Comment by veltas
4 days ago
To be clear: they are not shadow puppets at all, they are not being displayed in the traditional way, but they are being captured with a camera.
In many scenes characters entirely change their shape in a natural or fluid way, because the cut-outs are being wholly replaced with different cut-outs from frame to frame, to simulate a natural/fluid motion. This is one of many techniques used in the film possible with stop-motion animation and impossible with shadowpuppets.
I watched the film and was quite impressed with the animation techniques used, although this isn't really novel but not because of puppets, animation actually goes back much further than film. It's a beautiful film though, and I can see why people preserved it.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2...
Indeed, but there are evidently some jointed/ligatured/pinned figures because there are some jointed movements. Stop-frame, obviously.
In some scenes parts of a figure simply do not move or change shape at all while other parts of the limbs do, and the limbs move in angular rotations before being swapped out for recut or different limbs. In the absence of machine cutting, the only explanation is that the figures are composed of pieces.
I am quite sure some jointing and "composition" of figures was used — not just for efficiency but for quality frame to frame.
It is absolutely amazing art but the level of craft is of the scale!
Just from the level of consistency even if you assume that film frames have been carefully realigned in digitisation.