Documentation:Stop Motion/Main page

What is stop motion animation?

Stop motion is an animation technique which allows static objects to appear as if they're moving, by taking individual pictures. Between pictures, slight adjustments are made to the objects being photographed, creating the illusion of movement when the pictures are run together, like the frames of a film. Examples of stop motion used in education include Slowmation and blackboard animations. Stop motion is a good choice if you want to create a small number of videos conveying complicated physical processes.

Stop motion can be extremely time-consuming: a video shot on a video camera usually runs at 24 fps (frames per second). Each photo taken for a stop motion project is one frame. If each photo takes 30 seconds, creating a five-minute 24 fps video will take 60 hours. While 24 fps is a much higher frame rate than you have to use (2 fps will work well in most applications) stop motion projects take a long time to create.

However, stop motion animation doesn't require a video camera, can be done with almost anything, and allows for a fine degree of control over the subjects of the video. It's also naturally engaging: people love watching inanimate objects come to life!

How does it support learning?

Stop motion is just one way to create video which supports learning. Stop motion animation may support learning by:

camera Illustrating processes that can't be seem by the naked eye. Dr. Steven Barnes epigenetics series and Dr. Rosie Redfied's cell animation are examples.

camera Highlighting action and impact when telling a story. The example below illustrates this.

Have a look at this video by Health Animated, a group of upper-year UBC pharmacy students, for an example of what stop-motion animation can be used for.

Resources to get you started

• UBC's Design Principles for Multimedia: an overview of research and practice based principles for effective multimedia design, within a practical framework.
• What Makes an Instructional Video Compelling?: an interesting piece looking at factors like relationship to course content and conversational language, as contributors to compelling viewing of instructional media among students.

Instructional design support

Working in Connect? Visit LTHub.

Working in WordPress? Have a look at UBC's CMS page, and register for one of the CTLT's WordPress dropin clinics.

Looking for learning/instructional design resources? Contact your CTLT learning/instructional designer, your Flexible Learning liaison, or your Instructional Support Unit for consultation.

UBC examples

Stop motion animation using found objects

Animation is a great way to explain a complex process—learners can see it happening right in front of them. However, most forms of animation require a lot of time and training. To create even relatively simple animations, like this one, used in ZOOL 250 at the University of Alberta, require huge investments in time and effort: you have to learn animation software, and then create the animation, to say nothing of the cost of the software. While stop motion is still time-intensive, it doesn't require anything more than the ability to take pictures and edit video. This video, created by Dr. Rosie Redfield, quickly and effectively explains how influenza cells take up DNA, using candy and construction paper.

Chalkboard animation

Dr. Steven Barnes, a psychology professor at UBC, created a series of chalkboard animations for several of the courses he teaches. Chalkboard animation was selected for what Dr. Barnes calls 'zoomability': he can easily transition from looking at the human body to individual neurons, allowing him to contextualize what's going on at a microscopic level with what's happening to the body as a whole.

While he does have an artistic background, the videos are created by tracing images projected onto the chalkboard, turning the projector off, taking a picture, ad infinitum. Creative commons images could be used to achieve the same effect, even if you have trouble drawing stick figures.

Stop motion animation using paper cutouts

Making the perfect objects for your stop motion project can be as easy as breaking out the pencil crayons and scissors. This video from the Digital Tattoo project explains data mining using a whiteboard and paper cutouts. If you don't feel like drawing, printed images would work, as well. For more a complete explanation of their process, click here.

What do I need?

Hardware

Stop motion animation is created by stringing together a series of static images, creating the illusion of movement. To create a stop motion animation project, you'll need...

• A digital camera
• A set of objects
• Lights
• A microphone to record voice-overs (optional)

Camera Almost any camera will work for creating stop-motion animation. When you're choosing a camera, look for the ability to hold a large number of pictures, take pictures relatively quickly, control exposure, and stay firmly in place. These are important qualities for several reasons. The average stop motion project will have hundreds of videos: being able to hold them all, and take them quickly, will help make the process run smoothly. Having some way to hold your camera firmly in place will prevent the camera from moving: if you drop or bump your camera, you'll never get the same angle back, and there will be a jump in your video. Exposure control is important to keep lighting consistent in your video. If your camera continuously and automatically adjusts your exposure, your video will flicker, as how well-lit your photo is will change subtly from picture-to-picture. Again, the majority of modern digital camera will fit the bill, including phones and webcams, but double-check that you're set up to use your equipment. An expensive camera won't do you any good if you don't have a tripod, or know how to use it.	Set of objects You can use almost anything for the subject/medium of your video. You're only limited by your imagination, and how you think you can best communicate your ideas. Claymation is a popular professional technique: clay figures, moved small amounts between pictures, can create very effective and realistic videos, although it's a hugely labour-intensive technique: the standard is 30 pictures per second of video. Stop motion animation with Lego, also known as Brickfilm, lends itself to stop motion relatively easily: figures hold their position, have a simple but full range of movement, and can be easily posed. Lego is relatively ubiquitous, easy to make complex shapes with, and entertaining—lots of people have memories of playing with it at some point. A simpler technique is sticking to two dimensions. At the top of the page, Rosie Redfield used candy on a construction-paper background to illustrate the process of DNA uptake by bacteria, by drawing larger, static, shapes, and moving the smaller, mobile parts of the cell (represented by different kinds of candy) around between pictures. Blackboard animation, another kind of 2D stop motion, consists of images drawn, photographed, modified, and photographed again, on a blackboard or whiteboard. By making small changes to the images between pictures, the illusion of movement is created. Even paper cutouts moving on a background can be effective, and it's easy to customize your objects when you can print out or draw whatever characters you want.
Lights When you're filming stop motion animation, it's important that you're in complete control over your lighting. If you allow any natural light in your presentation, small changes in shadows will become very obvious as the photos are time-lapsed together. A three-point lighting setup is ideal, but any lights will work as long as your pictures are well-exposed, and the level of illumination remains constant over time. You can use any sources of light you have on hand. Desk lamps with flexible or movable arms work very well: you can position them so your shot is illuminated exactly as you need it, and they're sturdy enough that they shouldn't move over the course of your shoot if you're careful.	Microphones Here are a few useful links if you're looking at microphones. The DIY Media website has a page on microphone suggestions, going over the various types of microphones available. Choosing Microphones is a 4-minute video from lynda.com which has some helpful tips for deciding what kind of microphone will best suit your needs. Wistia's Learning Centre demonstrates the quality of sound achieved with different mics in this 4.5 minute video.
Software To get the best results, you probably don't want to use the same software you'd use for normal video projects for your stop motion project. You're concerned with different things: how long each image stays on the screen, being able to adjust for things like slight shifts in your camera, and subtle changes in lighting between individual frames. While you can use a normal piece of video editing software, like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, you'll have an easier time if you use a piece of software designed for stop motion. If you'd prefer to use a normal piece of video editing software, head over to the video basics toolkit for some suggestions.

Mobile

Desktop

NFB StopMo Studio, an app developed by the National Film Board of Canada, bills itself as 'the most complete stop motion app in the App Store'. The app allows you to import pictures from your photo gallery, or shoot directly from your iPad. The video below, while created by a professional stop-motion animator, was filmed and edited entirely within the app. Platform: iOS6 & iPad 2 or later Price: $2.99 Tutorials: The NFB produced a series of videos explaining how to use the app. Clayframes is an Android app with a lot of really useful features. Most notable is the ability to use 'onion-skinning'—a technique that consists of overlaying a transparent version of the last shot you took over the camera's current view, allowing you to position everything just right. The app has functionality for recording and editing, and allows you to record your animation and export it to another application for editing, or vice-versa. For an example of what an amateur can do with this, have a look at YouTube user knallpulver71's video below. Platform: Android 2.2 and up Price: $3.59, free demo Tutorials: None available.

Dragonframe is high-end, professional stop-motion animation software. Used to create several feature-length films, including Tim Burton's Frankenweenie. Dragonframe works with almost any camera, but works best with Canon and Nikon DSLRs, allowing you to adjust settings and use your camera from your computer. Platform: Windows XP or higher, Mac OS X Snow Leopard or higher Price: $295 Tutorials: Written user guides and a small number of video tutorials are available. iStopMotion is a fully-featured stop motion capture and editing program. iStopMotion works with the live preview feature of Nikon and Canon DSLRs, and allows onion skinning, rotoscoping, and gives you the ability to trigger your camera from your phone, or use your phone as a wireless camera, immediately adding your pictures to your stop motion project. Platform: Mac OS X Lion or later Price: $49.99, with a five-day trial Tutorials: Help database, product forum, and email and phone technical support available. Stop Motion Action! is a Windows-only stop motion program. While the basic version is limited in resolution and caps the framerate at 15 fps, it's cheaper than the other programs we've highlighted, at about $30. Onionskinning and other important features are available, although DLSR control is not, in the entry-level version. Platform: Windows XP or higher Price: $32.5 after education discount, limited free demo version Tutorials: Blog-style tutorials.

How do I do it?

Step 1: Plan

Curate or create? Does a resources similar to what you're envisioning already exist? You can check Creative Commons licensed sources and resources in the Public Domain to start with. If there are appropriately-licensed images, slide sets, or other works you want to use, ask yourself if you can build some context around them specific to your goals. Building context or activities around already-existing resources is faster and cheaper than creating something new. Here's an example of curated content, which took the form of adding discussion questions, a self-assessment segment, some links, and more to a YouTube video describing MOOCs. Objectives. Identifying broad goals can help you define what your students should learn and understand, while the objectives provide specific and measurable outcomes (Gagne, Wager, Golas & Keller, 2005 in Frey and Sutton, 2010). What do you want your audience to learn while watching your animation? Which approach is best-suited to support that learning: a narrative, explanation, or something else entirely? What features does your project need to have to accomplish your goals? Do you need audio, or just animation? Can you use paper cutouts, or do you need something else? Impact. Consider the potential impact your project will have on the learning environment. How will learners use the animation(s)? Will you need to create guiding questions, things to watch for, or follow up activities so learners can use what they've learned? Think about what activities the animation might replace (tutorial, lecture) and how you might use that time for other activities to support the learning from the animation. Additionally, knowing the needs of your learners helps you target the content and approach to them, making it more likely that you'll be producing a useful learning resource. Assessment. Consider the measures you'll be using to check that your animation had the desired impact on learning: did test scores or performance in collaborative activities improve? A good instructional design principle is to check for alignment between learning objectives, assessment, and the activities associated with the presentation. Test. Once you've gathered your equipment and software, experiment with it. Test everything: create a five-second animation and accompanying audio track, and edit and publish the animation to familiarize yourself with the process, and uncover any issues with file format or audio quality before production. Make sure your chosen tools can do what you need them to. Timeline. Check with colleagues who have made stop motion animations previously to get a sense of how long your project should take. If this is your first time producing a stop motion animation project, allow a lot more time than you think you need.

Step 2: Script

Finish planning. Every minute you spend planning your project is worth two or three minutes of designing, recording, and editing. Before you do anything else, download and fill out this worksheet. Try to be as detailed as possible: it'll make life easier later on. Chunk content. One of the most important features in the planning worksheet is the 'Generate Concepts' section. This will help you break your content down into easily digestible sections, a technique also known as chunking content, which involves breaking large themes down into manageable chunks or concepts. If you intend to cover 4 concepts in a single video of 20 minutes, breaking the long video into four five-minute chunks makes it likelier that the material will be watched and effectively absorbed. Recent research indicates that the optimal length for student engagement is 6 minutes or less. (Guo, 2013). Review principles. UBC's Design Principles for Multimedia provides an overview and basic framework for considering evidence based principles when designing multimedia for learning. For more depth, have a look at Carnegie-Mellon's principles for learning, Merrill's first principles of instruction, Gagne's 9 events of instruction and Mayer's principles for multimedia development: they're all useful resources for helping you think about how to approach your presentation as a learning resource. Select your objects. Now's the time to determine what you're going to be taking pictures of. Refer to the What Do I Need section for a few suggestions and a detailed discussion, but keep in mind what information you're going to be discussing. Do you need something 3 dimensional? Will you be reusing these objects later? Storyboarding. After you've decided what you're going to be taking pictures of, and selected one or two chunks of content to start with, you can fill out this storyboarding worksheet. You can fill this out however you want to: for more traditional video projects, storyboards usually include sketches of each scene with notes attached, but you can feel free to use text, draft your script, draw important scenes, sketch diagrams you might use, or some combination of those and other techniques. Storyboard template (from Penn State Media Commons) along with storyboarding tips and examples. For more storyboard pointers, check out storyboarding for explainer videos by Common Craft. Create a script. Writing a script will save you time in the long run. Include what you want to say and when you want to say it, with respect to what will be on the screen at the time. Once your script is complete, you'll get a sense of the flow of your project and can make decisions about editing more easily. Make sure to rehearse your script(s), to avoid unnecessary pauses or verbal stumbles when you're recording. Note what will be on-screen while you're speaking. If you have rough sketches of the scenes you'll be shooting, try including them in your script. Time your script to ensure it fits within the 3-6 minute timeframe you should be aiming for. Try to write as you naturally speak: not only will people learn better (Mayer's 10th principle) but it'll be easier to read from: encountering the words it is when you'd usually say 'it's is distracting, and can throw you off. Review your animation for extraneous material, and remove it: stop motion is incredibly time-consuming, and for at least the first few videos you create, you'll be glad you kept things simple. Aditionally, the shorter your video is, the likelier it is that it'll be watched to completion, and staying focused on your topic is important. (Mayer's 1st principle.) Try to spend some time at the beginning and end of the video previewing/recapping what you talked about: it'll help solidify the concepts you covered in your listener's minds.

Step 3: Record

Obtain consent forms. Have a look at the copyright section of the toolkit for a consent form you can use. If anyone other than you is featured in your animation, whether it's their voice or image, they need to sign a form! Gather your equipment. Read through the What Do I Need section, and make sure you have a camera, set of objects, and lights. You don't need a microphone right away: you'll be recording your audio after you take your pictures. If you have access to software that allows 'onionskinning', or the ability to superimpose your camera's current view over the last photo taken, make use of it! This technique will save you a lot of time, and make your end product look better. Make sure that all of your equipment works, and works together: if you haven't already, put together a five-second clip. You'll uncover any issues you'd run into later, but you'll get to do it before you've spent hours taking pictures. Set up your recording environment. You have a couple of things to consider when setting up your recording area: lighting, camera stability, and your ability to adjust your set of objects. Lighting: the most common lighting setup is a three-point lighting setup. A single light, or two lights, can work well. Have a look at this video for some more lighting advice. While it's focused on making stop motion with Lego, also known as Brickfilm, it's still great advice. It's important that you have complete control over the lighting when you're making a stop motion animation. If you have the sun lighting your presentation, and you're taking pictures over the course of an hour, the sun will move. You might not notice it, but when everything is sped up, your lighting will change dramatically over the course of your video. Make sure you aren't getting in the way of your light. Unless you stay perfectly still when you're taking your pictures, your shadow will move around in your video. Camera stability: whatever you're using for a camera, and however you're mounting it, make sure it's rock-solid. If the camera moves every time you press the button, your video will shake. The best solution is using a piece of software that lets you take pictures with the click of a mouse, as opposed to hitting a button on your camera, but any solution you can come up with which keeps your camera still as you're taking pictures will work. Take extra care to avoid bumping into or moving your camera: you'll never get it back exactly like it was, and resulting in a sudden jump in whatever you're filming. The same goes for lighting: once you've set it up, it shouldn't move until you're putting it away. Set of objects: no matter what you're using as your medium, make sure you can adjust the objects you're animating easily. If you can't put them into the positions you need without reaching around lights or camera, try to set things up differently: you're likely to bump something which shouldn't move. Take your pictures. If you've set everything up nicely, you shouldn't have any problems taking the pictures you need. Make sure you won't be interrupted: put a sign on your door to make sure you won't be bothered. Stop motion requires concentration, and the last thing you want is to be surprised and knock something over. Use your storyboard and script: try to stick to what you've written down and drawn out as closely as possible. Improvising is doable, but more difficult than working from a script. Work in small chunks: you'll want to take all the pictures from each scene in one shot, to keep the lighting constant. As much as you can, try to keep your shooting short. It's easier to edit, and you're less likely to make a mistake in the middle of a long shot. Consider frame rate: try to decide on a frame rate before recording. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you're consistent. Keep the duration of each frame in mind as you're recording, and adjusting your objects. You'll want to make larger adjustments between shots for lower frame rates. Record your audio. The quality of your audio factors greatly into the perception of your video: a small increase in audio quality is equivalent to a much larger increase in the video quality. You might want to wait until you've edited together a rough cut of your animation together before recording audio, so you can get timings right. Speak slowly and clearly. Record a trial run, and play it back to yourself: you might be surprised by how quickly you're talking. Reduce echoes by recording in a room with soft surfaces, such as your living room. Reduce or eliminate electrical sounds such as computer fans and other appliances. It might look a bit silly, but making a fort out of couch cushions and recording your audio inside of it will mimic the effect of the padding used in recording studios, and improve the quality of your audio. Avoid rooms with echoes or fans: even imperceptible fan sounds may be picked up by an external mic. Use a noise-reducing microphone, buy or build a pop filter, and keep the mic close to your mouth.

Step 4: Edit

What your editing process will look like depends on what software you use: a program designed specifically for stop motion animation will have features a standard video editing program won't. There are too many programs to list specific tricks and tips for all of them. The resources section has links to helpful information for some more common programs. Between those, online tutorials, and the checklist items, editing should be relatively straightforward. If you chunked your content, stuck to your script, and followed the advice in the recording section, the only problems you encounter while you're editing should be specific to the software you're using. When editing, try to remove anything which isn't necessary: the shorter your video, the likelier it will be watched and effectively absorbed. Ask yourself if you can remove content and still communicate your point. If you can't cut anything, but feel like your video is too long, consider splitting it into multiple parts. Including a title slide with a brief overview of the material you plan on covering can help set a learner's expectations. Branded title slides are available from UBC. Click here for more information.

Step 5: Publish

If you don't require privacy or security settings for your video, YouTube is probably your best bet. YouTube enables you to share your video with the world, reach a wide audience, and students don't need an account to view it. Set up your own YouTube account, or use UBC's account with this documentation. If you do require security or privacy settings, consider using Kaltura, a UBC-hosted service. Kaltura offers options for learning activities that require students to record, upload and share video content through Connect. Compared to YouTube, Kaltura offers more granular control over content and contributors. Here are two pages, detailing how to upload your video to Kaltura and how to share videos. Post additional material: if you have worksheets, transcripts, or other material a listener might want, post them somewhere your audience can access. After you've finished your project let us know! Get in touch with the CTLT to have your media added to the list of examples, and to join the DIY community!

lynda.com courses

lynda.com has an extensive library of tutorials for various programs. For registration information, visit lynda.ubc.ca. Take note that the service is only available to UBC faculty, staff and post-doctoral fellows.

Video Editing

• Getting Started with Stop Motion Animation

  This series of videos goes over high-level concepts, like what stop motion animation is, and how to use it effectively, as well as providing examples of how to create and edit stop motion using After Effects and Adobe Premier Pro.

Audio editing

You'll likely record your audio separately and edit it into your stop motion project as a voice-over. These tutorials will help you record and edit your audio.

• Up and Running with Audacity

  Audacity is a free, open-source audio recording and editing program available on Macs, Windows, and Linux. In this course, you learn how to start recording, mixing, and editing your own audio using Audacity.

• Garageband Essential Training

  Garageband is audio recording and editing software available on Macs and iOS devices. In this course, you will focus on the basic functions and features of Garageband to create your own audio.

How tos

• New York Film Academy has resources on how to create a stop motion video.

Publishing your content

When you've finished recording, editing and exporting your content to an acceptable file format, you'll need to publish it so that you can embed it where you like. You can publish your content on:

• Your own website.
• UBC's Kaltura platform
• UBC's YouTube Channel: using the upload form
• Your own YouTube Channel: YouTube Help
• Soundcloud for audio files.
• another free content hosting service.

Embedding your content

Once your content is hosted (on YouTube or Kaltura) you can embed it in a Canvas course, WordPress environment or on a wiki page. See how-tos below.

• Embed on UBC's CMS WordPress
• Embed on the UBC Wiki
  • YouTube
  • Kaltura
  • Audio - including Soundcloud.

Copyright

Do you need to find copyright safe sound or images for your project? The following resources can help:

Image Sources: UBC's Copyright resource provides an excellent list of various "copyright safe" image databases and also includes some discipline specific ones as well.

Creative Commons Guide: UBC's Copyright Guide provides lists of databases for free and "copyright safe" sounds, music and video for your digital media projects. It also helps you understand Creative Commons licenses and how and why you may want to apply one to your work.

Public domain resources: this page provides an overview of what public domain is, how material in the public domain can be used, and much more, including quick tips to check if something is or is not considered public domain in Canada, as well as links to public domain sources.

Students and Copyright

Why should I care about copyright?: this student-centered guide, put together by the UBC Learning Commons team, answers questions on the subject of copyright and addresses a number of myths and misconceptions surrounding copyright.

Open Educational Resources

• Find OER: Open Professionals Education Network.
• Finding and using Creative Commons materials: UBC's guide to Creative Commons.
• UBC Image Sources Guide: crediting image sources.

Guides

• DIY Media Toolkits Guides/Audio
• DIY Media Toolkits Guides/Video
• DIY Media Toolkits Guides/Video/Kaltura

Research

• DIY Media (UBC collaboration): research section

Highlights

Overview:

• The Media Scholarship Project: Strategic Thinking about Media and Multimodal Assignments in the Liberal Arts. Watts, Simons, and Baird (2010).

Video:

• The Secret to Engagement: Lessons from Video. This video from the Perimeter Institute addresses why why video, on its own, may not be as engaging as you think, and how to fix it. Science filmmaker and communicator Derek Muller, best known for his YouTube channel Veritasium effectively illustrates and explains why addressing misconceptions head on may be key to engagement and learning.
• Using “Slowmation” to Enable Preservice Primary Teachers to Create Multimodal Representations of Science Concepts. Hoban, G. and Neilson, W. (2011)

Audio:

• McGarr, O. (2009). A review of podcasting in higher education: Its influence on the traditional lecture. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25, 309-321.

This paper examines a possible influence of podcasting on the traditional lecture in higher education. The review explores three key questions: What are the educational uses of podcasting in teaching and learning in higher education? Can podcasting facilitate more flexible and mobile learning? In what ways will podcasting influence the traditional lecture? These questions are discussed in the final section of the paper with reference to future policies and practices.

• Murphy, B. (2008, July). Podcasting in higher education. Retrieved on May 28, 2014, from http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/20217

Reviews how podcasting is currently used in higher education: How it is used in course lectures, pre-class listening materials, and coursework feedback. Includes top tips for podcasters.