Whilst everyone else is on holiday I thought I’d make a short film on how to make a basic stop-motion animation, for showing to students before we start any animating. It doesn’t go into what hardware you need, but talks about planning, making sets and characters, and the actual animation. (For more information about hardware and software, click here). There are many more tips and tricks that can be mentioned, but I wanted to keep it short – maybe before the end of the holidays I’ll have created a part 2.
Let me know if it’s any use, or if I’ve missed anything obvious.
Sheffield CLCs Blog 
Great stuff. I love the paper clip fish!
That tip about creating pauses at the start and end of scenes is crucial. Getting the pacing right is where most kids’ animations fall down and it really gets in the way of the story.
Mind if I reblog your movie?
Thanks Chris, I really enjoyed making it actually. I find the main place they fall down is with speech, as they never leave enough time for any dialogue.
Please do reblog – thanks!
Great video tutorial Catherine!
It’s good that you mentionned storyboarding too. Without a decent storyboard and without watching and evaluating other animations they won’t make a decent animation.
Can I use with teachers and students – I’ll credit you of course?
Thanks Sarah – please do feel free to use again. If I have time I’m going to do a Part 2, going into more depth… Running out of holiday though!
What a wonderful way to demonstrate the how to of stop motion….very clever! Thanks for putting in the time to create this, its a great resource. I thought I would embed it in my wiki, to share with teachers in my network…for inspiration and to use with students. I will naturally credit you and point back to your blog!!
Thanks you so much 🙂
Deb
Thanks for the feedback. I enjoyed making it, and it is so much more useful than just telling children how to do it. Please do embed it and share.
Ehm, what kind of StopMotion program did you use? ;s
I used I Can Animate from Kudlian Soft – I find it really simple to use, and there’s version for the Mac and PC.
just use windows movie maker.