Some highlights of stop motion animator projects from the past year. If you finished an animated film, are starting one in 2011 or have news that I overlooked let me know so I can add it to the list.

• Justin and Shel continued to work on their next animated film, posting great photos and videos of their progress. Their other film, Gerald’s Last Day (which is now available on DVD for purchase) played in festivals winning many awards!
• Ron helped organize a Ray Harryhausen birthday tribute consisting of animated clips by stop motion animators. He also posted the trailer for Sinbad which will utilize his talents as an animator. His film “In the Fall of Gravity” is available on DVD for purchase at IndieFlix.
• Shelley continued work on the Halfland project (reporting 97% completion of the sets)!
• Michael was busy with several projects including WON TON BABY, Never Sleep Again and a music video by the Dan Band.
• Jeffrey sculpted puppets and created short animations of a Mermaid and Seaclops. He also continued work on the Unearthed project.
• Sven’s plays The Buried Piano and The Astronaut & The Nude were performed live. He also explored the replacement face technique for animated lip sync and posted behind-the-scenes info and a video of the result. He also blogged details of his armature construction process and was involved with he H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society film “Whisperer in the Darkness”! Finally, Sven created a short experimental film titled “Mutate” which played in several festivals.
• Mike took a sabbatical from the online world…but returned in late 2010!
• Justin’s film, Ticks, looks like it will be collaboration with Steven Lapcevic!
• Don continued work on “Blue Alien Summer” and posted behind the scenes photos and other production information on his blog.
• My film “MIRROR” played at the Montreal Stop Motion Animation Festival!
• Many other activities and knowledge sharing took place which indicate that stop motion is alive and well! ( See also: stopomotionanimation.com )

Really cool animation-related news that took place in 2008.

• Karl finished My Uncle’s Dental Health. Congrats Karl! I’m very much looking forward to his latest project (using binder clips – brilliant IMO) called Saint Ignatius the Beneficent.
• Justin and Shel finished Gerald’s Last Day. Can’t wait to see it since they get a gold star for behind-the-scenes coverage with their blog, photos, and video postings.
• Ron finished In the Fall of Gravity which I definitely want to see. OMG, he is also tinkering with 3D…check out is youtube channel!
• Shelley continues with the Halfland project creating sets and details of beauty. Another gold star for production coverage with her tweets and blog.
• Michael completed more of his Amberson’s series and also worked on the Mythic Journeys project…which looks fantastic!
• Jeffrey continued to make progress on Unearthed which has great cinematography and lighting among other things. Check out the clips he’s posted thus far. He pushed through with his creative work in spite of mother nature’s decision to send more liquid wrath in his general direction!
• Sven had his Monster Month book release party and also continued with creative animations…teasing us with experimental “landscape” animations…like that leaf or that ball…I want to see more! Look for his Let Sleeping Gods Lie project to pick back up in 2009!
• Mike continued to provide instruction and share knowledge in animation/film via his blog and the forums. Now, if we could just see some animation…just a little bit…with those puppets!
• Tak apparently continues to get contacted about Death of Matriarch screenings. He did mention another possible project that he might do which would be really…really…cool.
• Justin held a fund-raising event for his next project Ticks. I’ll be very interested to see how that turns out. The teaser clip intrigues me. You can see his other films online!
• Don finished three stopmo films in 2008! Storytime With Pram, Barrier, and Ether B.
• Thank the stopmo gods that Lio finally got RSS feeds for stopmoworks (at least I only found out about it in 2008). Now I can catch up on his rants easier by using Google reader!
• I finished Vitruvius and the pixels are resting silently on hard drives while I reflect on my three animations to date (Man Drawing, Sword, and Vitruvius) to determine what directions I want to pursue next.
• If you finished an animated film or are starting one in 2009 or have news that I overlooked let me know so I can add it to the list.

A growing number of stop motion animators are using services like blogger, wordpress, or moveabletype to run their webs sites. As such, the sites are usually accompanied by a web feed (RSS feed) which allows people to subscribe and keep up with new postings without having to surf around the web all day. It makes it possible to assemble a personal newspaper with the latest updates from the things you want to follow.

I usually keep up with stop motion information via web feeds (aka RSS feeds) and Bloglines as opposed to surfing and clicking around on the web. It saves a lot of time and needless clicking around and I can keep up with what’s going on.

In my Bloglines reader I have a handful of sites such as Darkmatters, Ubatuber, Notes from Halfland, Scarlet Letters, AnimateClay, and Red Hatchet Films. Sites such as these offer fairly regular postings with updates occurring either many times a week or at least something each month. I would love to see the sites from Nick, Lio, Stopmotionanimation.com and Stopmoshorts.com offer web feeds. If they have feeds then either they aren’t advertising them or making them easily discoverable or I’m missing something.

Big thanks to Jeffrey and Shelley for sending some very nice gifts. I got a limited edition woodcut print from the “Jenny Greenteeth” project.

I also have a collectible button for the “Halfland” project.

Other animators are also getting into the online store venture with items available from Phil Dale and Mike Brent. There’s probably more out there. I wonder if there is some way to compile a directory of stopmotion shopping somewhere to see all this merchandise at one location.

Tennessee Reid continues to post various animations he finds on the web. Mike Brent also continues to add to his collection of top-notch animation clips with some recent work by Suzie Templeton. Mike has also posted some info and a sample of the importance of music to film/animation. A lot of films are making their way onto places like YouTube which illustrates how the web can help expose people to work they might never see or consider in the first place. Michael, at Red Hatchet Films, has also put some of his work online and is using a service where, apparently, he gets compensated financially if viewers click the ad at the end of the film. He has started a series called Dredd Manor which looks promising. His film, A Winter’s Tale, is also really good. I particularly like the way each scene is viewed through the windows of the house like little vignettes.

Jeffrey’s film, Jenny Greenteeth continues to develop and his site is one of the more consistent production blogs with many behind the scenes photos and information about his film posted fairly regularly. Shelley’s Halfland project is also unfolding with recent work in set design. Sven at Scarlet Letters has posted some excellent information regarding metal armature creation and also posted animation tests worth checking out. Leevi continues to upload scenes from his HarmoniCa project. I notice some missing scene numbers so he is either shooting out of order or holding them offline until the day we may get to see the complete work. In any case it just gets better and better with every clip he releases.

Lastly, my film Man Drawing… has been submitted to a handful of film festivals but no word yet on acceptance. My Vitruvius project continues with June and July activities consisting of building the secondary stage, more puppet costume work, lighting and camera tests, and framegrabbing software tests. I’ve also started running some test animations for compositing tests and choreography of motion.