creator-owned production workspace in Google Drive MOTK Web's public beta now creates a complete production workspace inside the signed-in user's own Google Drive. One project name produces a Project Root containing the main MOTK…
MOTK Shoot redesign puts the camera room first, adds Focus mode and local capture copies MOTK Shoot 0.4.0-beta.2 reorganizes the free browser stop-motion studio around the camera room. The live shooting surface now stays visible while three clearly named work…
LAIKA and Intel built a machine-learning tool to speed up rig and seam removal befores & afters reports that LAIKA partnered with Intel's Applied Machine Learning team, working near the studio in Portland, Oregon, to build a prototype tool inside Foundry's…
Out of Words builds its co-op adventure from handmade stop-motion puppets, not just its cinematics Out of Words (WiredFly and Kong Orange, published by Epic Games Publishing for Xbox Series X|S, 2027), a two-player co-op platformer built around poet Morten Sondergaard's story…
Dragonframe development branch adds a dedicated Shoot Clean Pass capture command Dragonframe's public development-branch changelog now includes Capture | Shoot Clean Pass..., a menu command for shooting a clean plate -- the bare set with no puppet or rig…
Behind the handcrafted poster for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom GKIDS has released a behind-the-scenes featurette showing how the poster for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom was developed from an initial concept into a physical,…
Wildwood's scale: 136 handcrafted sets, 231 puppets -- the most LAIKA has ever built Behind-the-scenes coverage tied to LAIKA's Wildwood trailer gives the production its first public scale numbers: 136 handcrafted miniature sets and 231 practical puppets across 54…
Annecy 2026 stop-motion wrap: Cartoon Physics, Into the Forest, Please -- plus Aardman's Let's Go Timmy! and Frankelda credits confirmed This week's sweep confirmed the catalogue is already current on the major Annecy 2026 stop-motion storylines: Into the Forest (Antonin Niclass) won the Young Audience Award,…
Hidari's wooden puppets: director Masashi Kawamura on carving the craft into the story Hidari, the stop-motion samurai feature from Dwarf Studios, Whatever Co. and TECARAT, drew a crowd at Annecy 2026 when director Masashi Kawamura appeared alongside a video message…
Animator 2026 awards expose Poland’s current stop-motion and craft-animation network The 19th Animator International Animated Film Festival in Poznań announced its winners on 11 July 2026. The programme placed craft-led animation alongside drawn, digital and…
Webster Colcord to present The Host animation materials at S.F. Godzillafest 2026 S.F. Godzillafest 2026 will include a July 18 presentation built around Bong Joon-ho's 2006 creature film The Host. Animation supervisor Webster Colcord is scheduled to accompany…
Travis Knight explains the sixteen-year production path to Wildwood At Annecy, LAIKA chief executive and director Travis Knight described Wildwood as a project the studio had wanted to make for sixteen years but could not responsibly attempt until…
Aardman's Laura Howie on lighting from inside the set, not around it In a career-spanning profile, Aardman senior lighting camera operator Laura Howie -- credits include Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, The…
Annecy 2026 aftermath: Ovary-Acting's stop-motion musical keeps festival momentum; one TMDB seed title flagged as a likely keyword mismatch Ida Melum's stop-motion musical short Ovary-Acting continued its festival run after Tribeca 2025 and Annecy 2026 Official Competition, winning Best Animation at the Flickers Rhode…
StopTrik extends its 2026 call for entries StopTrik International Film Festival extended the submission deadline for its 16th edition to July 17, 2026. The official notice confirms four programming lanes: a traditional…
Annecy 2026 aftermath: Brothers Quay honorary Cristal, Anna Mantzaris wins first-film prize, new stop-motion features surface Cartoon Brew's post-Annecy roundup confirms stop-motion had an outsized presence at the 2026 festival: the Brothers Quay received honorary Cristal Awards, Anna Mantzaris' puppet…
Community sweep: Bowling4Rhinos garage stop-motion studio surfaces as a new indie catalogue lead A community post about Emmy-winning animator Carolyn Gair building a stop-motion feature (Return to Kellogg, shot on Dragonframe) in her home garage led to discovery of her…
ParaNorman anniversary re-release adds LAIKA-made adjacent short The Thrifting Entertainment Weekly's trailer report identifies ParaNorman: The Thrifting as a new LAIKA short attached to the ParaNorman anniversary theatrical re-release. The report is useful…
Annecy 2026 aftermath: Wildwood, Shaun the Sheep sequel and new Aardman/Pokemon/WIT Japan projects already tracked This run's Cartoon Brew/AWN/ANN sweep surfaced Wildwood (LAIKA, Travis Knight), Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, the Aardman/Pokemon series, Let's Go Timmy!, Danger…
Annecy celebrates stop-motion and opens a new animation cultural center Annecy International Animation Film Festival's 2026 edition placed stop-motion at the center of its public program. Golden Globes' festival report describes Peter Lord's Aardman…
BBC Creative's Trails Will Blaze pushes practical stop-motion fire effects for the Winter Olympics 2026 campaign Community/trade-press sweep for 2026-07-03: BBC Creative and London studio Nomint's Trails Will Blaze, a stop-motion Winter Olympics 2026 campaign directed by Yannis…
Out of Words: puppet fabrication and durability behind the stop-motion co-op game Out of Words, a stop-motion co-op adventure game featuring actor Samuel Barnett voicing its puppet protagonist Prince, is built with real photographed puppets rather than CG…
Annecy 2026 Young Audience Award winner Into the Forest adds a new Swiss stop-motion short to the catalogue Community/trade-press sweep for 2026-07-02: Antonin Niclass's stop-motion short Into the Forest -- three handcrafted monkeys turning a cold studio into a jungle -- won the Young…
Annecy 2026 sweep: Wildwood footage; Shaun the Sheep trailer; Aardman Pokemon reveal; Please wins Jean-Luc Xiberras Award; I Am Frankelda on Netflix Annecy 2026 (June 21–27) produced several key stop-motion developments: (1) LAIKA's Wildwood director Travis Knight presented footage and spoke about stop-motion as 'a quiet act…
People profiles Leia Everett's 20,000-photo American Girl doll stop-motion film The Tower People published a making-of profile of Los Angeles filmmaker Leia Everett and her planned 30-minute stop-motion film The Tower, made with American Girl dolls and roughly 20,000…
Wildwood's eagle puppet The General gets articulated wings and a breathing-chest mechanism Paragraph 1: TheWrap's first-footage report from Annecy 2026 (Drew Taylor, July 1, 2026) describes new mechanical work on LAIKA's Wildwood beyond the puppet-count figures already…
Please (Anna Mantzaris) wins the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film at Annecy 2026 Anna Mantzaris' stop-motion short Please won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for a First Film at the Annecy 2026 closing ceremony on 27 June. It is the festival's prize for a debut…
Annecy 2026: Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal; 4 stop-motion shorts in competition; Pokemon Tales director confirmed; HIDARI with Keanu Reeves steals show Annecy 2026 (June 21-27) was a landmark edition for stop-motion: (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received the Honorary Cristal Lifetime Achievement Award — a major…
Annecy 2026 full competition results: The Violinist wins Cristal; no stop-motion in main prizes as Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal marks cultural peak The 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (50th edition; June 21–27) closed on June 27 with competition results confirming no stop-motion films in the main competition…
Sweep: A Proud Family Wizmas stop-motion Disney+ special; Wildwood full cast confirmed; Aardman Let's Go Timmy! directors confirmed Sweep findings (June 28, 2026): (1) A Proud Family Wizmas — NEW stop-motion holiday special for Disney+; produced by HouseSpecial (Portland) and Disney Television Animation;…
Pokémon Tales first look confirms Aardman’s handmade Galar-region stop-motion series Paragraph 1: GamesRadar+ reports that Aardman and The Pokémon Company used Annecy to show the first look at Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu, a 2027…
Annecy 2026 closes: Brothers Quay Honorary Cristal and stop-motion as central festival theme The 50th Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 21-27 2026) made stop-motion animation a central theme. (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received Honorary…
Annecy 2026 surfaces several stop-motion-relevant signals Annecy 2026 closed with broader animation prizes, but the stop-motion-relevant value for SMDB is in the programme trail: the Brothers Quay were listed among the Honorary Cristal…
Annecy 2026 closes June 27; I Am Frankelda live on Netflix; Ivar at Sundance; AV Club on stop-motion as AI resistance Sweep findings (June 26, 2026): (1) Annecy 2026 (50th edition) closes June 27 — main competition awards not yet announced; Brothers Quay received Honorary Cristal Lifetime…
ARTE publishes Annecy 2026 making-of films for Cartoon Physics and Please ARTE's Annecy 2026 edition of Court-circuit pairs festival-selected shorts with production-focused companion pieces. The programme includes Cartoon Physics by Ru Kuwahata and Max…
Annecy 2026: Brothers Quay Cristal, Aardman 50th, Wildwood, and new stop-motion projects announced Annecy 2026 (June 21-27, 50th edition) delivered major stop-motion milestones. (1) Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) received Honorary Cristal Awards for decades of…
LAIKA shapes Wildwood release strategy around eventized theatrical screenings At Annecy, LAIKA president and director Travis Knight presented an extended look at Wildwood and described the feature as the studio's most ambitious production. The project has…
HIDARI's Keanu Reeves casting and Insectario 4-country co-production are top stop-motion headlines Two major stop-motion announcements surfaced in the 2026 Cannes/Annecy cycle: (1) HIDARI — dwarf studios' stop-motion wooden-puppet samurai feature directed by Masashi Kawamura…
Aardman reveals new look at Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu Aardman and The Pokémon Company showed a first look for Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu at Annecy. The series is described as a stop-motion journey through…
Insectario expands into a four-country stop-motion co-production Mexican filmmaker Sofía Carrillo's first stop-motion feature, Insectario, has expanded its production network with Canada's Productions Ocho and Latvia's Trickster Pictures…
Aardman’s Bristol anniversary exhibition surfaces studio-origin and craft material Paragraph 1: The Guardian reports that Cracking Exhibition Gromit: 50 Years of Aardman in Bristol opened at M Shed on June 20 and runs to September 13, 2026, positioning Aardman’s…
Ambriz brothers discuss I Am Frankelda and building Mexican stop-motion infrastructure Cartoon Brew interview adds production context for Cinema Fantasma, the Ambriz brothers, and the Mexican stop-motion feature's Netflix moment.
I Am Frankelda is now streaming on Netflix Netflix's official title page lists I Am Frankelda as a 2026 fantasy release with trailer and availability details.
I Am Frankelda reaches global Netflix audience with fresh craft context The June Netflix window gives I Am Frankelda a wider international discovery moment than the earlier festival and Mexico theatrical cycle. Entertainment Weekly listed the film in…
Anna Mantzaris short Please debuts trailer before Animafest Zagreb and Annecy The stop-motion short Please, starring Stellan Skarsgard, is entering major festival visibility at Animafest Zagreb and Annecy.
Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! trailer debuts ahead of Annecy premiere Cartoon Brew reports New Zealand's first stop-motion feature is heading to Annecy, with Sinclair and Elworthy discussing the clay/2.5D pipeline and small Christchurch team.
Travis Knight describes finishing LAIKA's Wildwood alongside Masters of the Universe GamesRadar+ interview with Travis Knight notes that Wildwood is still being finished while Knight also releases Masters of the Universe in 2026. The piece is useful for SMDB…
Travis Knight describes how Wildwood's long production overlapped with Masters of the Universe Travis Knight says Wildwood has been in development for sixteen years and was still being completed while he promoted the live-action Masters of the Universe. He frames the…
Hidari — dwarf and Whatever's hand-carved wooden puppet samurai film at Cannes and Annecy 2026 Hidari, a stop-motion samurai feature in development by Japanese studios dwarf and Whatever (director Masashi Kawamura, producer Noriko Matsumoto), screened its pilot film at the…
I Am Frankelda heads to Netflix in June Netflix released trailer/key art for the Mexican stop-motion feature from Cinema Fantasma ahead of its June 12 debut.
Profile of Loud Cloud Animation in Oklahoma City Animation Magazine profiled Mason Drumm and Loud Cloud Animation as an Oklahoma City stop-motion production house.
Canon EOS R6 V adds stop-motion firmware option Digital Camera World reports Canon's EOS R6 V can ship in the U.S. with paid stop-motion firmware, including higher remote live view resolution and Dragonframe-oriented controls.
Canon EOS R6 V adds an optional stop-motion animation firmware configuration Canon's EOS R6 V has joined the company's cameras available with an optional paid Stop Motion Animation Firmware configuration. The stop-motion version is designed for…
Guillermo del Toro discusses stop-motion adaptation The Buried Giant Guillermo del Toro shared details about his stop-motion adaptation of The Buried Giant during a BFI talk.
LAIKA releases Wildwood teaser trailer LAIKA's official Wildwood teaser is now linked to the work page, alongside the studio page and IMDb title.
Wildwood teaser reveals the practical scale behind LAIKA's next feature Creative Bloq's report on the first Wildwood teaser records concrete production-scale details behind LAIKA's next stop-motion feature. The production reportedly used 136 sets and…
HIDARI appears in Cannes Annecy Animation Showcase 2026 lineup HIDARI is highlighted as a Japanese stop-motion/action feature project with dwarf, Whatever and Tecarat connections and a planned 2029 completion.
Annecy 2026 lineup includes stop-motion focus and Aardman tribute The Hollywood Reporter notes stop-motion focus across Annecy 2026, including a tribute to Aardman.
Canon EOS R6 V adds paid stop-motion firmware option Canon's EOS R6 V coverage notes a stop-motion animation firmware option aimed at Dragonframe-style production workflows. Reported features include higher remote live-view…
Best camera for stop-motion animation in 2026 Digital Camera World published a 2026 buying/workflow guide for stop-motion cameras. The useful durable facts are not the shopping rankings but the workflow criteria: stable live…
LEGO and Aardman launch Boop short Aardman and LEGO debuted a short film collaboration inspired by children's creations.
Annecy 2026 highlights Brothers Quay with Honorary Cristal context Annecy 2026 programme coverage listed the Brothers Quay among the Honorary Cristal recipients and noted stop-motion-linked masterclass context around the festival. For SMDB this…
Annecy 2026 puts Brothers Quay in lifetime-achievement focus Annecy 2026 coverage identifies the Brothers Quay as recipients of an Honorary Cristal/Lifetime Achievement spotlight, alongside masterclass activity during the festival. For SMDB…
Dragonframe receives Academy Scientific and Engineering Award The Academy’s 2026 Scientific & Technical Awards page records a Scientific and Engineering Award to Jamie Caliri and Dyami Caliri for the design, engineering and continuing…
Frame Fest to stage Ireland's first dedicated stop-motion festival in Connemara Frame Fest is scheduled for 29–30 August 2026 at Stiúideo Fia in Lettermore, County Galway, presenting what its organisers describe as Ireland's first festival devoted…
LAIKA's 20 years of stop-motion profiled A craft-focused profile reflects on LAIKA's two decades and stop-motion identity.
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom trailer points to Aardman's 2026 feature pipeline Aardman's next Shaun the Sheep feature has moved from announcement into trailer-led public marketing. The reported trailer frames the film as a Halloween story built around Mossy…
The Girl Who Cried Pearls wins Best Animated Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards The Canadian stop-motion short The Girl Who Cried Pearls, directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski and produced by the National Film Board of Canada, is listed as the Best…
LAIKA's studio book confirms a digital-first replacement-face pipeline, previews Wildwood LAIKA published its first studio-authorised book, LAIKA: The Magic Behind a Stop-Motion Dream Factory (Ozzy Inguanzo, foreword by Mark Salisbury; Rizzoli, released March 10,…
How Aardman lit the cramped submarine interior on Vengeance Most Fowl Senior lighting camera operator Laura Howie describes lighting the submarine interior set on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by building the fixtures into the structure…
BBC's "Trails Will Blaze" animates 700 3D-printed athletes with real, in-camera fire BBC Creative and its production partner Nomint built the Winter Olympics 2026 opening film "Trails Will Blaze" around a stop-motion fire effect the team refused to fake: every…
Inside Aardman exhibition keeps stop-motion process visible through Young V&A run The Young V&A exhibition Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends (12 February - 26 November 2026) gives Aardman's stop-motion process a long public-facing institutional…
LAIKA's Wildwood set for October theatrical release LAIKA's sixth stop-motion feature Wildwood is scheduled for U.S. theaters on October 23 through Fathom Entertainment.
BlinkInk's Bake Off title sequence mixes stop-motion prime lenses, icing-sugar multiplane and 1000fps eggs Cinematographer Daniel Morgan and director Isabel Garrett (BlinkInk, for Channel 4) combined three separate capture methods in one minute for The Great British Bake Off's 2025…
Aardman lit Gromit's garden to foreshadow Norbot's arrival before he's seen Senior lighting camera Laura Howie and gaffer Sally Wattiaux built Gromit's garden on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl as a narrative lighting problem, not a decorative one.…
Guillermo del Toro, Netflix and Gobelins plan stop-motion studio lab A new space is planned to shape stop-motion storytellers, connected spiritually to Taller del Chucho in Guadalajara.
Netflix, Guillermo del Toro and GOBELINS Paris launch dedicated stop-motion studio at Paris campus Announced October 2025, a new stop-motion animation studio at the GOBELINS Paris campus was established through a three-way partnership: Netflix (co-funder), Guillermo del Toro…
Tristan Oliver on lighting Save Ralph entirely from outside the set Cinematographer Tristan Oliver describes the opening shot of the stop-motion short Save Ralph as lit with no fixtures on the set itself: "It's completely lit from the outside.…
LAIKA's SIGGRAPH talk details a CG-groom-to-silicone-cast fur pipeline for Wildwood's creature cast A SIGGRAPH Talks 2025 presentation from LAIKA groom artist Micah Henrie gives the first technical account of how Wildwood furs its non-hero creature cast. Rather than…
Dave Alex Riddett on lighting plasticine faces for genre on Vengeance Most Fowl Cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett explains why lighting choices on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl go beyond mood-setting: the puppets are plasticine and, in his words,…
Henry Selick on why Coraline's replacement-face seams were painted out digitally In a Sight and Sound interview by Alex Dudok de Wit, Coraline director Henry Selick describes developing replacement-face animation on commercials work (the Pillsbury Doughboy)…
How Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio built its stop-motion sound from guitar-maker's scrap wood Sound designer Scott Martin Gershin built roughly 99 percent of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio's (2022) sound from scratch, because recording the film's actual wooden puppets did…
Howard Jones on rig removal and clay clean-up for Aardman's Early Man In a Rotoscopers interview, Early Man VFX supervisor Howard Jones (axisVFX) describes the baseline post-production task on Aardman's clay-puppet feature: "The simplest stuff we do…
Stop Motion Magazine's Will Vinton retrospective traces Claymation's origin and Laika's founding Stop Motion Magazine's obituary/retrospective on Will Vinton (who died October 4, 2018) traces his career from the 1975 Best Animated Short Oscar for Closed Mondays through the…
Behind the sound of Aardman's Early Man: location Foley and a 1,000-person crowd shoot A Sound Effect's making-of interview with supervising sound editor and designer Adrian Rhodes describes how Aardman's clay-animated Early Man (2018) built its character sound.…
VFX Voice: how Aardman's animators physically support puppets through Early Man's toughest poses VFX Voice's making-of feature on Aardman's Early Man (2018) describes how the studio's animators keep a puppet steady through demanding, off-balance poses on set: "animators make…
TESTED's Adam Savage watches Aardman storyboard Early Man On a behind-the-scenes visit to Aardman for Early Man, Adam Savage's TESTED channel sits in with one of the studio's story artists on the storyboard stage -- described on-site as…
Focus Features' ParaNorman production notes detail the silicone/foam-latex/resin puppet build Focus Features' "Two Years in the Making" production notes for ParaNorman describe the puppet department's material build in the studio's own words -- "All of our puppets are made…
Inside Chicken Run's sound pipeline: two-day-a-reel Foley premixes and a hand-built pie machine AudioTechnology magazine's contemporary account of Chicken Run's sound production lays out the schedule behind the mix: dialogue premixes at De Lane Lea took about a day and a…
Aardman Academy offers three bursary places for its online stop-motion courses Aardman Academy has opened three bursary-supported places across its Stop Motion 1 and Stop Motion 2 online courses. The scheme is intended for applicants who are underrepresented…
Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest opens its 2027 short-film competition Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest has opened submissions for its 2027 competition, with separate categories for stop-motion puppet animation, live-action puppetry, and student work.… No matching stories.