The making of “Frankenweenie” in stop–‐motion animation was a labor of love, involving a huge crew of artisans, animators, prop makers, puppet makers, designers and artists over a two–‐year period. “There are a lot of people that go into making a film like this,” Burton says. “The thing that makes it different than say a live–‐action film is that it happens in very slow—motion time. In live action you have to make quick decisions all the time, in stop motion it may take a couple of days or couple of weeks to do a shot depending on its complexity.”
Stop–‐motion animation is one of the oldest animation styles and is a very hands–‐on process. There are 24 frames per second in the stop motion for “Frankenweenie.” This means that the animator must stop and position the puppet 24 times to get one second of filmed action. On average, one animator can only produce 5 seconds of animation per week. Multiple puppets of the same character allowed animators to work on more than one scene at once. There were as many as 18 animators working independently of each other at one time.
