a tutorial

Stop motion, or live action animation, is when instead of filming a continuous shot, many pictures are taken to give the film a static, choppy appeal This allows directors to make movies like Fantastic Mr. Fox with clay models, and then put the pictures in a fast sequence that makes the whole movie flow.

 A digital camera  A TRIPOD (so the camera stays steady…this is not important if you don’t care about camera shakes)  Something to shoot  Movie/film editing software (I used Window’s Movie Maker)  Time and patience  *This can be done by yourself, but it is infinitely more time consuming. Having a friend to help out makes this process much faster.*

 There are many different programs you can use to edit a stop motion movie.  I am going to explain how to make a movie using WINDOW’S MOVIE MAKER  There are, however, much better programs to use  These programs are not available to download on the school computer, so if you’re making one at school, you will be stuck with WMM  At home, try downloading MonkeyJam for Windows, or FramebyFrame for Mac.

 Take some pictures, moving the objects/subjects slowly in between shots.  Take into consideration there will be about 10 frames per second when the product is done.  This will be time consuming, but worth it For my short clip, I used studio lights. You can see how the lights are moved slightly between shots

 Upload the pictures onto the computer and into WMM  Then, drag and drop the pictures IN ORDER onto the film strip at the bottom  Make sure you change the transition and speed to the fastest possible

 Click “Save to my Computer”  It will save, and then check “Play Movie when I click Finish”  The movie will then play on Windows Media Player

 When your movie is playing in Window’s Media Player, right click on the top task bar  This is the only way your movie will be saved  Click on file, save as… (THEN just click save, it will save it as a media file as opposed to a WMM file)

Now when you go to “My Videos” on your computer, this clip will show up. When you click it, it will play on Window’s Media Player. It can be uploaded to websites or burned on a DVD

See Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Creature Comforts, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Super Sculpey and PRIMO Sculpey are the best for flexible characters that you can manipulate easily. Other Sculpey clays tend to dry out. Add the mixing solution to stiff Sculpey in order to make it more flexible. Try pipe cleaners in the legs!