Pixilation
ピクシレーション / 1910s– / Technique / Animation Techniques
Pixilation treats live actors as stop-motion figures, photographing one held pose at a time. It turns walking into gliding and makes impossible movement or substitution while keeping real bodies and real places on screen.
People gliding without stepping / Rigid body movement jumping between staged poses / People or objects appearing, disappearing or exchanging in one frame / Real streets and rooms where only gravity and time become discontinuous
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Creating flight, gliding or teleportation in a short or advertisement using performers and a real location · Turning bodily stiffness into comedy, unease or conflict rhythm in music and performance films
- Type
- If type moves, let performers reposition it one frame at a time and match its travel interval to the interval between poses.
- Composition
- Lock the camera and mark each travel path on the floor. Set hold length and displacement before shooting and preserve background continuity.
- Material
- Hold the actor for every exposure and record contact point, pose and clothing movement. Swap objects at identical position and light.
- Caution
- Low-frame-rate live action and frame dropping are not pixilation. The performer must take a discrete pose for each frame and physically reconstruct spatial relations.
- Further study
- Norman McLaren and Neighbours / Live actors as stop-motion subjects / Pose intervals, holds and substitution
Related entries
- Stop Motion (ストップモーション)Same Animation Techniques lineage.Compare Pixilation and Stop Motion
- Rotoscope (ロトスコープ)Same Animation Techniques lineage.Compare Pixilation and Rotoscope
More from Animation Techniques
Continue through styles in the same Animation Techniques family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Cartoon Modern (カートゥーン・モダン)Shared effects: Play / Rebellion.
- Limited Animation (リミテッド・アニメーション)Shared effects: Play / Technique.
- Anime Style (アニメ絵)Shared effects: Play / Technique.
Browse all Animation Techniques entries
Cite this entry
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- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/pixilation
- Markdown
- [Pixilation — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/pixilation)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/pixilation">Pixilation — IndexStyle</a>