Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. In generally speaking, the stop motion animation what we talked about is some characters by clay, puppets or mixed materials. In fact, history of this animation is as long as the traditional hand-drawn animation (Cel Animation), and is even much older. Stop-motion animation is a special animation, with Cel Animation and Computer Animation together, constitute the three major categories of the modern animation.

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Due to long cultural history, Chinese stop motion animation is special and classical by kinds of art forms, such as Puppet Animation, Paper Cut Animation and so on. Not only these animation make us enjoy our childhood, but also bring us to a special art world to feel happy.Here we will talk about those memorable Chinese cartoon character by stop motion technique.

Puppet Animation: "The Story of Avanti" and "Magic Painter Ma Liang"

1. The Story of Avanti

Uncle Avanti and his little donkey

From 1979 to 1989, Shanghai Animation Film Studio shot the puppet animation “The Story of Avanti”. According to popular folk story in Xinjiang, northwest of China, there is many stories about clever uncle Avanti. It is said that uncle Avanti is an abhorrence of evil hero, humorous man, and he often used his wisdom, justice for the poor people to fight with greedy stupid rich man Baryi. In the animation film, full of western-style scene, exaggerated style of character, and humorous dialogue, all of those make this film got critically acclaimed, especially the image of uncle Avanti with black beard, orbed head cloth, and always riding on a little cute donkey.

After the success of the first film, continues making into a multi-set series. What is more, this puppet animation won a lot of prize both in China domestic and abroad. In 1991, The Story of Avanti won the highest prize of Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

2. Magic Painter Ma Liang

Hong Xuntao and puppet "Ma Liang"

"Magic Painter Ma Liang," is world-renowned classic literature, and has been translated into many languages in the world. Not only this puppet animation, which is written by Hong Xuntao and produced by Shanghai Film Studio, was the first international award-winning Chinese animation film, but also won the most prizes in the international film fields during a century in China. For example, the Eighth Venice International Children's Film Festival in Italy, the First Belgrade International Children's Film Festival Award in Yugoslavia, the Third Syria International Short Film Festival Silver Fair Chapter prize in Damascus, the Third Warsaw International Children's Film Festival Special Award of Excellence film in Poland, and the second session of the Canadian Stratford Shakespeare Memorial International Film Festival awards and so on.

Paper-cut Animation: "Pig Eatting Watermelon" and "Fishing Child"

Paper-cut animation is a unique animation type of China by using Chinese folk paper-cut to design animation.

1. Pig Eatting Watermelon

Pig Eatting Watermelon

Pig in this animation is one of the chief characters in “Pilgrimage To The West”.

In 1958, director Wan Guchan created the first China's paper-cut animation "Pig eating watermelon". This colorful animation use shadow puppet for reference, and choose folk paper-cut forms to create character. Not only television audiences feel fresh and new, but also added a new film type to Chinese art films.

2. Fishing Child

In 1959, Shanghai Animation Film Studio produced paper-cut animation “Fishing Child” to export.