Stop Motion Animation for the Nation!

For all you Wallace and Gromit fans, make stop motion come alive!

Buy some clay or make your own play dough using this recipe here 

Breakdown;

1. Storyboard your story - stick figures will do.

2. Do scene by scene drawings, you will need a beginning, middle and end. Download storyboard templates from here.

3. Use a webcam connected to a computer - trust me its easier.

4. Download relevant frame capture software Frame by Frame is a free one.

4a. If you haven't got a webcam, you can use a digital camera just use a tripod & keep the camera STILL!

5. Keep  models bold and simple. Make facial features large so you can move them around a bit

6. Important! - The models must be able to stand up on their own.

7. Take one shot per movement, continue until end!

You should have your web pics in a nice order for you to play and edit. You can duplicate frames or delete the unwanted ones and voila! you have an animation!

Options;

-Choose a plain background or a drawings - it looks better

-Paint the inside of small cardboard boxes to create sets.

-Add your own sound effects & dialogue

-Create a different mouth for each vowel sound = "AEIOU"& swap the mouths between each shot.

-Make sure your in a bright space or move a desk lamp closer to light your set.

If you are using Windows movie maker and a digital camera this tutorial should help.

Making it all 3D!

Just replace your 2D webcam with a 3D camera (on a tripod). They are pretty cheap now (this one's around £30 from Amazon). While the process of taking 3D images is a pretty straight forward one, making the movie is not so easy!

The above camera takes 3D pics using the side-by-side method.

Easy Way: Upload you movie to youtube as 3D video. Done. View with 3D glasses.

Hard Way: Use a decent video editing package to overlay and colourise the images. Done. Eventually. View with 3D glasses.