Stop Motion Animation
Article written by Dhilan Bhat, Age 11
What is Stop Motion Animation?
Stop motion animation is the art of taking a series of several pictures of an object, moving it slightly between movements, to create an illusion of fluid movement, or a moving object.
A simpler way of explaining this, is taking a picture of a toy, object or character. Then you move the character slightly, and take another picture. Repeat this process from 100s to 1,000s of times. When you put all of the pictures together and play it, it looks like the character is moving on its own.
How Fast does the Animation Play?
Stop motion speed is controlled by fps, which stands for frames-per-second. The higher the fps is, the smoother your animation will be. But remember, when you have a high fps, you need to capture a lot more frames between movements.
I personally prefer using 15fps. 15fps is very smooth, and looks pretty professional, but it can be smoother. Standard stop motion cinema films usually use 24fps, which is extremely smooth.
Tips for Creating Decent Animation
The first thing you must perfect on your stop motion animations to make them look good, is smoothness. It’s okay to start, but when you get advanced at stop motion, DO NOT use 5fps or lower. 5fps looks very choppy, and that is what makes many stop motion animations not enjoyable.
smooth animation (below)
choppy animation (below)
The second thing you must perfect on your stop motion animations, is camera quality. If your animation is smooth, but has horrible camera quality, it is much less enjoyable. Use a high quality camera. If you want to go cheap, there are many great options that are not very expensive, but have good enough quality
good quality image (below)
bad quality image (below)
The third thing you must perfect on your stop motion animations is good lighting. All you need to do to perfect your lighting, is take a desk lamp (two desk lamps recommended), cover the bulb with parchment paper, and place them in your scene. Adjust them until you are satisfied with your lighting.
desk lamp (below)
And the fourth thing you must perfect on your stop motion animations is working on no camera shake. Even if you use every single tip above in your animation, camera shake makes it look horrible. There are many simple ways to solve this. One way, is to set your camera on a steady tripod. Another way, is to secure the camera to the table with sticky tack.
camera steadily secured on a tripod (below)
How to Make a Good Story for your Animation
Even if your animation is smooth, has high camera quality, has good lighting, and has no camera shake, your animation is boring and not enjoyable without an entertaining story. Here are some ways to perfect your stop motion stories.
Use a STORYBOARD. A storyboard allows you decide the order and the story of your stop motion animation. To make a storyboard, just draw a bunch of squares on a piece of paper, draw a scene in each square, and below the square, write what happens. It’s as simple as that.
storyboard (below)
BRAINSTORM. Think of things like rockets, outer space, underwater, animals and topics like that. Use your brain to come up with characters, whether they’re aliens, dragons, animals, or things like that! Don’t be afraid to let your ideas out!
brainstorm (below)
Decide the SETTINGS, CHARACTERS and PROBLEMS/CONFLICTS. Those are the main keys to your story. Choose a setting, a desert for example. Choose a character, an alien for example! Choose a problem/conflict, maybe the alien falls in a hole in the desert! Now you have an awesome story, waiting to be in your animation!
story sequence chart (below)
DhillyDally Animations
I have a YouTube channel called “DhillyDally”. I make dozens of stop motion films, and if you want to see them, take a look at them below!
This is one of my best stop motion animations, Bilbo the Blob!
The stop motion (claymation) stars a green clay blob who unexpectedly finds a red clay blob, and the battle to the end.
The animation 2 minutes and 25 seconds. It took me 3 days to animate, requiring over 5 hours of work.
The animation had 3653 frames, and was made at 15fps.
This is also one of my best stop motion animations, The Nightmare of Halloween!
The claymation stars a character named Timmy, who has to face off in a battle of zombies, and even a halloween party host!
The animation is 4 minutes and 12 seconds. It took me 6 days to animate, requiring over 6 1/2 hours of work.
The animation had 8247 frames, and was made at 15fps
Here is also one of my best stop motion animations, Desert Adventure!
The claymation stars 4 people who rode on a plane, which crashed in the Sahara Desert. Will they be able to survive a humongous snake, a scorpion, and even a sandstorm?
The animation is 4 minutes and 6 seconds, and took 4 days to animate, requiring 5 hours of work.
The animation had 7420 frames, and was made at 15fps.
That's not all I have! I have plenty more stop motion animations on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJEyhTz8s9XQiBt-3WLZnXg so check that out and subscribe!
