AniFex Tour

Tuesday of this week we went to one of Adelaide's animation studios AniFex. AniFex are known for their unique style of stop motion animation and use of plasticine moulds to create and animate their creations. While most of their works date back to  the 1990s, they are known for creating the Smacko commercial, the Home Hardware commercials which star Rusty and Sandy the dog and the Honda Jazz commercial. Most of their creations can be seen in this demo reel.

For most of the tour, we saw where they shot most of their animations and many of their prop sets they held from previous works. One of the set pieces that caught my eye was the mask of the giant rooster mask they used for the Fantastic Noodle advertisements as well as the massive prop sets used for the old Mortein Flyspray ads. 

I had always wondered how animators in the industry constructed and rigged their puppets for stop motion animation and looking back at how AniFex executes it, it’s interesting to see and take in. Most of their puppets consist of a metallic skeleton made up of several pivot points and wires which allows the animators to freely move the puppets. On top of that, the skeleton itself can be modified when needed to fine tune how the puppet moves, and walks.

Asides from how the skeletons are made and what they consist of, the puppets themselves are constructed through a very fine system, which begins with the puppet themselves being moulded on clay before being sent to where they would make a casting for the puppet. Afterwards, the cast of the puppet is then used to create moulds with, which are made out of a composite of rubber, silicon and various other materials. 

Overall, the tour gave me a better sense of how stop motion animators produce their works as well as showing how the industry operates in terms of client contracts and what risks are needed in order to deliver on the client's demands.