(Photo courtesy photobucket.com)

Stop motion animation makes many effects possible that regular filming doesn’t. For example in a stop motion production a person can appear to move across the ground while lying on their stomach or while sitting. Many powerful effects can be achieved through this type of animation, but making one can be quite tedious. Fortunately most people have the materials at hand to make aproduction. A digital camera and a program that comes with most computers, windows movie maker. With these two resources making an animation is possible.

The animation(s) listed on this page are ones I have made using the digital camera/windows movie maker system and this is how I did it. The first step is getting the pictures. Now, the type of animation you are making will determine the method you get your pictures. For the dragon animation I used a tripod and because I did it solo I kept the stand near me so I could reach the camera to take the pictures. If you are doing an animation that involves a subject that isn’t stationary, such as your self, you will either need a friend to take the pictures for you or a camera with a remote and a tripod so you can take the pictures yourself.

The set up for my dragon animation includes three simple steps. The first thing I did was find a surface to use that is uniform and easy to record over. I ended up using the table in my living room. Next I set up my camera over it with my tripod. The final thing to do for set up is to adjust the camera on a part of the table so that the floor won’t be shown when the picture is taken.

When you are ready to take your pictures you will want to have your subject in it’s starting position and then slowly move it as you take the pictures. You will find that it will take many pictures to take up a short period of time in a film. This step takes the longest and can be very tedious. Also be careful not to move your tripod in the middle of filming, it can be very difficult to put it back where it was.

Windows movie maker has all of the essentials for making a stop motion production and is very user friendly. So after you have your pictures open them on to the movie maker program. If you used one memory card they should all be in order so you can highlight all of the pictures and drag them to the movie timeline. Now you have a film but you will find that each frame takes up too much time, so you have to edit each frame. You can do this by clicking view video effects under the edit movie tab. Scroll down to the effect in the bottom left corner of the list which will be the speed up, doubleselection. Now drag the speed up, double box to each frame 4 or 5 times. I used 4 in the dragon animation. After you have done this you are ready to save the video to your computer so click save to my computer under the finish movie tab and your finished!