Why Stopmotion?

Keyframe is an annual event organised and run by Colaiste Dhulaigh Animation and Media courses. This year the event runs from 4-8th February and features 16 media professionals giving a series of talks about their experience in their chosen industry.

Eimhin McNamara is the CEO of Paper Panther Productions.  The name comes from the paper tiger which has a double meaning; a person or thing that appears threatening but is ineffectual, however the paper panther is also a reference to PPPs ecological ethos.

The title of Eihmin’s talk today was “Why Stop Motion”. In it he spoke about some of his favourite projects, including “An Gadhar Dubh”, which began life back in 2011 and was completed in 2018. The fact that a ten minutes short stop motion film took 8 years to finish gives you an idea of the attention to detail required for this industry.

Eimhin spoke to the students about all aspects of creativity in stop motion, including;

• The primary reason to start your own company should be so that you can do your own work.
• There is no excuse for bad animation, no matter how bad the character you would be surprised what you can achieve.
• In stop motion you get to work with a wide range of people which can be a huge advantage, allowing you to see what goes into the sausage.
• Being a noodler, stop motion allows him to indulge his perfectionist tendencies.

Here’s some advice from Eimhin, courtesy of the #keyframe6 twitter feed:

You can find more of Eimhin's work at Twitter, Instagram, Facebook