Create stop-motion animation

Those who've spent much time watching jittering Lego blocks on YouTube, Wallace and Gromit shorts on an iPod, or recent Tim Burton animated films in the theater know that stop-motion movie-making is a going concern. For those unfamiliar with the term, stop-motion animation is the painstaking process of capturing still images of a scene, moving objects within the scene ever so slightly after each still image capture, and stringing together the resulting images as video frames so that when played back they mimic movement.

Unlike in the golden claymation days of Gumby and Pokey, creating stop-motion videos is well within the grasp and budget of the typical Mac user. With little more than a digital camera or camcorder, software, and a fair measure of patience and planning, you can create a compelling animated feature. Here are some suggested ways to go about it.

Tools of the trade

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Those who've spent much time watching jittering Lego blocks on YouTube, Wallace and Gromit shorts on an iPod, or recent Tim Burton animated films in the theater know that stop-motion movie-making is a going concern. For those unfamiliar with the term, stop-motion animation is the painstaking process of capturing still images of a scene, moving objects within the scene ever so slightly after each still image capture, and stringing together the resulting images as video frames so that when played back they mimic movement.

Unlike in the golden claymation days of Gumby and Pokey, creating stop-motion videos is well within the grasp and budget of the typical Mac user. With little more than a digital camera or camcorder, software, and a fair measure of patience and planning, you can create a compelling animated feature. Here are some suggested ways to go about it.

Tools of the trade

Camera You can't very well capture still images without a camera. Although you could conceivably use your Mac's built-in iSight camera, you're far better off with a real camera that captures higher-quality images. This can be either a digital still camera or a camcorder. Which you choose largely depends on the software you use to assemble your animation. If you use a traditional movie editing application such as iMovie '09 ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ), you'll use a still camera to capture your images, import them to your Mac, and add them to an iMovie project.

Applications designed specifically for stop-motion animation can not only import images shot with a still camera (some can capture live images directly through the camera) but also capture images from a camcorder tethered to the Mac via USB or Firewire. If you have the option, a good still camera will produce better images than a typical consumer camcorder because of the camera's better sensor; you get greater control over focus, aperture, depth of field, and white balance, and the variety of lenses you can use.

Software As stop-motion animation is little more than still images pieced together in a sequence, you can create a movie with any video application you like. And, for Mac users, that generally means iMovie '09. However, while iMovie '09 is affordable (particularly if it was bundled with your new Mac), there are tools better suited for the job.

Philipp Brendel's free FrameByFrame is a bare-bones stop-motion animation application that works with a DV camcorder or iSight camera. It supports a form of onion skinning--a feature that displays a semi-transparent overlay of the last frame you shot along with the image of the object currently in front of the camera. Using onion skinning you can see how much you've moved the object in relation to its last position, thus helping to ensure that the movement between frames is neither too minimal or radical. FrameByFrame doesn't support still cameras nor can it import still images.

Boinx Software makes three flavors of its capable stop-motion animation application, iStopMotion 2--Home ($49), Express ($99), and Pro ($499). The Home version lacks support for rotoscoping (used for lip syncing dialog) and soundtracks, and doesn't allow continuous recording (shooting a user-defined number of frames or seconds of video) or offer noise reduction. Like the Home version, iStopMotion 2 Express doesn't support HD video or provide integration with Final Cut Pro ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ). All versions include onion skinning, allow you to use both camcorders and supported still cameras, and include a compositing feature for adding background images and foreground frames.