Stop-Motion+Animation

=Stop-Motion Animation=

We talked a little bit about stop motion animation and clay animation in our first CC meeting. Can you remember any of the example movies that we discussed? List them here:

We also learned that you have to take LOTS of photos to make an animated movie. The number of photos that you have to take depends on the frame rate and length of the movie. We shot our movies at 10 frames per second so we did the math and figured out that it would take 600 photos to create a minute long animation. Professional studios shoot at 24 frames per second. How many photos do professional animators have to take to create a 2-hour long feature film? List your answers here:Collin-172800 frames?

Stop-Motion Resources
Clay Animation Made Easy http://education.wichita.edu/claymation/

The fun thing about clay animation is that you can be VERY creative when making a movie. Anything can happen to a clay character. Watch the movie at this link:[| http://library.thinkquest.org/22316/media/starttofinish.mov] This movie is really creative. The baseball player appears out of a blob of clay. He pops his arm off to be a bat and his head becomes the ball. You can’t do that with real actors!

First you have to brainstorm an idea that interests you. Then you must think about what characters, props, and sets you will need to tell your story. Next, create a storyboard of what the action will look like. A storyboard looks like a cartoon strip. It sketches out the basic action and ideas. Now you’re ready to start filming!

Story Ideas: Fairy Tale – change the ending of your favorite fairy tale. Make a commercial, preview, or trailer for your favorite book or movie. Create a Public Service Announcement Retell a historical event Make a poem come alive in clay Illustrate a scientific process

There are many different combinations of cameras, software, and computers that can be used to create clay animated movies. You need to have a camera that you can capture each still frame of the stop-motion animation. You need some type of software that will collect all of the photos and play them in order in a prescribed frame rate to create the movie. You then need some editing software to add sound, transitions, effects, titles, credits, etc. Below is a very inexpensive way to get started:

Windows Platform Camera: Logitech webcam http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/webcams/devices/352&cl=us,en

I like to use a web cam to capture the video because the images are saved directly into the computer and I don’t have to do any transferring. It is also a cheaper solution than a digital still or video camera. This Logitech model has good quality photos and works with the following software that I like to use.

Capture Software: Anaszi Stop Motion Animator FREE Download! http://www.clayanimator.com/english/stop_motion_animator.html

This software does a good job of capturing still frames. You can set the frames per second, use an onion skinning feature which shows you how much movement you’re making, and saves as an avi file which is very easy to import into an editing program.

Video Editing Software: Windows Movie Maker http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/videos/create.mspx

Movie Maker allows you to import the avi file and edit out any hands, slow down or speed up the action, add other effects, narrate the movie, add music, and add titles and credits.

If you're using a Mac I recommend:

Capture Software: iStopMotion http://istopmotion.com/

Video Editing: iMovie [|http://www.apple.com/ilife/im]