How to Make a Stop Motion Animation: The Basics

Stop animations are a classic and easy way to make a short film. I’m sure you remember watching a great film that was a stop animation, whether it was a Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, or a multitude of others. They’re a great way to make a short film if you have limited cash or access to resources like actors and actresses and high tech film equipment. With a little creativity and patience, you can make a stop animation that you will be proud to showcase as your first short. They can also be really fun to put together. I’m going to show you, step by step, how to make a very simple animation. This example is just to show the basics of how this method works. If you have the materials, try it out for yourself!

As with anything, it’s important to make sure you have everything you need before you start. Fortunately, for a bare bones stop animation, you really only three things: a camera (really any kind of digital camera), a program to put your stills together in, and something you are going to animate. That’s it- that’s all you really need. Some other things to consider are: your lighting (the more the better), the surface under your animated object (a clean, smooth surface will work the best), and a tripod or a makeshift replacement for one. This last part is actually very important as well, because your camera needs to remain still in order for your animation to look the best it can. So if you don’t have a tripod, or a makeshift replacement, that’s okay. Put your camera on your work surface, and if you have a safe way of securing it so it won’t move, such as taping it down, do that. You can just have your object come towards your camera. While most stop motion animations are looking down at the subject, I will do mine at the ground level so that if you don’t have a tripod, you can still follow along.

Clean off the surface you are working on and make sure you like your lighting. Charge your camera if needed, or have the charge cord handy and ready to plug in if necessary. Make sure you aren’t going to run out of space on your camera, and if you think you are, upload and delete some of your older photos. Put on some music you like- this process can take a while. If anticipating a call, bring the phone into the room with you, etc. Get comfy and get ready to be creative.

You’ve probably already decided what you want to animate. If not, some good suggestions are:

-Playdough or other modeling clay
-Action figures or other poseable toys
-Cut outs of your drawings
-Everyday house-hold objects (if they can move in some way, that’s usually more fun)

Look around you and see what’s there that would be fun to move. Cut-outs can be fun because you can “scoot” cute drawings across a landscape, or make a drawing with joints and make it move. Action figures are fun because of the familiarity, and because they’re already pre-made and ready to move. Other everyday objects can be fun- globes can spin and twirl, lampshades can tip from one side to the other. However I’ve picked playdough for this project, because it can be very forgiving to beginners, depending on how you use it. As you can see in the picture, I’ve made a snake. It doesn’t matter how complex your snake is- all we want is the shape.

Before you leap gung ho into the next few steps, you need to decide exactly what you want to make your subject do. Is your subject going to travel? Or is it going to stay stationary and move around in that one spot? After you have decided, it may be wise to do what a lot of filmmakers do and draw out the motion in what is known as a story board, as shown here. For the sake of ease, we are just going to make the snake travel from one spot to another. When considering the motion of an object, it is important to think about how its real life equivalent may actually move. Yes, this snake is purple, I know there are no real life purple snakes. But if there were purple snakes, they would probably move like other snakes, and other snakes lead with their heads with their bodies following an almost exact path. Therefore, it is important to remember that when you move your snake, there should be three important points of locomotion- the head, a place in the middle, and the tail. The head will lead, the middle will always follow, and the tail will follow with some slight deviancy. It may seem tedious, but just think about the motion of a snake, and when in doubt, just try to slide the tail on through whatever loop you just went through.

With the camera and lighting in place, put your subject on the first stop in its course of motion. Make sure this is exactly how you want it, but don’t fret too much. Move your fingers out of the shot. Take a picture.

Now, take your snake, and leading it by the head, pull it just a little further down it’s plotted course of motion. For very fluid, lifelike movement, pull your snake a millimeter at a time. For more stylized (and less time consuming) movement, pull the snake by bigger increments. It doesn’t matter, it’s all up to you- just make sure you stay consistent all the way through. Every time you move the snake, or your subject, take a picture. Make sure to fully clear your hands from the shot, and that there’s nothing else changing in the picture (for example, the lighting, people walking by, bugs if you’re doing this outside…) It can be tempting to rush, but try not to. The best animation will come from one that is made with a lot of love and concentration.

Well, one tedious part is done, it’s time to start another. Hook up your camera to your computer and upload your hard work. Now you need to open up a program that allows you to create and edit videos. Avid or Final Cut Pro, if you’re a serious filmmaker, are great programs for all sorts of reasons, but iMovie, Windows Movie Maker and a number of smaller, less involved editing programs will suit our purposes just fine for what we need to do here. Windows Movie Maker is free, but if you do not feel like downloading something, and you happen to have a program on your computer that will make a slide show of images, and will display them really quickly, that will work too.

Upload your images into whichever program you’re using. Place them in the correct order of movement. Now, to trim them so they flow like actual movement. This can be tricky, but just remember- the shorter the better, and make sure every image is given the same amount of display time. This will help things flow well. To give you a good example of what kind of times you may be using, on a recent Stop Motion Animation I made, I used about .20 of a second for every letter that was being displayed on screen. I can’t say that time allotment is going to work for your purposes, but that is in the realm of time you will be working with for good-looking animations.

Hey, good job you! If you have followed along and done the steps up to this point, you now are the proud creator of a shiny new stop motion animation. And right now, you may be thinking, “sure, but this looks nothing like the fancy clay animations I see online or at the movies”. Well you’re right. But you did it. And that is the very first step down the long road to amazingly brilliant, shiny pieces. And that is something to be very proud of.

Now, if you want, you can add music to your animation, or other little touches. Do whatever you want- this is yours to play with.

Now, the last step- publish! And share your hard work with the world.