Stop motion is a method of creating animations by capturing individual frames, one at a time. In this technique, the objects within the frame are adjusted slightly between each shot. When these sequential images are played together in a video, it creates the illusion of movement, as if the objects are animated and in motion by themselves.
Most of the work is done by preparing your environment and shooting the frames. All of the frames in the scene must be recorded in a static motion, only the objects/characters can be moved, frame by frame.
The shooting steps look something like this:
- Grab your camera (Smartphones work, too!) and place it somewhere, or on a tripod. Make sure it won’t be moved again!
- Set up your scene
- Take your first photo
- Make a small change, and take another photo.
- Repeat until you think you’re done.
If your camera moves a little, that’s ok. But if there is a lot of movement, it’ll create a jump in your animation and it won’t look as smoothly as you want. To keep your camera steady, try using a tripod or simply lean your phone or camera against something sturdy.
Once you’ve shot your stop motion video, it’s time to put it all together!
Go to Flixier and create a new project. After the project has been created, right-click on the Library menu and select the “New Folder” option and name your folder. Now go into your folder, click on the blue Import button and upload the photos that you shot for your stop motion animation. After they have been uploaded, sort them by name, in ascending order.
Once your photos have been uploaded in your Library, select one of them, hold SHIFT, and start selecting all them. After all of your stop motion frames have been selected, simply drag and drop them to your preview canvas.
All of your photos (frames) will now be ordered chronologically in your timeline. To trim each frame, just grab it from the right side and drag towards the middle of the photo.
At the end, you will have multiple gaps remaining in your timeline. To remove them, just right click on an empty space and select “Delete all gaps to the right”
And you should be done with your stop motion animation! Once you’re at this stage, you can add music, transitions, or text and export it as a .MP4 or .GIF!
