Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 210, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1917 — Clay Figures for Movies. [ARTICLE]

Clay Figures for Movies.

In a new style of moving pictures little clay models of human figures are used to represent the actors. The result, when seen on the screen, is bothstartling "and amusing, the tiny clay figures seeming to walk, jump and go through all the motions of talking and singing, as if actually alive. Such pictures are called animated sculpture. They owe their origin to a woman sculptor of New York, whose clayfolk, as she calls them, are photographed in a succession of slightly different poses, each specially modeled to carry out the action of a regular scenario or film story. The process of molding the figures is slow and laborious, as 16 different poses are required to make a foot of film. Thus if the action of the story calls for four actors in the picture, a film of ordinary length, say 200 feet, requires the careful molding by the sculptor’s hands of at least 12,800 different poses for the clay figures. In some scenes, however, only slight changes are needed to give the necessary animation, these being quickly made by the deft touch of the sculptor.—Popular Mechanics Magazine.