Stop Motion

Stop Motion animation, which was first invented by J Stuart Blackton in the year 1898, is an animation technique that consists of utilising physical manipulations from small and simple objects to expertly crafted dolls to use in animated films.  Stop Motion involves moving said objects and/or dolls in minor increments of movement between taking individual pictures and then arrange the pictures in order to create a smooth frame-by-frame animation sequence.  The stop motion  technique can also involve the use of human actors and/or actresses as well.

 

In order to make your own stop motion animation, you will need the following:

- A digital camera
- A tripod (which is preferable when using a digital camera)
- Stop motion software (whether it is on handheld devices such as your iPhone, iPad or Android devices or on your computer via stop animation  software programs such as Windows Movie Maker or Stop Motion Pro.
- A series of objects and dolls to use in your animation
- Consistence use of lighting for your animation
- Create a background scene for your animation.  It can be a simple sketch of a background (with colour, of course) as long as you know what kind of setting that you have in mind.

















Advantages - Stop motion animations are easy to make and are relatively cheap.

Disadvantages - Stop motion animations can be time consuming and will require not only just advanced artistic skill when creating any characters for your animation but you would also need a certain level of photographic skill when using a digital camera.  In addition, creating the more sophisicated stop motion animation sequences requires many picture frames and are more expensive to make.

Here is a video of one of the many stop motion animations:

And here is a video that will give you a quick and easy way of creating your own stop motion animation: