Stop Motion

animation · filmmaking · special effects · creative

Frame by frame magic. Stop motion works by taking a photo of an object, moving it just a tiny bit, then taking another photo. When you play all the photos in order really fast, the object looks like it's moving all by itself!

Puppets and clay rule. The most common stop motion characters are puppets with bendy joints or clay figures (called claymation). Some famous examples include Wallace and Gromit and the characters in Coraline.

Anything can move. You don't have to use puppets or clay, animators can move paper, fabric, photographs, or even real people frame by frame to create wild effects. When real actors move in stop motion style, it's called pixilation.

Patience pays off. Creating just one minute of stop motion animation takes hours and hours of work because you have to move objects and take photos hundreds of times to make smooth motion.

All objects welcome. Stop motion artists have animated everything imaginable: toys, food, household objects, and even sand to tell their stories in wonderfully creative ways.