Stop Motion Animation Tutorial

This tutorial will allow you to begin to make stop motion animations. Stop motion animation is where you take a picture of an inanimate object then you move it a little bit. Then you take another picture. You do this process over and over until you have many pictures. Then you upload them to a computer, run them trough a program to string them all together. The final product creates the illusion of movement. It's similar to making a flipbook; only you're using three-dimensional objects and some technology. If you have a lot of time on your hands or like cinematography or animation, this hobby might be for you.

SECTION 1: Before you animate

Before you animate you will need several materials. One material you'll need is a camera. You can use a digital camera, a web cam, or a more advanced camera with live wire. There are pros and cons of using each on of these cameras. For digital cameras, the pros are that you can take it pretty much anywhere, they're not really expensive, and they have several different settings. The con is that usually they have auto focus or flash. For the web cam the pros are that it can be used for web chatting as well for stop motion animation, they are very cheap, and once you take the picture it's already on your computer; this means that you don't have to wait 10 minutes for all your pictures to get uploaded onto the computer. The cons however are that your stage has to be right near you laptop. For the high tech camera with live wire the pros and cons are the same as the digital camera except that for pros it has more advanced settings and for cons they can get really expensive. Once you have a camera you like you need a tripod. Any tripod will work. You might also want some kind of memory card if you have a digital camera because every 12-20 pictures are one second of movie.

Before you animate you will also need a flat surface for a stage. The stage is the place where you put whatever you're animating and where it comes to life. If you want your video to have an advanced, life-like storyline then I suggest a set. This means that you will need a background and maybe some clay objects lying around. Get creative! For the background you can have blue construction paper. For clouds you can use ripped apart cotton balls. The sun can be made of a tennis ball painted yellow and taped to a wall. You're only limited to the supplies you have and you're imagination.

You will also need something to animate. You can use modeling clay. This has to be modeling clay otherwise it will not work. You can use teddy bears, shoes, coins, water bottles, pillows, candles, and doors; anything you want. You can even use people but that is not the easiest thing and I will not be talking about that in this article.

*NOTE: Later on you will need a computer. You will also need a way to connect your camera to your computer. You will also need a program. Windows has a built in movie maker but I'm not so sure about Macs.

SECTION 2: Animating

Now that you have all your materials it's time to set them up. Put your camera on your tripod and make sure it's screwed on nice and tight. Then move your tripod over to your set. Adjust the tripod's height so that you have the angle you want. Then set up your object you will be animating in its beginning pose. Now you can take your first picture.

I cannot tell you exactly how to animate properly, but I can give you some helpful tips.

Tip 1. Do not bump anything on the set. This could create a glitch like quality to your movie.

Tip 2. Do not bump the camera. Again this can make the movie look weird and jumpy.

Tip 3. Do not change the lighting. This will make people focus on the changing lights instead of your animation.

Tip 3. If you take a break, leave everything like it was.

Tip 4. If you can't, then change the scene or the angle when you start again later.

Tip 5. If you have to move the camera see Tip 4.

Tip 6. Make small, gradual movements. If you make the movie at 12 fps and it's to slow than you can raise it up to 24 fps.

*NOTE: If you're going to be using Windows Movie maker than it's going to be 7fps so ignore Tip 6. If you have Windows you don't have to use Windows Movie Maker. You can use a different program that goes up to 30fps that I'll get to later. You do have to download it so if you have windows but you can't download stuff for whatever reason sorry.

SECTION 3: After you animate

Once you have all of your pictures then you are ready to put them on the computer or, if you have used a web cam or a camera with livewire, then put all the pictures into a folder on your desktop so that you can get to them easily. Now it's time to find some software. If you are on Windows you have two choices: Windows Movie Maker, MonkeyJam. If you have a Mac than you have one choice: iMovie. In this tutorial article I will tell you how to use Windows Movie Maker (WMM) and MonkeyJam. I will not be talking about iMovie because I have no experience with that program. For all of you Mac users I am sorry. Okay in order to get MonkeyJam download it here. WMM is included in Windows so you already have it.

In order to make your animation with WMM read this paragraph. If you want to use MonkeyJam read the next one. First, open up WMM. Then you go to Tools>Options...>Advanced and change both of the durations to the lowest settings. Then press OK. Now open up the folder with all of your pictures in them and drag and drop them all into the big blue box in the upper left hand corner of the window. Now scroll all the way down to your last picture and select all of them starting with the last one. Now once you're back at the top, drag and drop the first one down to the bottom portion of the screen. Now go to File>Publish Movie and...Viola! You have you're video.

Now this is how to put the pictures together using MonkeyJam. Download MonkeyJam here if you haven't done that already. Then, open up the program. Now create an exposure sheet by going to File>New XPS. Then, before you click OK, make sure the Image Folder is the folder where your photos are. Now all you have to do is open up the folder where you had the photos and drag and drop them into the first frame slot. Now before you make the movie you should go to Settings>FPS and make sure it's 12. Now go to File>Export Avi, go through the settings and click okay. Wait for it to save and now you're ready to add titles, credits, and voices.

To add voices you need a microphone. This can be a USB one from Rock Band or Sing star. Or it can be a microphone specially made for computers. Plug the microphone it and open up Sound Recorder. This is only for Windows and it can be found in All Programs>Accessories. Now click the record button and talk into the microphone. Now save the audio file in the same place your movie is. Now open up WMM and put both of them in the blue box in the upper left hand corner. If your pictures are in the way then you can delete them because they don't need to be in this program anymore. Switch the lower section to Timeline if it isn't already. Now put the movie in the timeline and put the voice in the place you want the thing to talk. You can also add titles to credits if you look to the left under tasks. Just follow the directions and go to File>Publish Movie. You now have a completed animation. Now you can share your video with the world. Enjoy!